Disk Defragmenters that are safe to use?

[Hard_ROCKER]

As usual you are contradicting yourself. You say you use Win 7 in-built Defrag and then you bash on Bob cause he also uses the in-built Win 7 defrag. Where's the logic in that ?

And yes i too think the Win 7 in-built defrag is quite good. Especially with metadata files.

Im pretty sure YoKenny use's defragler so there is no contradiction.

I let Windows 7 defrag itself:
Defragment Your Windows 7 Computer
http://windows.about.com/od/maintainandfix/ss/SBSdefragWin7.htm

I like Puran Defrag on my XP Pro system.

@ Tech

Piriform Defraggler Version 2.00.230 is now out of beta.

I will always recommend the free Auslogics defragmenter. It's very fast and it's optimization routines actually work unlike some of the others I've tried like PerfectDisk and SmartDefrag. The first was imperfect and the second not so smart. :-)

You also don't need boot time defragging since Windows (even XP) does that automatically. Scheduled defragging is also not needed and probably does more harm than good. Just do a defrag no more than once a week and maybe run the optimization once a month and you will be fine staying with Auslogics.

I've purposely avoided your bashing on PerfectDisk before but not this time. Show me some proof and convince us with FACTS that PD is such a bad product. Do you understand what FILE PLACEMENT OPTIMIZATION is and what the difference is compared to just defragging ? Judging from your previous posts I THINK NOT. Please educate yourself a bit more. Stop spreading lies.

[Nesivos]

I use what comes with my operating system. 

LOL

I understand that the W7 defragger is a lot better than the XP one.

I started using PD years ago because of the limitations of the defragger in XP.

I like PD so I just have stuck with it and upgrade occasionally depending on the new features available in the Upgrde.

The home version does not defrag your drives across your network, if you have one, so you have to install it on each computer separately.  I do believe that their Pro version will defrag network drives.

[Dch48]

As usual you are contradicting yourself. You say you use Win 7 in-built Defrag and then you bash on Bob cause he also uses the in-built Win 7 defrag. Where's the logic in that ?

And yes i too think the Win 7 in-built defrag is quite good. Especially with metadata files.

Im pretty sure YoKenny use's defragler so there is no contradiction.

I let Windows 7 defrag itself:
Defragment Your Windows 7 Computer
http://windows.about.com/od/maintainandfix/ss/SBSdefragWin7.htm

I like Puran Defrag on my XP Pro system.

@ Tech

Piriform Defraggler Version 2.00.230 is now out of beta.

I will always recommend the free Auslogics defragmenter. It's very fast and it's optimization routines actually work unlike some of the others I've tried like PerfectDisk and SmartDefrag. The first was imperfect and the second not so smart. :-)

You also don't need boot time defragging since Windows (even XP) does that automatically. Scheduled defragging is also not needed and probably does more harm than good. Just do a defrag no more than once a week and maybe run the optimization once a month and you will be fine staying with Auslogics.

I've purposely avoided your bashing on PerfectDisk before but not this time. Show me some proof and convince us with FACTS that PD is such a bad product. Do you understand what FILE PLACEMENT OPTIMIZATION is and what the difference is compared to just defragging ? Judging from your previous posts I THINK NOT. Please educate yourself a bit more. Stop spreading lies.

There have been NO lies I tried Perfect Disk and it was the worst defragger I have ever used. The only one that after running the optimization routines left me with a drive that was more fragmented than before. It defragmented fine without using optimization but what it does when you optimize is try to place files regardless of size in the first available open space. If it runs up against an immovable file it will split the file it is currently working on and continue with it in the next available space after the immovable one. This resulted in me having well over 100 fragments on a disc that had none before running the "optimization". I have a number of files that are up to 3 gigs in size. These are files from games like World of Warcraft and LOTRO, among others. Auslogics keeps those files intact without fragmenting them. Perfect Disk simply did not.

In this day and age, file placement is of very little benefit anyway. With the speed of today's drives, It usually makes no difference where a file starts. It can however make a difference if a large file is fragmented instead of being contiguous. Perfect Disk is imperfect, end of story. Auslogics does a much better job of optimizing and reducing free space gaps without fragmenting large files in the process.

[NTxLS]

Greetings from here to there,

Has anyone taken a look at JKDefrag, newest version out is now called MyDefrag and can be used by anyone, even someone that is not experienced nor even knowledgeable about these systems.  Plus it is FREE for home use.  There are several different selectable methods of doing your defrag operations.  Once daily, weekly, monthly, each individually for the system and data files and is all automatic for each selection.  Plus is very fast.

