how long will it take to defrag a 40 gig harddrive?
 

wondering how long I'll be without my machine while it's defragmenting

it all depends on how many gigs are used and how fragmented are the files

If you have Win XP, you should run an analysis to see if it's worth the defrag.

I have a 30 gigs and it usually runs for 1-2 hours.

mine is 40 gigs.
it took 4 hours to defragment it - looks like i've got a lot of shit there....

Norton does a faster job of defraging then most defag programs. I run a 40 gig about half full. But doesn't really take a long using something like Nortons.
If your trying to defrag with the program that comes on Window or whatever your using. Forget it, get Norton or one of the other.
There a lot faster hands down.
Oz
...:::SEVEN:::...

it depends on your drive speed too. A 4200rpm notebook drive needs 3x than a 10k rpm SCSI HD.

If you have ntfs partitions try diskeeper. I use it for scheduled daily defrags. Just cool

Why would you defrag? Tests have proven that the speed you gain is less then 2% So its a lot of work for unnoticeble increase of speed. Better tune your windows. :2 cents:

what do you mean by "tuning your Windows" .. just regular control panel stuff or .. .?

6 to 8 weeks

1/2 hour for me. And I even got a 80, still the same. CPU is 3.

have you heard a little something called "pentium" :Graucho

i got 2 60gbs and 1 80 takes 5/6 to do all of em :(

I have exact same setup and takes me like 7-8 usually.

I dont do it too often, so im not sure.

That may be true, but increased speed is only one factor. Unfragmented files mean less head seeks, and the less the heads are jumping around the less likely yhey are to miss and cause errors . . . I guess it is kinda like the gamma rays and non-ECC and ECC memory, but small differences can add up

Actually, I gotta disagree on this from personal experience. I've worked as a PC tech for a long time. If your drive is 20%-30% defragmented, you can lose a lot of speed, especially if you're working on large files, like Multimedia. A large file will have to be seperated and scattered around your drive so loading and saving these files can take a bit longer.

Then again, cram that system with tons of ram, and slam another ton of cheap ram for good measure, and who needs a hard drive! hehehe