Defrag Windows 7 ?

[marossity]

I haven't been able to locate a defrag application. Is there such an animal in Windows 7? If so, please help me find it. If not, please explain why not.:shock:

 

[JDobbsy1987]

Yeah... its called Disk Defragmenter.

Just do a search for it in the start menu



Regards,
JDobbsy1987

 

[JDobbsy1987]

There is also this guide you may fine useful - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11733-disk-defragmenter-open-use.html

 

[gregrocker]

The defraggers I've found which work really great are free Auslogics Disk and Registry defraggers.

I run them monthly after CCleaner to keep my disks perfectly clean and ordered.

 

[Maxxwire]

marossity- If you could use freeware defragmentation software that will both defrag as well as place files on the HDD in any order you choose check out My Defrag. You can even create your own optimization scripts if you like.

~Maxx~
.

 

[AbhishekS]

Just do what JDobbsy1987 said. The inbuilt "Disk Defragmenter" should be trusted above any other third party softwares.

 

[marossity]

Thanks to all. I did find the application. But now I see that some recommend only using the built-in program , while others think a third party app is better. I am wondering why one would be better than another. Also, is a weekly defrag enough?

 

[Wishmaster]

The built in defragmenter is just fine.

How often you defrag really depends on how fragmented your discs get. Weekly should be fine.
If Im not mistaken, the built in deframenter will only defrag if the disc/partition is 10% fragmented or more

.
Many 3rd party defragmenters offer more features, better scheduling, and more File Placement options.

You will get many different opinions on what is best.


Personally, I like Perfect Disc the best. It is also capable of safely defragmenting SSD drives. Although this should not be done often, it does help if done in moderation.

You can also set the threshhold of when, how often, and how to defrag the HDs. (I/E Consolodate, Smart Placement, or even your own Custom Defrag/Performance Schemes for each drive or partition)

Its MS certified as well.

PerfectDisk | Best Disk Defrag Software

Its a paid software, but is one of the best IMHO.

 

[Maxxwire]

I have used many HDD defrafmentation and optimization programs such as O&O, Auslogics, Perfect Disk, IObit and JK Defrag which currently goes by the name of My Defrag and the one and only software that could both defrag and decrease start up and access time was My Defrag using its 'Sort by Last Access Script' which reorganized the random placement of programs on the disk and moved the most frequently accessed programs to the outside of the disk where access is fastest and incurs the least amount of wear to the disk's optical reader.

Many HDD defrag and optimization programs make claims regarding increased performance, but only after using My Defrag freeware could my computer actually start up and access programs faster as proven by numerous time comparisons.

~Maxx~
.

 

[madtownidiot]

personally I use jkdefrag gui v1.15, (now called mydefrag) which works well in xp, vista, and 7.. It's freeware, not some neutered trial software.

I think most people either never defrag their HDD, or they do it way too often. I only defrag after doing one of the following:
Once about a week after installing windows for the first time, to rearrange start up files into the order they're most often used
After uninstalling a program that used a significant portion of the HDD
After doing a system restore or a major disk cleanup when files have been scattered throughout the HDD

Otherwise I don't worry about it unless the system starts to slow down noticeably.. usually after about 6 months. Fragmented files don't have nearly the detrimental effect some people think. It's only when files have been written to and deleted from every sector on the HDD that you end up with non-sequential fragments and it starts to slow down.

 

[jtrag]

O&O Defrag is by far the best in my opinion for many reasons which I don't have time to list right now. But I highly recommend it.

Also, be sure to check out Acronis products. They make the best Backup/Restore/Disk Utilities out there. Their software is extremely reliable and easy to use.

 

[Maxxwire]

After I read about O&O it became the first 3rd party defragger I tired, but unfortunately after repeated installation attempts it just would not run on my computer which is too bad because it sounds like a great program.

~Maxx~
.

 

[madtownidiot]

The biggest problem with the built in windows defragger is that using it only guarantees the HDD will become fragmented more quickly after its finished.

....and then there's the fact that the UI has been dumbed-down so much that only the most completely moronic users can stand it..... no options, no indication of progress or time until it's finished.. just that stupid spinning circle?

 

[pparks1]

Thanks to all. I did find the application. But now I see that some recommend only using the built-in program , while others think a third party app is better. I am wondering why one would be better than another. Also, is a weekly defrag enough?

I think a weekly defrag is OVERKILL to the 10th degree. In my opinion, people spend way too much time and effort in defragging hard drives in an attempt to increase or maintain performance and I just don't agree that it is necessary.

Unless you are doing a massive amount of file deletes on a regular basis...your disks are probably not becoming very fragmented at all.

I would say to defrag about every 3 months.

 

[Vertex]

Well third party defraggers are usually free, they are faster and may offer more info about what's going on such as detailed color charts of the defragging activity, defrag reports and some of them even claim "smart" technologies that make disk defrag even better than Windows' own utility.

Some defraggers are even integrated into single apps along with other tweaking utilities such as a disk cleaner and performance optimizer.

 

[sbrads]

I've tried just about all the available defraggers on Win7.64 and my general conclusion is that so far, none of the 3rd party ones seem to get it dead right. They may do a better job overall but they always make bootup take longer in my experience, sometimes twice as long compared with a Win7 setup that's been optimised with xbootmgr, part of Microsoft's Windows Performance Toolkit. The built in MS defragger doesn't have this problem, but on the downside it's slow as molasses completing a defrag compared with some and doesn't have the optimisations of 3rd party defraggers that boost general performance (after bootup that is).

 

[Layback Bear]

Testing in my own little way between Windows 7 built in defragger and 3rd party defragger is a little bit of time, about 2 min. Windows 7 being slower. Of course W7 doesn't have the little colored boxes jumping around. Another thing that I have found that no two defrag program do it the same way. You can defrag with one and check with another and there will always be a slight difference. So I stick with Windows 7 built in. I'm of the belief that Microsoft should be able to defrag Window 7 as well as any or maybe better. If you choose W7 defrag you can check every now and again by using the analyzer part of the program first to see if you need to defrag. For what ever reason on my computer, Windows 7 Home Premium doesn't seem to get fragmented much at all. In a month it's 1 to 2 %. It can be scheduled to run in the back ground or on demand if that is what you like.

 

[Maxxwire]

You are right that different Defraggers use different algorithms. The My Defrag software that I use first uses Wrap Around Defragmentation for files for which it can find large enough gaps and then use Data Shuffling for files that are bigger than the largest gap.

The last time I defragmented the 23 GB on the Win 7 partition it was analyzed at 6% fragmentation and it took MyD 14 seconds to completely defrag it...

Combined with the execution of MyD's 'sort by last access' disk optimization script which took 14 minutes to complete all of my programs open faster including the 1 GB GIMP Image Management Program program which used to open in 6 seconds and now opens in 3.42 seconds which is 43% faster than before MyD optimization which for me constitutes a very noticeable and welcomed improvement.

~Maxx~

 

[techcal]

Thanks to all. I did find the application. But now I see that some recommend only using the built-in program , while others think a third party app is better. I am wondering why one would be better than another. Also, is a weekly defrag enough?

Windows defragger lags the commercial utilities in some areas like speed, flexibility/customization, GUI and the 'deepness' of the defrag. So those who place a premium on these features often prefer third party utilities.