Paragon Total Defrag 2010 SE free until Nov. 29th

I've tested Puran and loved it. The reason I ended up buying UltimateDefrag was the number of extra features. If I had a chance to choose again I think I would go for Puran instead as it was very fast and light.

I read only good things about O&O Defrag, but I haven't tested it.

 

If you check the Paragon forum here at Wilders - Other Paragon Disk Utilities - a couple of guys are having the same troubles we've experienced, and now I'm quite happy I have restored an image.

 

Well O&O has some good features, by default it has automatic defrag, that is, continually monitoring 'optimum' periods and when drives should be defragmented. So it's set and forget.

Also allows you the option of offline defragmentation, so each time you boot-up the drives are defragged - or you can choose to do it as a once off etc.

Either way, with O&O running in the background (using 10K memory), and my browser open with several tabs, I expected resource use to be about 10 per cent higher.

Basically with my browser open (Chrome Plus), and several tabs loaded (using 100K+ memory), I'm using the same amount of memory as when my system usually boots up. Interesting.

 

Yes, this is one of the drawbacks of total defrag. It is painfully slow. The benefit is that total defrag will defrag your locked system files, boot files, page file, along with the non-system files all at the same time. It not only defrags them but sorts them on the disk in a way that really speeds up your system.

Let me explain in detail:

I also wanted to mention that I use the full version of total defrag 2009 that was included in their hard disk manager pro 2009. The 2009 and 2010 versions of total defrag are almost identical. I do not know what is the difference in their full version and this special edition freeware, but the full version has never caused any problems for me, ever. I have been using it on and off for 1 year. Also, I will like to mention here that I did not specifically go out and buy total defrag, I got HDM pro and total defrag was included in it as a bonus. I use perfecrtdisk 10 for defragmentation.

Let me compare the two here:

Perfect disk is fast. It can defrag your non-system files on a system partition online. It can defrag your boot and locked files on reboot, but can not do both at the same time.

Total defrag is very slow. It defrags all files on your system partition at once, but it can only do that offline.

I have found that "total defrag" defrags my system partition more thoroughly than perfectdisk. I did the following test.

I ran a defrag of my system partition with perfectdisk, than a boot time defrag of the boot files until the fragmentation level was brought down to zero. I then booted through the cd and ran total defrag and it still showed fragmentation on my drive.

After a couple of weeks I then ran total defrag first, to bring the fragmentation level to zero. I then booted into my system and ran perfect disk. It showed zero fragmentation.

Conclusion: Even though total defrag uses a lot of time to defrag my drive, the drive goes to zero fragmentation in just one cycle and after that I typically do not need to defragment again for a month.

Recommendation: Just choose one defrag engine that suits you and stick with it. I have noticed, if I alternate between total defrag and perfectdisk, both require considerably long time to complete their jobs. I am assuming both have their own way of sorting the data and do not agree with each other on what is the best approach. It is like having two interior decorators decorating your home. If you stick with one, your subsequent defrags will be quicker.

Personal opinion: I have noticed that most of the free editions Paragon has put out recently have bugs in them. They had to disable some advanced options in their free products and I am assuming this has caused some unforeseen problems in their free editions. I do not think it is wise for them to put off customers with buggy free editions, they are better off with free fully functional trials.

 

As usual thank you for your feed back, it is always very informative.

 

Giveaway extended by +1 day:
http://www.paragon-software.com/free/giveaway_TD_for_twitter.html

 

I just wanted to add here that when total defrag tells you that you need to restart your computer and the defrag will run at boot time, then you do not need to insert a boot disk manually. Total defrag should automatically load a driver during the reboot cycle and perform the defragmentation. If it does not do that and you end up back in windows then there is a bug in this special edition. Inform paragon support staff here.

When I run the 2009 version of total defrag from inside the Hard disk manager pro while in windows, it tells me it requires a restart, if I click yes, it then reboots and loads automatically before windows and performs the defragmentation.

 

ye wen i used it, it loaded itself at boot automatically and did its defrag, so no problems ther.