Just ran defrag on my main drive for the first time in 3 months and Windows reported 38% fragmentation. The drive is noticeably faster now — programs load quicker and file copies are faster.

How often does everyone defrag? Is there a schedule I should follow?

Once a month is a good habit. Set a reminder and let it run overnight. The performance difference on a heavily fragmented drive is very real.

I use Diskeeper which defrags in the background automatically. Set it up once and never think about it again. Worth the $30.

On Win2K and XP, NTFS handles fragmentation better than FAT32 did, but it still benefits from periodic defragging. Monthly is fine for most people.