# Hard Drive life and OS speed



## 220volt (Jan 3, 2006)

Rule of thumb.

Reinstall your XP every 6 moths if you want it to run smooth and will prolong the life of your Hard Drive as well.

And remember: always backup , backup , backup

I always stick to this rule and i never , ever had problems ith XP errors or hard drive noise and such. i have been running on the same windows and hard drive for 5 years already and its running much faster then my frineds pc's, and they all have new pc's.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

> Reinstall your XP every 6 moths if you want it to run smooth and will prolong the life of your Hard Drive as well.


This is the very first time I have ever seen advice like that for XP.
I rather doubt it.

My mother's laptop has run for about 2 years or so, and only on the factory install.
No problems, no deteoriation/degredation of performance. When I check it out every 3 or 4 months, it seems the same to me. And it has uptimes lasting up to several months.

Heck, I've gotten 98se to last longer than 2 years without a reinstall.

Mostly, I can't see a reinstall unless there has been corruption by malware or hardware failure. Or tweaking till it's broken 



> And remember: always backup , backup , backup


I agree with that completely. I prefer drive imaging for the os partition and data on a separate partition, backed up to cd.


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## 220volt (Jan 3, 2006)

That depends how much surfing you do, and what do you use your XP for. 
If your mother is doing lot of surfing, 3D aplications, downloading mp3's and videos, i am very suprised that you haven't seen degredation.
I am getting lot out of my XP so i do reinstall every six months.
registry will eventualy get backup and full of junk and you will start seeing poor performance.
It is microsoft.
Tip that i mentioned goes for people that are using PC a lot (gamers, 3D and webdesigner, etc)
I still have pc with win 95 that runs great. You know why? because i haven't used it since 1996.

Leo Laport (ex Screen saver host) does his every three months.
I do every 6 months and I see immediate improvment.

Regards


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## gotrootdude (Feb 19, 2003)

Stoner, I agree.

Personally, I manually clean my registry using regedit from time to time, then use a utility to compact it. I also clean out all temp files, manage my virtual memory (instead of letting windows do it), defrag nightly, and keep watch over the drive's MFT size. 

Reinstalling windows to increase performance is good for average users. I highly recommend using imaging software to image the drive when freshly installed and after drivers have been added, for reinstallation. It saves alot of headaches and frustrations.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

220volt,
Interesting you brought up 95.
My sister is a research scientist for Wyeth.
Her lab ran a win95 machine on a lab bench, hooked up to record experimental data.
I was junked a year and a half ago when a proprietary pci card failed and a replacment couldnt be found. Had to replace the entire computer along with test equipment.
She said the machine was up 5/6 hours a day and had never needed a reinstall since the factory. It was new in late 95.
Perhaps more problems come from malicious apps and web sites 


BTW, most problems posted at this site seem malware oriented. What's left are hardware problems and software conflicts.

As far as registries becoming 'backed up with junk' , I think that depends more on how many apps are installed and then uninstalled, and how efficiently they uninstall.
I quit on registry cleaners a long time ago. Ususlly broke something 
As I pretty much have figured out what I need in the way of applications, I probably don't need a registry cleaner to begin with. I don't need to install/uninstall much anymore.

As far as my mom's computer, it's used mostly for surfing, some email, some simple game playing and crossword puzzles. 
But again, I think malware is the big killer of most os installs.

The comp I'm posting from is on 12 hours a day, used online maybe 6 hours, I use financial software, voice reconition at times, interests in photo restoration, and am active in the Civ Debate forum here, and much surfing is done in the quest for news and information. I don't want to appear to be a power user, I view my sister as one. 
And her installs last longer than mine(intensive computing in her line of work...but less internet usage by far).


Sorry, I've not heard of this 'Leo Laport' before.
On a search, he seems to have a radio show and for some reason thinks software firewall aren't necessary. 
Personally, I think they are good as a second line of defense with a NAT router being the primary.......for home owners.


Well, pehaps he is a software tester that winds up with issues and conflicts from all the many apps he installs and uninstalls? Wouldn't exactly be the common user you'd find at our site, but I do know of several programers that post here. Maybe they will comment on their experiences.

