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Resolved Question

Why conflicting defrag reports?

Dec 3, 2011 9:12AM PST

I installed a WD Scorpio Black 320G last summer in my Toshiba Satellite laptop, running Vista. No problems with the drive or performance, but when I run Piriform Defraggler it reports anywhere from 38% to 40% defragmentation. Defragmenting won't bring it any lower. Tonight I downloaded Ausologics defragmenter and it only recorded 1% fragmentation after analyzing disc. How can the reports be so different? Which one do I believe?

Discussion is locked

crichhawk123 has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

Best Answer

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It's very simple.
Dec 3, 2011 9:16AM PST

You asked two programmers for their opinions!

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Two programmers?
Dec 4, 2011 7:48AM PST

Witty answer, but completely unhelpful.

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Why isn't it the answer?
Dec 4, 2011 7:50AM PST

You have two apps by two companies that disagree on how to measure this area.

There is no standard here so there will be two answers. And more as you try out other apps.
Bob

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O.K, but how do you know that?
Dec 26, 2011 8:57AM PST

I can believe that a variance is possible between how Piriform & Ausologics measure the hardrive, & come up
with different percentages of defrag. But 1% versus 38%? That isn't even close! And there has to be some kind of standard, otherwise the results are/would be meaningless, and who would write code for these companies? I profess my ignorance...but it ought to make a little more sense than this.

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Because.
Dec 26, 2011 10:16AM PST

Because I had an acquaintance at Diskeeper and more than a few chats. They were quick to point out that one company would call files with that extra sector at the end not defragged and another one would think that's a good thing so a file could grow without need of defragging.

That's just one issue or view of some hundred areas. Sorry if I keep this short.
Bob