Defrag Tools

[......]

Hi,

Which is the best defrag tool (free/paid)?
Whats the advantage of using a third-party defrag tool over Windows
built-in tool?

regards
Leo

 

[TaurArian]

....... wrote:
:: Hi,
::
:: Which is the best defrag tool (free/paid)?
:: Whats the advantage of using a third-party defrag tool over Windows
:: built-in tool?
::
:: regards
:: Leo


I love Diskeeper, easy to use, set and forget -
For enhancing file system performance -
http://www.diskeeper.com/defrag.asp


There's also Paragon
Home and Office, Small Business & Medium and Large Business Utilities for
hard disk management etc
http://www.paragon-software.com/

and

Raxco - PerfectDisk - Defragmentation - easy to use
http://www.raxco.com/

Some find Windows built-in defrag okay for them, some prefer more control,
it's just simply a matter of choice. Different products offer more than just
the basic defrag option.

I'm sure others will be able to provide some more alternatives including
some freebies.
--

TaurArian [MVP] 2005-2009 - Update Services
http://taurarian.mvps.org
======================================
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
Disclaimer: The information has been posted "as is" with no warranties
or guarantees and doesn't give any rights. Computer Maintenance:
Acronis / Diskeeper / Paragon / Raxco

 

[Gerry]

Leo

None that are worth paying for! In most situations the Disk Defragmenter
coming with Windows XP does a perfectly adequate job. Remember it is
important to run Disk CleanUp ( or better still cCleaner ) before Disk
Defragmenter to get the best results.

Where there is a large fragmented file and limited free disk space
Defraggler is useful. You can defragment individual files.

An interesting relatively new entrant to the market is Defraggler
(freeware for home users) which I am currently testing. It is worth
looking at and does not with any negative reports. It also comes
from the software house providing cCleaner:
http://www.defraggler.com/features


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Jose]

Hi,

Which is the best defrag tool (free/paid)?
Whats the advantage of using a third-party defrag tool over Windows
built-in tool?

regards
Leo

At this place where I do some computer odds and ends, so many people
that think their computer is too slow (often quite suddenly) just
automatically think, or have heard that any perceived performance
problem is a fragmented hard disk and the fix for just about any
ailment is to defragment. Another good one is, I am running out of
room on my hard disk, so I must defragment it to get more room.

Why not try the Windows defragment tools? I think most people find
them adequate. They will show you a nice colorful before and after
picture, then take a long time to run and probably won't help much at
all, but at least try it. Then you can download some other tools or
pay for some and probably get the same results for your time and
effort. You will likely still have your problem. Do some before and
after timing and space comparisons and see what you get.

Perhaps your disk really is fragmented badly and needs some help -
could be. It would be interesting to know if the unknown problem you
are trying to solve is remedied by defragmenting. It would be more
interesting to know what the real problem you are trying to solve is.
Or maybe you are just curious about fragments and don't have any
problem to solve. Good for you.

If you are having some performance issues, look for help with them by
providing more details about the problem and your setup.

Defragmenting does not solve everything.

 

[......]

Thanks everyone. I am not having any problem with my system but I like
defragging my disk every month. I have been using auslogic for the job
but now I want to uninstall all unnecessary software form my system to
boost its speed. So I was wondering whether windows built-in defrag
can do the job for me.

regards
Leo

 

[Jose]

Thanks everyone. I am not having any problem with my system but I like
defragging my disk every month. I have been using auslogic for the job
but now I want to uninstall all unnecessary software form my system to
boost its speed. So I was wondering whether windows built-in defrag
can do the job for me.

regards
Leo

....oh yeah, after running whatever gets run to defragment, that after
picture sure looks good - not so much red stuff as in the before
picture, so this tells me that the defragment really did the job and.
I told you! Look how fast it is now! (they say).

But after a short while... Wait - my computer is slow again or even
worse and I only recovered .01% free space. Therefore I must need a
better defragment tool.

People are funny sometimes.

Good luck!

 

[Big_Al]

....... said this on 3/26/2009 1:25 AM:

Hi,

Which is the best defrag tool (free/paid)?
Whats the advantage of using a third-party defrag tool over Windows
built-in tool?

regards
Leo

I like and use windows defrag only in that it here and I expect it to
work. But to answer your question, I do like O&O defrag too. It
seems to pack the drive better than XP's version. Another is Tune Up
Utilities 2008. Along with other tools, it comes with a defragger.
I've used them both and I like the user interface and a few options but
they take up room and load resident programs and then we get back to the
story of "does it do anything really better". I opt to go back to
windows a free up the space. Simplicity.

But you asked the question, and honestly, best for you might not be my
best. I think both offer you a trial download.

 

[Olórin]

Thanks everyone. I am not having any problem with my system but I like
defragging my disk every month. I have been using auslogic for the job
but now I want to uninstall all unnecessary software form my system to
boost its speed. So I was wondering whether windows built-in defrag
can do the job for me.

regards
Leo

"I want to uninstall all unnecessary software form my system to boost its
speed" - that's not going to help, unless:

1) the software is set to run at Windows' start-up and consumes resources
or
2) you're REALLY down to close-to-zero free space and getting warnings from
Windows about that

Or, circuitously, if you're low on free space and XP's defragmenter can't
start/complete properly, then removing enough unnecessary software might
free up enough space to let it run and thereby improve performance - but I
don't think that's really what you're after.

