A better way to defrag your hard disk

In the long list of odious chores, defragmenting your hard drive is right up there with flossing your teeth and washing your dog--or flossing your dog's teeth, for that matter.

There is little agreement on how much--or even whether--defragmenting improves your PC's performance, but having files closer together on the disk reduces the amount of movement required by the drive's mechanical parts. This should make it last longer, though such factors as operating environment and the quality of its components probably have a greater impact on its life span.

Regardless of whether it will actually improve your system's performance and reliability, I do know that there's a better way to defragment your drive than using the utility built into Windows: you'll get the job done in less time by using Auslogics' free Disk Defrag utility.

Windows' own Disk Defragmenter is a slug compared to Auslogics' alternative. At least in XP, you got some feedback while the Windows defragger was working; Vista doesn't give you a clue what's happening after you click the Defragment Now button, other than to let you know that the process could take from a few minutes to a few hours (my bet's on the latter). I know many people scoff at the dancing colored blocks on the map as pointless, but I kinda like 'em.

By default, Vista defragments your drive once a week. You can set the defragmenter to run on a different schedule, though you don't want to defrag when you've got lots of applications open because of it's guaranteed to slow everything down.

The greatest benefit of third-party defraggers such as Disk Defrag is their speed: The program did its work in less than 5 minutes on my Vista machine, while Vista's own defragmenter took more than 20 minutes to finish. And on a tremendously fragmented XP machine, Disk Defrag got the job done in about 40 minutes, which was a third the time required by Windows' own tool.

Before you begin, open the Control Panel's Add or Remove Programs (XP) or Programs and Features (Vista), and uninstall any applications you no longer use. Then use a program such as CCleaner to empty your Recycle Bin, Temporary Internet Files folder, and other locations where clutter tends to accumulate on your PC.

Once you've taken out the digital trash, you're ready to tighten up your hard disk's sectors. Open Disk Defrag, and select your disk or partition to see a pie chart showing its used and free space. Click Next to begin the defragmentation.

View a pie chart showing your used and free disk space prior to beginning to defragment using Auslogics' free Disk Defrag utility.

If you're really bored, you can watch the program work. While the drive's fragmented sectors are cleared out, the process is represented by colored blocks on a disk map. Below this is a progress bar and a list of the names of the files currently being shuffled. You also get a count of the total files processed, as well as the number of fragmented and defragmented files.

XP's built-in defragmenter provides a similar show, but Vista's equivalent doesn't indicate what it's doing, or how much progress it has made.

Track your defrag progress on a map of rectangles representing your drive's sectors.

When the defragmenting is done, you're shown the results, including the percentage of drive or partition space that was recovered. You can see more information in a browser window when you click Display Report, but don't bother clicking the Optimize PC link at the top of the window. That simply leads to a page where you can download the company's $30 BoostSpeed performance-boosting utility. Hey, you can't fault the company for trying to make a buck.

The amount of drive or partition space recovered by the defragmentation is shown when the Disk Defrag utility finishes.

I wish I could say that I'm guaranteed to recoup many times over the time I spent defragging my PCs by having them run so much faster post-defrag. Maybe I'm kidding myself that there's any practical benefit to defragging, but then again, maybe my dog wouldn't smell any worse without a bath.

Tomorrow: Create your own social network in 60 minutes or less.

[Dango517]

IObit SmartDefrag is a better product because it has real time defragmentation. This keeps the fragmentation out of the system pretty much all together. Should you decide too, it also contains a stand alone defragger that also included hard drive optimization. In other words, it arranges the drive for optimum performance during defragmentation. This product is 5 out of 5 stars.

[electromage]

Or you could use Linux, I've never had to defragment an ext3 partition. No worrying about which freeware/shareware app you can trust to keep your hard drive in order if your filesystem prevents fragmentation in the first place

[tislandcomp]

First, defragging your harddrive can significantly improve the computers performace. Specifically for the systems that have regular changes to the file system. Such as saving pictures from a camera, installing software, saving progress in a game, saving emails, creating documents, etc. Over time, the file system becomes so fragmented, that the harddrive read/write heads have to jump around to multiple spots for one file. It's just like shopping, if you have to go to multiple stores to get what you want, it takes longer.
Second, Auslogics Disk Defrag is a good utility to run on a regular basis, but the defrag utility in Windows should still be run occasionally (after Auslogics). The Windows utility will not only defrag the files, but it 'compresses' the file system as well. It will also move some files to the center or middle of the drive platter where they can be read faster.

[guitarplayer825]

In the first sentence, you used the incorrect form of "there."
Just thought I'd let you know

[the Otter]

Yeah, Mac OS X defrags and optimizes on the fly, too. It just works.?

