What is the best free defragger?

SIW2 · 29 Jun 2009

For Contig fans - there is a free GUI available - here:

PowerDefragmenter.zip - Windows Live

Uber Philf · 29 Jun 2009

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Diskeeper '09, im using that, it does the job for me

Charles Kane · 29 Jun 2009

SIW2 said:

For Contig fans - there is a free GUI available - here:

PowerDefragmenter.zip - Windows Live

Thanks for your link - I'm running it now, then i think I'll put away defraggers for a cpl of months!

SIW2 · 29 Jun 2009

LOL. You're welcome.

techcal · 30 Jun 2009

Uber Philf said:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Diskeeper '09, im using that, it does the job for me

Yeah, Diskeeper 2009 is a fantastic utility -fast, thorough and automatic :)
Although it's not free (since the OP specifically asked for a free app), it's a great investment for long term use...well worth the price.

TheTeZ · 30 Jun 2009

Charles Kane said:

I'm using Smart Defrag by iobit. Works well. Has all the options you could want, schedule, work all the time in the background etc.

The main advantage that can be offered by Defraggers is if they move most frequently used files and directories into the fastest area of the disk. Smart defrag does that (as does PerfectDisk mentioned above).That can noticeably improve speed on your rig (when you first do it at least).

Defragmentation itself really isn't a big deal. Forking out money for a Defragger is almost certainly a complete waste, and the built in Defragmentation routine in Win 7 is probably plenty good enough!

Defragging the registry is IMO complete snake oil and absolutely unneccesary. Much more dangerous than any claimed benifits you might get. But really there are no benefits, just as there are no benefits from a registry cleanup tool. Removing a few hundred lines from a Registry Hive will have absolutely NO effect on speed or efficiency. None has ever been reported because it doesn't work.

smart defrag is my recommendation!

Uber Philf · 01 Jul 2009

Very true, but back when all the different releases were dished out, this was great with the trial, you wouldn't have our release any longer then 30days, hence the trial being very very handy

Cindy · 01 Jul 2009

Im using Smart Defrag, works great and is complete free for home, organisation, and business :) > http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html

Scotteq · 01 Jul 2009

My understanding is that a standalone defragmentation utility is not desired, and that the best thing you can do is nothing:

Engineering Windows 7 : Disk Defragmentation â€“ Background and Engineering the Windows 7 Improvements

Best practices for using defragmentation in Windows 7 are simple – you do not need to do anything! Defragmentation is scheduled to automatically run periodically and in the background with minimal impact to foreground activity. This ensures that data on your hard disk drives is efficiently placed so the system can provide optimal responsiveness

Victek · 01 Jul 2009

Scotteq said:

My understanding is that a standalone defragmentation utility is not desired, and that the best thing you can do is nothing:

Engineering Windows 7 : Disk Defragmentation â€“ Background and Engineering the Windows 7 Improvements

.
I read the article linked above, and then I tried the Windows 7 defragger. Although I would agree that it is somewhat improved compared with Vista I don't think that adding "percentage complete" status constitutes "listening" to all the feedback given about Vista defrag. The disk map implemented in XP has an important function - it is not simply entertainment. For instance I recently ran defrag on an XP machine which only had 25% free space. Although the process completed without error and did not give a low disk space warning, the disk map showed that fragmentation was still very bad. I then installed PerfectDisk and did both a boot-time defrag and a couple of passes in Windows. When it was done the data was fully defragged and moved to front edge of the drive. Without the disk map there would be no way to determine this. Ideally you want to not only defrag the files, you also want to defrag the free space by consolidating the data, which slows the process of fragmentation going forward.