Which Disk Defragmenter?

I have been trying to look for a defragger that "works" and has good features.

I really like background/automatic defragmentation but its not a must. File placement is also preferred.

I have been picking my choices by the disk defragmenter poll located here

The most popular picks are:

AusLogic Disk Defrag
Windows built-in defragmenter
Diskeeper Home/Pro
PerfectDisk
Power Defragmenter GUI with contig.exe
O&O Defrag Pro
DiskTrix UltimateDefrag
JKDefrag

Now i will write why or why not i don't want to use them and hopefully someone can pick one for me.

AusLogic Disk Defrag: Didn't try it but looking for one that does more than defragment.

Windows built-in defragmenter: Why pick this when there is better free ones?

Diskeeper Home/Pro: Using it right now and like the automatic defragmentation in the back ground but thats all it seems to be good at. The I-FAAST seems to be useless and the Frag Shield's ability is impossible to track. So i am looking for one that will have useful features and not features there for marketing.

PerfectDisk: Seems the best of the bunch yet when i run the smart placement defragment it gives up after 10 mins on both of my computers. Maybe a bug in the build? Or it cannot handle big files at all?.

Power Defragmenter GUI with contig.exe: Tooo simple, would rather use jkdefrag.

O&O Defrag Pro: Haven't tried but sems very good from the description because it has the automatc defrag of diskeeper and the file placement of perfectdisk. Best of both worlds. If it is able to finish a whole defrag without giving up like perfectdisk than i may use it. Obviously not just putting features for marketing because it does not call its file placement, SmartPlacement, or its automatic defrag, InvisiTasking.

DiskTrix UltimateDefrag: It actually seems really complicated with all its options and the GUI doesn't help it at all. But if it can defrag and optimize good without a ton of tweaks than who cares what it looks like.

JKDefrag: My favourite freeware choice and does the job but want something that can show and reccommend whats wrong with my disk instead of just defragmenting it and optimzing it straight away. Im not good at reading logs .


O&O seems to have the features i want and so does perfectdisk if it worked.
Although the stealthpatrol in perfectdisk would never run after leaving my computer inactive for hours, so an on-the-fly one would probably be better.

Your opinions or favourite defraggers are appreciated .

And don't redirect me back to the poll thread for opinions becuse the only opinion there is that it works with FD-ISR which doesn't exist no more .

 

This is one area I don't want to spend any money as I think there are very good free wares. I go along with your analyses, and I also find JKDefrag the best (among free ware) although very slow and not showing you what's actually happening. Recently I've downloaded the free version of Ultimate Defrag v:1.72, and using it as a simple defragmenter it achieves the same results as JKDefrag, but it is incredibly fast. So I've settled with these two, Windows own defragmenter being painfully slow and not giving you any info in its gui.

 

Smartdefrag:
http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html
Make sure you select 'Defrag & Optimize'

 

I have a licence for diskeeper home edition but as seen in my sig i run JKDefrag now.
Why?Becouse it defragments and it's not realtime(mostly i use screensaver defrag).
Why would you need a product that has additional features if u want the product to defrag?There is nothing wrong with your hdd it's either fragmented or not.
If u want an automic tool from what i've used diskeper is the fastest and with lowest ram usage.

 

Diskeeper made me some strange problems, which seemed to vanish after a while...
Windows built in, PerfectDisk, O&O, SmartDefrag, JKDefrag, Auslogics and Tuneup defrag never actually improved performance noticeably. Only UltimateDefrag did. You don't actually have to change any option, just go for the Auto Defrag.

 

So dont press support layout.ini or anything? Just pick auto and start?

 

O&O just got stuck in 18%.

UltimateDefrag is next.

 

Yep, just pick auto and start. Oh, you may click "Put Directories Close to MTF" if you like, it should improve performance. For more info on the other options, you may check the documentation.

 

Have you tried Puran yet?

 

Nope, does it do a good job?

 

Listen everybody : REALLY other defragmenters is dissatisfaction guarantee ...
REALLY chose only SmartDefrag as suggested Thankful, or one-click ( this same ) Smart Defragment in Advanced SystemCare 3 (beta).
There is no better choice; and guaranteed increase performance of Windows. Really.

 

TBH microsoft should just create a better file system. no other file systems need to be defragged. just MS ones...

 

Hi Guys,

I can't tell the difference between a JK & Smart defrag. How are these speed improvement being measured? I will say Smart defrag & optimize, is much quicker than JK & prettier. As far as performance it's 6 in one, half a dozen in the other.

Take Care
Rico

 

Am liking its easy 2 use n clean gui,features, also got some good reviews: http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2008/07/puran-defrag-50-is-major-leap-forward.html

The realtime scheduled defrag works so its a keeper for me. Also its not bloated,fast, cheap n theres a anniversary discount for it right now.

My fav stays diskeeper but the non crippled version 4 vista 64 at 100 bucks is not friendly at all.

 

When I tried these settings, my boot time went from 45 seconds to 90 seconds. I couldn't tell whether there was any change with my computer speed (fast computers remain fast no matter what).

 

I must admit that i went thru the circle of PAID commercial Super-Defrags and none of them boosted perfomance without the overhead of running in the background for me like DiskTrix UltimateDefrag.

That doesn't mean it's best, just moderate enough performance gain that i expect and file-placement improvement is been beneficial for my disks.

I will say that the absolute quickest Super-Defrag i ever tried was PerfectDisk, but it caused some not so pleasant issues for me, but then thats long since past. DiskKeeper was relatively mediocre but it's background running unnerved me. I'm sure everyone has their own best choice that gives them that extra added performance gain and hopefully preserves the HD at the same time, but i made my choice and am 100% satisfied in my choice. It's not caused any issues whatsoever and dispenses chosen file/folder placements where i decide and keeps them there longer in comparison.

But i'm always open for alternatives, preferable free ones, if they can prove to equal or surpass what i use now.

Nice Topic, thanks

EASTER

 

Got another to add to the list of failures.

Ultimate Defrag just stopped randomly like perfectdisk and left with an additional 2% fragmentation. Talk about reverse engineering......

Still better than O&O which instead of giving up got stuck at 18%.

Are my computers un-defraggable?

Should i even try the small name products if the big commercial ones can't handle it?

 

I used perfectdisc for a while but i had to do several defrags to get things done n it took a while.With Puran i just do a boottime defrag n afterwards a plain 1 wich is fast. Have everythingh ticked.Also i noticed that comparing this 1 with the big boys support is faster n friendlier. It doesnt hurt to try.

 

jkdefrag doesnt respect layout.ini which makes it a no-go for me

 

PD and O&O are the top of the lots for me. O&D oofers the most options for strategy to defrag and has a nice background monitor as well.

 

Vopt.

 

Its next

 

Anyone knows if Puran Defrag supports MS' layout.ini or has its own equivalent ?

SKA

 

I don't think it does. Didn't see any option to support it.

But i am running it now and its super fast. I ticked all options including PIOZR so ill see if it does a good job.

 

Puran just finished and still indicates 7% fragmentation. I'll try again without PIOZR.