[FruitSmack]

I go with JKDefrag and JKDefragGUI. The first being a really fast, really complete defrag utility and the second being a GUI front end for it. Both are tiny and since they're both individual executables, there's no installation; just copy them both to the same folder and start using them! I personally put them on an old USB drive at work to use on multiple computers.

The GUI also allows you to set many options with JKDefrag such as scheduling, boot options, file clean up, and registry optimization.

Of course, you can also just run JKDefrag from the command line too.

JKDefrag: http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/
JKDefragGUI: http://www.emro.nl/freeware/

ab

[hunkyboi69]

Comment made by "The Otter" re OS X defragmentation on the fly, it does do it, yes, but it doesn't do it very well. HFS+ disks become extremely fragmented at times, especially when a lot of files are moved on and off the disk, hence why iDefrag is quite a useful tool at times. HFS+ is also completely useless at compacting, which leaves files spread all across the disk, which is the point that the author was making regarding defragmenting + compacting = less drive head movement.

Believe it or not, Windows also has an automatic disk optimiser built into it. It runs once every 3 days when the system is idle. See: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/benchmark.mspx and scroll down to "Disk Efficiency Optimizations"

[Randall Lind]

I was to,ld you didn't have to dfefrag in Vista because it did it 24/7 behind the scene. I find this to be a lie.

Doesn't seem to defrag at all. I install O&O Defrag and check it everyday myself. It does seem to help.

[mhinnewyork]

I also like JKDefrag. Not only is it portable, making is less intrusive of a shaky OS, but it defaults to defragging all your hard disk volumes.

Any defragger that runs all the time scares me. The less the system is doing, the less that can go wrong. Then again, I write the Defensive Computing blog here at CNET, so I think that way. :-) Also, as SSDs become more popular, be aware that they should NOT be defragged, it only lowers their lifespan.

Let me suggest running a disk diagnostic, CheckDisk for Windows users, before defragging. You never know how the defrag will respond to hardware errors or logical file system errors.

Steve Gibson, of SpinRite fame (grc.com) recently recommended the Raxco PerfectDisk defragger. It's a commercial product, but the man should know his stuff, he is an expert in hard disks. I have only tried the free demo of PerfectDisk once, but I was impressed. And I don't impress easily.

Michael Horowitz

[jabusamra]

Regarding your comment "The greatest benefit of third-party defraggers such as Disk Defrag is their speed."

I would say the greatest benefit of third-party defraggers - or ANY defragger - is the job they do. True, most are faster than Windows' built-in offerings. But you have to do look at results rather than just speed. A product such as PerfectDisk defragments metadata files that no other defragmenter does, but you might not know that, because Disk Defrag won't report those files it does not defrag.

Google "Great Defrag Shootout" and get a rundown of free and not-free defraggers.

Thanks,
Joe Abusamra
Raxco Software, Inc.
www.raxco.com

[slipplane]

Keeping your drives defragged is necessary for optimum performance and for lessening the workload on the drive. But at the same time, it's not worth spending too much time defragging...no point if the resources expended are more than the benefits from defrag. Choose an efficient defragger that is light on resources but gives good results and above all, is SAFE. I mean it's valuable data that the defragger is moving around; for this very reason, I simply am not comfortable using freeware defragmenters. In my experience, you usually get what you pay for when it comes to software.

I remember the dark days when defragging a drive took hours and the process could not be interrupted for fear of restarting it from scratch lol. These days, I use Diskeeper 2008, and it lets me do whatever I want when it's running, without fear of instability or hiccups. How the times have changed! By letting it manage the defragmentation while I get on with my work, I save a lot of time. You should try it out, it's a great program.

[Silverballz]

I use windows vista and can tell you from personal experience that vistas default degrag program sucks.

So I tried jkDefrag and I can tell you that it sucks goat testicles! Why? Is because the analysis picture looks like a first graders drawing, no legend to speak of and no separate analysis picture and question asking you do you wish to defrag.

I tried auslogics disk defrag and I find that it works better than windows vistas defrag program. It is simple in design and simple to understand.

I also have RegCure and can tell you that it also works a hell of alot better than windows vista defrag or jkDefrag.

Mind you that I am one of those blue-collar working because everything costs money types of person. A free program along the way does not hurt but if you are like donald trump (like coffee famous rich and powerful) then one can splurge for a commercial Disk Defragment program.

So to quote a magician doing a magic act "Seeing is believing" Simply put believe half of what you read a quarter of what you see and the other quarter questioning everything else.