[Freebooter]

You should not defragment HDD to often as defragmenting does wear down life of HDD but if you defragment HDD when fragmentation level around 5 percent you wont cause any ill affect.

[Freebooter]

thanks for the input, appreciate it, hope he can provide some more information for me

What kind of information you will want me to provide to you if its about how defragmenting HDD too often shorten life of HDD then i can explain little more.
When defragmenting HDD defragmenter software reads, writes to empty spaces and delete data in sectors. It does this to physically organize the contents of the HDD into the smallest number of contiguous regions (fragments). Defragmentation does stress the HDD because defragmenter software instructs HDD to read, write and delete more often then normal operation of the HDD all HDD's have lifespan HDD start to wear out while its been used and more often usage of HDD means less time left before drive fails — the various components can only rotate, gyrate, and actuate so many times before something goes wrong.

[Freebooter]

Thank you.
I did read something of relative reference as what you said.
But wouldn't keeping the files organized, clean, easier for the HDD to find and read make it less hassle for the HDD as well?
If the HDD is always spinning trying to find a file it will wear it out over time as well. So wouldn't defragging be organizing the files so it's to easier to find and read so it has to rotate less and therefore work less?

Please provide your input because I am interested as I have read about both sides of this.

Yes you should defragment the HDD but some people do it every day this is not healthy and will shorten the HDD lifespan but if you defragment HDD around five percent fragmentation level then you will have healthy HDD as data on HDD is organize which is also helps lifespan of the HDD. In short NO to everyday defragmenting HDD and YES to defragmenting HDD every two weeks or month or at around five percent fragmentation level.

[Freebooter]

You should defragment HDD around between 3 and 5 percent don't let your drive get fragmented more then 5 percent. I cannot tell you if you should defragment HDD every week it depends on how much data was deleted and created within one week time if you delete and create lot of files within one week then yes defragment HDD every week. Perform free space consolidation on the partition you install programs and crate files performing free space consolidation will arrange free space on partition and this will result in less fragmentation when you create files and install programs. You should also set pagefile at static size this will also reduce fragmentation visit my tutorial to find out how to set pagefile to static size or use my program which will configure pagefile to static size. Url links are below.

[BHCPU] Tweaking & Optimizing Windows -Tutorial by Freebooter

[BHCPU] Boost Windows O/S & Network Performance by Freebooter

[Freebooter]

I gather that it isn't the # of times you should defrag but the volume of fragmentation you should pay attention to and acknowledge whether a defrag will be necessary or not.

I agree.👍

[Freebooter]

ok sounds good thank you for the input
👍

Your very welcome, i'm happy to help out answer your question.🤝

[Freebooter]

So i have a 3TB external seagate with a few system backups on it... you're saying it's safe to defrag that? Should I?

Giving us the brand name of storage drive does not help us know if the drive SSD or HDD as seagate manufacture both them.
If the 3TB external seagate Solid State Drive (SSD) then no don't defragment the storage drive.
You should use third party defragmenters software they arrange data much better then Windows Defragmenter also some of them can do boot time defragmentation and free space defragmentation.
Check out free "Smart Defrag" software.

"Smart Defrag"
http://www.iobit.com/en/iobitsmartdefrag.php

[Freebooter]

I have O&O defrag now as it's top rated and so far I'm liking it much more than Defraggler but Defraggler worked very well.
O&O also has a boot time defrag and free space cleaner.
Also, I'm pretty sure the big external is not an SSD. It's an external requiring a power adapter and everything.

Well why don't you check manufacturer website to find out if external drive is SSD or not probably not i'm sure its HDD but make sure its. Power adapter and other everything whatever they are does not indicate which kind of external storage you are using what make you thing externel SSD runs without power adapter.

[Freebooter]

I'm pretty confident it's an HDD to be honest but yeah I can always check.
But why is it a good idea to defrag an external HDD? Haven't quite heard of that being before but doesn't mean it shouldn't be done i guess.

How have you not understand all storage drives store data and they get fragmented so why do you thing external HDD somehow store data different than internal HDD. You defragment all HDD.