"Bill in Co." wrote in <news:OgF5mTFuIHA.4952@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>> "rick s" wrote in
>> <news:4C4390A7-08CB-4E70-9695-FF9880DA1801@microsoft.com>:
>>
>>> Someone told me that the more you run disk defrg the better chance of
>>> destroying your hard drive. Is this true?
>>
>> The more activity, the more wear, just like the more you use your
>> bicycle the more likely the chain will break. So, do you not use your
>> hard disk at all between these defrags? You power up, do a defrag, and
>> then power down until the next time you defrag?
>
> This begs the question: just how much is the MTBF reduced by running a
> defrag more often? I'm not sure anyone has collected the data to really
> know. I bet its impact is minimal, however, in practical terms.

Like begging the question as to how much shorter is the MTBF if there is
less physical RAM so more pagefile space must be used.

I know of users that like to use the flash memory thumb drives for
pagefile space not realizing how often the pagefile gets used. Flash
memory does wear out due to oxide stress. There is logic available on
the drive to mask out bad areas but eventually the reserve gets used up
and the thumb drive suddenly and catastrophically dies taking the
pagefile with it and any changes saved there during the current Windows
session.