2.9 in my experience is pretty stable. i never had any problems but im going to wait for 3
Your post is confusing and conflicting. First you say 2.9 has been stable in your experience, but next minute you indicate you are waiting for version 3. So which is it? Have you used 2.9 or not?
its both. i used to use CTM 2.9 then i removed it so i could defrag then i never reinstalled it because CTM 3 was announced so i decided to wait.
2.9 and 2.8 are both stable. 2.8 is much much more quicker.
I wouldn’t say 2.8 was terribly reliable from my experience, which i why I’ve been on tenterhooks for 3.0…
What do you mean? Whenever a person wants to defrag their Windows C: drive, they need to uninstall and completely remove CTM?
Yes, both technology are completely incompatible: snapshotting and defragmentation.
So how do you defrag your hard drive if CTM is installed? Once per week you remove CTM and then defrag and then reinstall CTM?
The answer is yes to your questions.
You should not defrag so often, every 6mounths is okey. so then CTM is then installed twice a year.
Defragmentation is only need due to the construction of NFTS file-format. On a linux OS that, that uses another than NFTS, does note require defragmentation.
Regards,
Valentin N
No, for sure it’s overkilling. Each 3 or 6 months will be ok.
In my personal experience, the fragmentation using CTM was much less intense than normal using of Windows. My “test” is the following:
- Defragmentation of the disk.
- Installation of CTM.
- Use for a month. Uninstall CTM to the last snapshot (not the baseline).
- The fragmentation of the last state was minimum.
I’m not sure this is a valid test. But it’s my personal experience.
Defrag the system partition just before installation of CTM. Then no need to defrag the sys part because if the sys part is severely fragmented then CTM cannot remember all the info - it will ran short of the sys disk space and the system will halt. As for defragging of other unprotected by CTM partitions then it’s indifferent for the CTM.
So what are you saying? Switch to Linux? But CTM is not needed on Linux.
And are you serious or joking when you say you defrag every 6 months? Surely a person should defrag at least once per month?
So what else will I stop being able to do in Windows 7 if I install CTM? I cannot defrag, and what else can I not do?
any type of defragging, windows system restore (which CTM will disable), and any other software that controls the MBR like truecrypt. Razvan (lead dev of CTM) said that CTM 3 will support dual booting linux so idk if any other limitations will be overcome with the new version. we will soon find out.
this is a much debated and sought after question with the similar software rollbackRX.
RollbackRX and CTM both automatically defrag its snapshots but its hard to say how often your filesystem will need a defrag. There are many factors such as, do you install and uninstall programs a lot, do you move and add files across your hard drive often etc.
Also here is RollbackRX view on defragging.
Hope this helps
Hey Lisa,
If I can jump into this thread with one question -
What degree of improvement (measured as opposed to perceived) can you get from using a Windows file system defragger on a monthly (or even 6 monthly) basis?
I’m not making light of your position, I’m just curious as to why you feel the need to defrag on a regular basis and would be interested to read any answers to this question.
Years ago (pre-CTM), I used to degrag religiously, but that was back when disk were even more of a performance bottleneck than they are now. Over time, I’ve taken a more rational (IMHO) position by asking one question that was asked by my 13 year old nephew - “If you take 2 hours to do a full defrag weekly, are you going to recover that 2 hours in a week?” The only logical answer I could come up with was “I guess not”.
Defragging the Windows file system will give you a minute improvement in load times, but is this very minor improvement sufficient to compensate for the downtime involved in achieving this improvement?
Once you have CTM installed, CTM optimizes its snapshots according to your settings. It can optimize the snapshots daily if you so desire.
I haven’t defragged a drive for over 3 years now and I don’t see a performance loss at all.
Cheers,
Ewen 
Hi LisaKelly,
Regardless of using CTM in conjunction with defragmentation, I may say that I do agree entirely with what panic pointed above
(Well,… 3 years maybe is too much, but still could be completely true. )
Sending more strong message – defragmentation on a monthly basis – is “must NOT do ever!”
Sure waste of time, sure no performance gain whatsoever,
… but … another “sure” would be – you are substantially reducing your hard drive’s life span
Add to monthly defragmentation full deep scanning by AV (some people are using several :o at the same time) more frequently than once in a 1-2 months and your HD will die pretty much sooner than expected - “Finito la commedia” Not just “overkill” as some guys already stated, but a real killer!
Speaking of defrags – you may consider such Software as Defraggler and alike, which gives you an ability to see fragmentation on a files level. If you find very often used files (no matter whether those are executables or data files) that have hundreds or thousands fragments – defragment those ones only on more regular basis …. otherwise – once a year (once in 6 months ???) of a whole drive(s) is more than sufficient
*** Added *** Sorry, I forgot to mention the following earlier
You did not state any info about your OS (neither in signature nor in any post I’ve seen - correct me if I’m wrong, but the Signature would be preferred method 
)
So in addition to the above, please search for, say: “do i need to defrag windows 7”
In most cases you’ll find similar conclusion -
Best practices for using defragmentation in Windows 7 are simple – you do not need to do anything!
Cheers!
I run a TrueCrypt travelers virtual drive that I load once W7 loads, will CTM 3 work with that?
Ewan, because I always thought I should. That’s the only reason. But I am learning through this thread that I may not need to defrag so often.
I never said you should switch but I used Linux OS as Windows OS and Linux OS uses two different system format to explain why defragmentation is needed, nothing else.
I am not joking, I am defragging every 6 mounth; I don’t install, reinstall or uninstall so defraging is not necessary and defraging also come with some risk of losing data so it might do more damage than being useful if it’s used to frequent. From I can say is that defragmentation is needed if data frequently is written or ereased from the disk, in real life that would by installing, uninstalling software, adding or deleting data in from of pics, docs and such. I’m only talking from my experience. It’s up to you to decide what’s best for you.