said by ihatedslr:Has anyone ever proven that defragging changes performance at a perceptable level?
Not that I have seen. I think it made a larger impact years ago, when drives were slower. The last test I saw from MaximumPC, some of the defrag programs actually made performance worse! (start-up times, shut down times, etc...)
I think defrag programs are similar to screen savers in a sense. 15 years ago they supposedly helped prevent burn-in on your monitor, but now they are not needed due to better technology.
I would love to see an independent test, not sponsored by a defrag company, that shows real improvements from defragging your hard drive.