But for me, I'll go till my comp actually needs a reinstall.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Re-installing is a pretty drastic step. A much better solution is to install and configure the way you want the system, then use an image utility like Acronis True Image to create an image of the boot partition. Any "reinstall" is a 10 minute operation involving booting the True Image recovery CD and restoring the image. Installing XP, then all the applications you use is normally an all day affair!  :down: 

I have True Image scheduled to make an image backup of my boot partition every week, and I keep them 4 deep. I won't be re-installing XP until there's some other version of Windows that I want to use.


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## brendandonhu (Jul 8, 2002)

How exactly does reinstalling XP prolong the life of a hard drive? It would seem that intense disk activity just wears down the armature and platters.


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## 220volt (Jan 3, 2006)

Reinstalling windows XP doesn't wear down hard drive more then letting windows XP run every day on registry full of junk and pieces of left over files.Besides you're only going to di it once or twice a year. Once you have fresh copy of windows your hard drive (needle) doesn't need much effort to write and read files thus prolonging its life.
Defragging it every night is very hard drive intensive (much more intensive then actual reinstall)
I heard that tip from Leo Laporte few years ago and it stuck with me. Every IT guy that i work with does the same thing every six month or at least once a year.
I still have to see hard drive crash or windows errors on any of my pc's, after 5 years.
Check out this thread from Experts Exchange forums.
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/WinXP/Q_21568600.html

Software firewalls work only on layer 7 of OSI modle (on top of your windows) while hardware firewalls go deep into layer 2-3-4 and sometimes even higher, providing much better flexibility anb protection, but i would always use layered protection. Meaning: hardware firewall with software firewall and possibly proxy firewall, if speed is not the issue.NAT will not offer you much protection these days. Right now if you're running nAT on your home router there are pleanty of websites that will read your private ip even behind NAT.
As of now stateful packet filtering provides pretty good protection but nothing is 100%


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## brendandonhu (Jul 8, 2002)

> Defragging it every night is very hard drive intensive (much more intensive then actual reinstall)


First of all, NTFS defragments itself automatically as data is written to the drive. Not even Leo Laporte would recommend defragmenting an NTFS drive _every night_. The filesystem doesn't normally get any more fragmented than it is when you first install.



> Once you have fresh copy of windows your hard drive (needle) doesn't need much effort to write and read files thus prolonging its life.


Neithor having a fresh XP install nor having defragmented free space affect where the needle moves to create new files. See study by DiskKeeper here: http://files.diskeeper.com/pdf/HowFileFragmentationOccursonWindowsXP.pdf


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

> Right now if you're running nAT on your home router there are pleanty of websites that will read your private ip even behind NAT.


What is the risk in that?
If a web site I connect to doesn't know my IP, how can that computer know who to send a reply back to?


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## franca (Aug 26, 2002)

Stoner said:


> 220volt,
> 
> Sorry, I've not heard of this 'Leo Laport' before.
> On a search, he seems to have a radio show and for some reason thinks software firewall
> ...


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

A first for me


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

LOL!.....just read one of the threads at the G4 forum.....think I'll pass 

http://forums.g4tv.com/messageview.cfm?catid=66&threadid=536306


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## franca (Aug 26, 2002)

Stoner said:


> A first for me


http://thisweekintech.com/


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## WhitPhil (Oct 4, 2000)

brendandonhu said:


> First of all, NTFS defragments itself automatically as data is written to the drive.


Really?
Then, why would I ever want/need to defrag?


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## brendandonhu (Jul 8, 2002)

That wasn't quiute said right...it stores data in clusters so that fragmentaoin is minimal. It doesn't fragment nearly as much as FAT32. That's why defraging on W98 often takes overnight while the process on an NTFS volume may only take 20 minutes. There's a lotes fragmentatio to fix.


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## ekim68 (Jul 8, 2003)

Things wear out...Hard drives wear out... I read recently that if electronic components
last five years, they're doing good..