There are far more worthwhile things to look into to improve speed - check
through this group for previous posts with guidance on that.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Hi,

Which is the best defrag tool (free/paid)?
Whats the advantage of using a third-party defrag tool over Windows
built-in tool?

regards
Leo

__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus
signature database 3965 (20090326) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com

If you want to pay, get Diskeeper 2009. You already have a free one. It is
called Windows Defragmenter and works well enough.

I haven't tried PerfectDisk, but even Diskeeper sets the defrag graphic to
OFF by default in order to speed up the process overall. There is no benefit
to a defrag graphic. All it ever shows is that the computer is doing
something. Accurate it most definitely isn't..


--

Mike Hall - MVP Windows Experience
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/


__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 3965 (20090326) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com

 

[JS]

Gerry

Based on your earlier post I downloaded
Defraggler to evaluate it also.

The test PC had a clean install of XP SP3
plus a bunch of test and diagnostic utilities
as this is a new PC I just finished building.

Drive is FAT32 with 26% used and highly
fragmented. Running Defraggler now and it
taking what appears to be an awful long time
an still is only 50% complete.

Do you find that Defraggler is also slow?

 

[Gerry]

JS

No not normally but all my testing has been on NTFS formatted disks. It has
never taken an exceptionally long time. My disks would never, however,
present the type of challenge that I have seen others bring to these
newsgroups. BTW Defraggler works equally well in Vista but most of my use
has been with Windows XP.

If you have multi fragmented very large files I would tackle the small
files before taking on a big one. Also eliminate temporary files using
cCleaner first. It is quite a bit quicker than Disk Defragmenter

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Gerry]

Mike

There is no benefit to a defrag graphic.

There is a benefit. Seeing something happening reassures the user and
counters problems resulting from user frustration. The user is less tempted
to interupt the process.


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[JS]

Thanks,
I'll try it on one of my NTFS partitions.

 

[Gerry]

JS

What was the cluster size on the FAT32 partition?

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Twayne]

Thanks everyone. I am not having any problem with my system but I like
defragging my disk every month. I have been using auslogic for the job
but now I want to uninstall all unnecessary software form my system to
boost its speed. So I was wondering whether windows built-in defrag
can do the job for me.

regards
Leo

Windows defrag utility will work just fine for you. It's a good tool,
reliable and works well. There really is no strong reason for a 3rd
party defragger.

Other 3rd party defrag tool are available and some have some additional
useful features IF you use them properly, which I find most people do
not. The better ones have methods that are meant to slow down the
amount of fragmentation and to a degree they do by judicious use of file
locations and blank spaces on the disk, but in my estimation they won't
help to change a need for a monthly degrag to say 3 months, and almost
no one reads the manual to see how to make that happen anyway.

I use a 3rd part app becuase of a couple of features in particular that
I like. One, it will defrag in the background when the computer is
idle. Thus, except during times of heavy use of the C drive,
fragmentation never reaches the point of needing a manual defrag. I
still check the fragmentation statuses and recommendations now and then
and as a general rule they do stay below the 5% level, which is great.
So in general, it's useful.

HTH,

Twayne

 

[Twayne]

If you want to pay, get Diskeeper 2009. You already have a free one.
It is called Windows Defragmenter and works well enough.

I haven't tried PerfectDisk, but even Diskeeper sets the defrag
graphic to OFF by default in order to speed up the process overall.
There is no benefit to a defrag graphic. All it ever shows is that
the computer is doing something. Accurate it most definitely isn't..

I don't understand: Are you saying that graphics don't fragment of that
they don't defrag well? I never looked at a graphic as any different
than any other file w/r to fragmentation/defragging. What's the
mechanism that it makes a difference?

Twayne

 

[Twayne]

Never mind: Apparently you're talking about the screen display of
fragmentation is represented on the disk. Yes, those are pretty
inaccurate. I do recall a time you could tell what file each legend on
the screen represented, but that went the way of the dinosaur when
drives got so large.

Cheers,

Twayne

 

[Big_Al]

Twayne said this on 3/26/2009 2:51 PM:

Never mind: Apparently you're talking about the screen display of
fragmentation is represented on the disk. Yes, those are pretty
inaccurate. I do recall a time you could tell what file each legend on
the screen represented, but that went the way of the dinosaur when
drives got so large.

Cheers,

Twayne

Actually the O&O defrag tool lets you click on any of the boxes in its
graphical display and it will list the files in that cluster. I find
it quite nice.

 

[JS]

Default (4K)

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com

JS

What was the cluster size on the FAT32 partition?

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Twayne said this on 3/26/2009 2:51 PM:
Actually the O&O defrag tool lets you click on any of the boxes in its
graphical display and it will list the files in that cluster. I find
it quite nice.

Yes, but displaying that graphic puts even more load on the system.
Defragging can take enough out without having the visual sitting on the pile
too..