Defragmenters! Which do you recommend?

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by SkylineRemix

is there any other free-ware for defragment except for windows build-in one?

Hmm.. There are sharewares, but not freeware that I know of. The Windows built-in defragmenter generally works well, if slowly.

[Grogan]

A decent free defragmenter is Auslogics Disk Defrag. http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/index.php

Ignore the incessant plugs trying to sell you other "snake oil" utilities that you don't need. The defragmenter is free to use.

I use this one on my Vista installation because the one supplied by Microsoft doesn't even give any feedback or progress anymore.

P.S. Yes, it's safe to use. It uses the same Microsoft APIs that other defragmenters use.

[bslee]

My past experience tells me not to use defrag too often, if possible, never use it. I get the impression it actually slows down the speed of windows start up time. Something free ain't always good. I'd rather leave it as it is, but just do periodic spring cleaning up temp and redundant files. (CCleaner?).

[Mac Daddy]

Originally Posted by bslee

My past experience tells me not to use defrag too often, if possible, never use it. I get the impression it actually slows down the speed of windows start up time. Something free ain't always good. I'd rather leave it as it is, but just do periodic spring cleaning up temp and redundant files. (CCleaner?).

It aligns the files and structure on the platters of the disk allowing the read/write head(s) to move less or change platters to read data.

Who told you not to run it

EDIT: This is an old thread so voted is there anything but PerfectDisk

[peaz]

been using perfectdisk for a while now. If you don't want to purchase it, you can always download and use it for the trial

I leave it running on schedule and it defrags my machine once every week. So it's always in a defragged state. all my 320GB x 3 + 500GB of it! LOL!

If you always want immediate response time from your machine, remember to also set so that Windows does not turn off your hard disk after a period of inactivity.

I however sets it to turn off my HDs after 30 mins to conserve power since I leave my PC on 24/7. I'll just leave with the few seconds of hard disk spinning up when I access an idle hard disk.

[Mac Daddy]

It works great here

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by bslee

My past experience tells me not to use defrag too often, if possible, never use it. I get the impression it actually slows down the speed of windows start up time. Something free ain't always good. I'd rather leave it as it is, but just do periodic spring cleaning up temp and redundant files. (CCleaner?).

Defragging is important. You should at least do it once in a while. Otherwise your files will become really fragmented - forcing the HDD to seek all over the place just to gather the data.

[peaz]

there's really no hurt with defragging your hdd at all. So why worry?

[Zenphic]

The problem with defragging was for older hard drives I think. Defragging all the time would cause some over-use of the platters and the head, and would cause some strain on it.

Meh, I don't know. Defragging used to lag my older PC as well (~2000)

[peaz]

Urm... the hdd platters is going to spin and the head will be swingging anyway whether or you you defrag the hard disk