Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Minneapolis, MN USA
Posts: 15

Does anyone know the verdict of memory defragmentors? (such as the one in PilotInfo)Are they ok? Do the help increase performance? Is there any harm in using them?
I remember reading somewhere that they didnt help all that much. What do you guys/gals think?

Thanks!


[This message has been edited by PDAviator (edited 06-23-2000).]

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 434

Palm OS v3.x does a better job of keeping things tidy than was the case with older versions of the OS. I don't think there is much of a difference between the 3.x versions.

Registered: Jun 2000
Location:
Posts: 26

I really don't see how it could impact performance. One memory address takes as long to access as another.

I thought the OS moved memory around anyway? That was the reason for the lock and unlock memory calls - to keep memory from being moved out from under a program that was using it?

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 638

That is true for RAM, but not a Hard Drive. Because the hard drive has to physically move to get the information, information closer to the center is acessed quicker. That is why we have programs like norton SpeedDisk. These programs move the memory around to the optimal position. By doing this is speeds up our computers. However because RAM does not have any physical parts to move every address is just as quick to find as the other so I really don't see why you would want to defrag the RAM. Now that I think maybe the one reason that you would want to defrag teh memory is because files for one program got spread around the memory base and you wanted to get then together again, but then the argument comes up that its only 8 mb's of RAM which is such a little amount that its almost useless.
BEN

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
Posts: 406

Memory Defragmenters are no longer needed. OS 3.0 and higher have a new form of memory manager that keeps everything defragged all the time. Most Memory Defragmenters will have an error box that pops up that tells you this. To My knowledge, the original use for Memory Defragmenters was with older palm pilot that had all their free memory fragmented into small chunks. None of the chunks were big enough to hold a new program one was trying to load onto their palm pilot. So the person trying to load the program, got an error 'Not Enough Free RAM on the device', even though there was enough free memory shown in the 'get info' area (but the shown memory was fragmented.). The defragging programs arranged all the free memory into one long chunk.

Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Minneapolis, MN USA
Posts: 15

I guess I dont get what the defragment programs are for then. I had one on my HSVD, and it said it had 16% of the memory fragmented. I use AvantGo so I can understand that it may be more fragmented due to the more frequent write to ram. I guess I was just curious as to what good they do if any. sounds like they might not be worth the spave the program takes up. Is there any harm in using them?

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 638

quote:

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Originally posted by PDAviator:
Is there any harm in using them?

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Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Minneapolis, MN USA
Posts: 15

I tending to agree with you BEN. You bring up a good point about an uproar if they were bad. Sounds like saving the space for something more useful would be the better route. I'm an Applications Specialist, and I like to know the "how's" and "why's" of the programs!