No I do not work for them just find it a little unusual that no one has mentioned this one.  As a matter of fact I am retired and only work on my things.

[Hard_ROCKER]

@NTxLS: Yeah MyDefrag is cool, that is if you are a geek and like making your own scripts. I used it on one of my older machines back when it was still called JKDefrag and i absolutely loved it. But it doesn't have any boot-time defrag option, that is it's weakest point. One other defrag that actually let's you move files to wherever you want to on the disk is called Ultimate Defrag. Pretty cool but damn slow. http://www.disktrix.com/


@dch48: They say a picture says a thousand words sometimes. Here's a few screens of how some of my partitions look like. Note that i am using my own optimization strategy(you can set it yourself with the latest PD versions).

       

Surprise surprise, no fragments whatsoever and fully optimized partitions... Anyone interested in the internals of PD can go here. Lot's of interesting articles. http://www.raxco.com/products/home-perfectdisk11-home-premium/white-papers

[Dch48]

I have also tried JkDefrag/ MyDefrag and found it to be painfully slow. The other thing I didn't like was that it kept putting my large game files at the end of the disk and referring to them as "Space Hogs". It also treated each platter of my HDD as a seperate partition and would only work on one at a time. It left huge empty space gaps as a result.

[Lisandro]

I have also tried JkDefrag/ MyDefrag and found it to be painfully slow.

+1

[scythe944]

guys!! how do you know that you need to defrag your drive ? 

1. it is base on how long you use your drive ??
   a. execute defrag weekly, monthly, yearly

2. it is base on how big the amount of byte added to your drive ??
   a. execute defrag in every (5GB, 10GB, 20GB) that added to your hard drive ??

before that let us know what is the purpose of defrag and you get the right answer above 

Best Regards!!!

It's based on how fragmented the drives are, really.  15% is about the point that you would want to defrag.  Any amount of fragmentation past that is pretty bad.

Of course, you could be anal about it and defrag at 10% or less, but it probably won't speed up the system all that much, and will probably be working your hard drives for no reason.  I tend to be anal about it though.  Hard drives are cheap, and backups are a must!

Now to answer your next question, to find out the level of fragmentation, you just need to run an analyze task in whatever defrag program you're using.  It will likely show some form of picture (in third-party defraggers at least) and give you a percentage of fragmentation per drive.  With that info, you'll know if you need to do it or not.

Auslogics Disk Defrag has been my choice for the past year or so for XP and 2003 machines, but vista and 7 have great defrag progs built-in.  Well, they're not all that great, but they finally have the scheduler built-in, which was long overdue.

[Dch48]

guys!! how do you know that you need to defrag your drive ?  

1. it is base on how long you use your drive ??
   a. execute defrag weekly, monthly, yearly

2. it is base on how big the amount of byte added to your drive ??
   a. execute defrag in every (5GB, 10GB, 20GB) that added to your hard drive ??

before that let us know what is the purpose of defrag and you get the right answer above  

Best Regards!!!

Well, there are a growing number of experts who will tell you that with today's HD's you might never need to defrag at all. It is a certainty that it no longer provides the same benefits as it once did when Hard Drives were slower and clunkier.

 I personally like to do a defrag and optimize with Auslogics about once a month but I honestly can't say that I have ever noticed any better performance after doing it.

Scheduled defragging is a bad thing and causes much unnecessary wear and tear on the disk. Auto-defrag at every boot is even worse. All of the built in Windows defraggers will automatically optimize your boot files on a periodic basis so you don't need to worry about that either.

[bong2x]

but it probably won't speed up the system all that much, and will probably be working your hard drives for no reason.

i see, maybe its just a byte arrangement 

I personally like to do a defrag and optimize with Auslogics about once a month but I honestly can't say that I have ever noticed any better performance after doing it.

UN-noticeable Performance 

so if this things don't affect or make any changes in performance, why people like me want to do defrag??
Maybe to care the hard drive?
to monitor the drive sector?
to secure some programs?

[Dch48]

I still think defragmenting may provide better performance if you're a gamer where every little bit of performance matters, but for the majority of people it may be getting close to the same position as screensavers which are now totally unnecessary.

[bob3160]

to secure some programs?

How does defraging make the program safer