Defragmentation VS Disc Clean up, Yeah I'm dense, but I know you guys can clarify ;) Options

[*Zatanna*]

I am in the process of doing a very long winded degraf right now. I do this periodically because when I start rubberbanding in the middle of playing the MMORPG I pay, it typically isn't so bad after I defrag.

So this morning I'm actually looking at what's going on during the defrag process. I noticed that the estimated disk usage before defragmentation is pretty much the same as the estimated disk usage after defragmentation. Also, the contiguous, fragmented and unmovable files look identical, as does the free (white) space. Forget that last sentence. Everything is still accurate.

I looked through some of the threads here and I noticed people talking about disc clean up versus defragmentation.

What really is the best maintenance method for good PC performance? And why? I would really like to have at least a bullet point type understanding of what's going on when the processes are run.

[talcumpowder]

"The other computer" (without a short, easy name like Ein) is 4-ish years old. It came with windows ME. Oh wait, it's older than 4. Yes, it is a very dead computer.

Anyways, that's not the point. The point is that if you run defrag frequently, it really doesn't do anything drastic (unless you delete massive amounts of files frequently). What defrag basically does is change this:
filespacefilespacefispaceleyoucan'tmovethis
Into this:
filefilespacefilespacespaceyoucan'tmovethis
(see in-depth?)

If it's been a week since your last defrag, your computer tries to use the space that's all together (at least, it should! o.O I'd worry if it didn't). If you just deleted 2GB of images (oh, trust me... I've done that before) off your computer yesterday, yes by all means run another defrag.

Basically, if you've been going on a deleting spree lately you may want to defrag. If you haven't, then a disc clean-up may work a little better. I defrag, like, once a year. Then again, I run contiual virus scans and stuff like that sooo... Computer still functions perfectly (minus the fact that it's OLD and it likes to freeze things suddenly sometimes).

Then again, my computer doesn't (can't) run MMORPG's... I don't really recommend defragging once a year to everyone. I really don't. And this really isn't all that helpful... -.-U