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## brendandonhu (Jul 8, 2002)

True..surely reinstalling XP will clean up your restry and files, but I'm not so sure it affects your hard drive lifespan. I've got 10 year old drives that run fine, and I've had drives fail after a year.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

franca said:


> http://thisweekintech.com/


Seems to be a broken link, franca.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

In googling around, I remember now that Gibson was interviewed every so often by a guy named Leo....Leo Laporte. I got the impression from my search of 'Leo Laport' that Leo wasn't wild about software firewalls.
Here is a link to a list of interviews of Gibson by Laporte, in which they discuss NAT routers.
Gibson seems to recomend them along with a software firewall.
Read the pdf "NAT Routers as Firewalls" 
at http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm

Perhaps I was a tad quick in assesing Leo Laport (Laporte) ....but you will have to admit that link I posted to his forum at G4 was pretty funny


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Back to the reinstal issue....Anyone have a link to a MS article concerning this?


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

I really doubt there is an MS article regading a set amount of time to reinstall yor OS. The logic behind this thread is a little off as fragmentation or an OS being on the hard drive have nothing to do with making the hard drive last longer. It is physical media with mechanical parts inside that will eventually wear out....PERIOD! Reinstall your OS only if there is a reason to. I have mine ghosted so a reinstall only takes maybe ten minutes and I probably do it once a year because I install a lot of apps and test installations of programs for clients.


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## franca (Aug 26, 2002)

Stoner said:


> Seems to be a broken link, franca.


Sorry about that 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Laporte

Yes your right Gibson is on with him right now on TV as i'm doing this. 

This is what they are talking about............ http://www.hamachi.cc/

http://digg.com/security/the_brand_new_HAMACHI

cu Frank.


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## 220volt (Jan 3, 2006)

Stoner said:


> Back to the reinstal issue....Anyone have a link to a MS article concerning this?


Yeah, i don't think microsoft will go that far as bashing their own OS.
They will tell you that once you install it it is good for a liftime.
But discussing about it is good for your soul.
"I'd rather discuss something without ever reaching an answer, then reach the answer without discussing it"
Albert Einstein

Good discussion about reinstalling windows.
http://discuss.extremetech.com/forums/773692001/ShowPost.aspx


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

franca said:


> Sorry about that
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Laporte
> 
> ...


Listening to the mp3 http://media.grc.com/sn/SN-018.mp3 right now.
Sounds like a secure way to do peer to peer..............as I posted in that thread, it looks like a way to hide a lot of illegal trading, too.
Wonder what Gibson thinks of this thread at Hamachi's forum:

http://forums.hamachi.cc/viewtopic.php?t=2350



> HOWTO: Run a private Gnutella2 Hub on Hamachi using Shareaza


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

220volt said:


> Yeah, i don't think microsoft will go that far as bashing their own OS.
> They will tell you that once you install it it is good for a liftime.
> ..............................


So, in other words, your answer is no?



> They will tell you that once you install it it is good for a liftime.


Could you provide a link to that?


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## brendandonhu (Jul 8, 2002)

More like...they wll tell you that once you install it, its good until they come out with a new version for you to buy


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## 220volt (Jan 3, 2006)

"Could you provide a link to that?"

I was just being sarcastic.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

brendandonhu said:


> More like...they wll tell you that once you install it, its good until they come out with a new version for you to buy


LOL.....


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

220volt said:


> "Could you provide a link to that?"
> 
> I was just being sarcastic.


You're new here, aren't you _


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## 220volt (Jan 3, 2006)

Yes i am.
But i like debates.


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## WhitPhil (Oct 4, 2000)

brendandonhu said:


> That wasn't quiute said right...it stores data in clusters so that fragmentaoin is minimal. It doesn't fragment nearly as much as FAT32. That's why defraging on W98 often takes overnight while the process on an NTFS volume may only take 20 minutes. There's a lotes fragmentatio to fix.


This was supposedly one of the benefits of NTFS but I think that it has subsequently been shown to be wrong.

Defragging on W98 takes longer than XP because there are two architecturally different defrag programs running. The Win98 one is a multipass program that DOES consolidate free space. Whereas the XP one is a single pass program that could not care less about defraging free space.


