How often should I defrag?

[emperor5]

I have my burner running on WinMe.I read somewhere that if your harddrive gets too fragmented that the audio on back-ups can get out of sink.How often should I defrag.My computer is only used for backups and and making music compilation c.d.'s so it doesn't get used alot.Thanks.

[Tommyknocker]

Average computer users should defrag at least once a month. Some computers actually can schedule defrags to do this, and if yours can, go for it. Another good scheduling hint is to schedule during non use hours, so every month or so, your system suddenly "perks up", because it defragged itself while you were sleeping last night.

[Gees]

Before I started working with video - when my life was my own :c) - I defragged about once a month. Now I defrag based on activity. I do it after working on 4-6 videos, depending on size and how many interim files I've got spread around.

That can make a big difference with capturing results. Also, with the large size of most drives now, the more often you do it, the quicker the process goes.

[tompika]

Working with large DVD files makes my HDD fragmented very often.
I check it every day and defrag when XP says so.

[presto]

I rarely defrag. I have never noticed any increase in performance after defragging and defragging has never solved any problem I had. I use Windows XP. Is defragging less essential with XP?

[Tommyknocker]

It seems to me if XP says defrag, what is the harm in doing so?

[Faustus]

I rarely defrag. I have never noticed any increase in performance after defragging and defragging has never solved any problem I had. I use Windows XP. Is defragging less essential with XP?

I however have fixed several burn problems people had by telling them to defrag. And working with lots of files tends to fragment the drive fast. There is a preformance gain in keeping it defraged even if you don't realize it.

How often depends on your usage habits. Normal user? Once a month. If you work either with LOTS Of small files or Large files (lots of copies and deletes and such) then I'd suggest checking once a week to see if XP suggest you do so.