Comments on: A better way to defrag your hard disk

Tightening up the sectors on a drive storing hundreds of gigabytes may or may not boost your PC's performance, but it could extend your drive's life expectancy.

[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.

[Guillaume8507]

You have got it wrong mate. Files at the outside are 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.

I love Auslogics Disk Defrag - it defrags files and free space. The new version (3.1) is really good and it just keeps getting better. I've heard that soon it will be able to defrag metadata files. So don't pay any attention to outdated reviews - look for version 3.