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## brendandonhu (Jul 8, 2002)

Why would it...defragging free space doesn't serve any purpose, as the DiskKeeper link shows. You can measure how fragmented a drive is, and NTFS fragments significantly less than FAT32.


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## WhitPhil (Oct 4, 2000)

Some Defrag Myths

The link on freespace is obviously written by Executive Software and attempts to rationalize why their product doesn't consolidate free space. (note: "I think" that it is one of the few. Speedisk, O&O, Perfectdisk all consolidate).

And, the particular example they used was loading web pages with IE, which of course, loads and deletes a "million" of little files as you prowl the web. 
If instead, you were creating a 50MB file, and the free space were consolidated, odds would be fairly good that that particular file would be unfragmented. Whereas, with little chunks of free space floating around everywhere, odds are good that it would be fragmented. 
But, in a (purchased) Diskeeper environment, this doesn't really matter with their set it and forget it option, and frequently running defrags.


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## Kenny94 (Dec 16, 2004)

Cleaning Your Hard Drive - Thoroughly! Visit: 
http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/cleandrive1.html to give longer life of your hard drive.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Thanks for the tip, Kenny.......I won't forget that one


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## djjarvis (Apr 18, 2005)

WhitPhil said:


> This was supposedly one of the benefits of NTFS but I think that it has subsequently been shown to be wrong.
> 
> Defragging on W98 takes longer than XP because there are two architecturally different defrag programs running. The Win98 one is a multipass program that DOES consolidate free space. Whereas the XP one is a single pass program that could not care less about defraging free space.


It's the Win98 one that's single-pass - means it starts at the beginning and each time it hits a fragmented file, it moves it down the disk and defrags it, and every time it hits a bit of free space, it fills it with some other file.

XP defrag / Diskeeper is multi-pass - it goes straight for the fragmented files and defrags them first, placing them in suitably sized free space gaps if possible. Then, it works back from the end of the disk, putting files into free space gaps to fill them.

From my point of view, the benefit of single pass is almost complete consolidation of free space. The down side is that it takes so long and the system is slowed down while your waiting for it to move (sometimes) almost every file on the disk just to get rid of all the free space gaps.

The benefit of multi-pass is that it runs very quickly. The downside is that sometimes it leaves a few free space gaps.

Thing is, NTFS attempts to avoid fragmentation by predicting how big a file will be, based on how much data is in the system cache waiting to be written. This is a good theory, but it doesn't work very well in practice. New files seem to get written fragmented to start with, even if there is a huge free space gap available, and the file is quite big. A fresh install of XP (which has been claimed in this thread to be one solution to fragmentation) is actually very fragmented to start with.

I've tried both Diskeeper (multi-pass) and Perfectdisk (single-pass) and they both have their merits. I think perfectdisk would suit somebody who leaves their systems running 24/7 but uses them only during waking hours. Scheduled defrags are very thorough but bog down the system somewhat while they are running: it seemed to want to move lots of files in each defrag, even after the first run when it had done it's SmartPlacement thing. Still, it's probably a very useful program to run before preparing disk images to transfer to lots of computers.

Diskeeper is my choice because I don't want to leave mine running all the time (it's a laptop) and it's scheduled defrags are very un-intrusive, especially in version 9.0 and above.

Also, if you believe that defragmentation increases hdd life, then what benefit is a defragger that thrashes the drive on each run, moving nearly every file on the disk in order to achieve perfect free space consolidation?


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## Toufique (Jan 19, 2006)

i usually prfer a fresh copy of windows so i usually reinstall windows after 6 months or just make the "ghost". And it is very simple!


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Toufique, please tone that signature down a bit, there's no need to use half a page for it. You are aware of our policy on advertising, right? Perhaps you should consult the TSG Rules. Although a company link is allowed, putting your ad in huge type is stepping over the line.

I've edited it to be a more reasonable size.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I also think he's having some trouble with his own hardware/software at that site 
Perhaps he's been spending too much time at TSG


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Could be, this place is infectious!


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