I do what the author recommended. Sort by name (-a 7) on the first defrag and maybe once every two months. Then, once a week fast optimization (-a 3)
Seems to work fine for me. Other tips I might add is rebooting your PC before a defrag (so that there's a minimum of locked files because they are in use) and disabling your antivirus if you have one, as that increase defrag time since the antivirus will scan most stuff the defragger moves.
Allmost anything it's better than Windows built in stuff, as usual. JK Defrag it's good, I used it for sometime, but nowadays I use a freeware from my land ( Brazil ): MVDefrag, made by Marcos Velasco ( Google him to find the site ), it's very good, not only defragment files and directories, but optimizes startup executables and dlls, putting them all together. It's only handycap it's the lack of information during the process, specially a disk map showing what's going on ( I'm a control freak, I NEED these things so bad ) and some better technical explanation - I have to figure it all myself, nevertheless it's very good and free.
Windows Defrag I've pretty much always used XP's built in Defrag. As far as I know it won't move the paging file, and maybe some other system files. I figure having a fragmented paging file isn't a big deal if you have enough RAM (2 GB or more in XP) -- any thoughts on this? What defrag programs are capable of optimizing absolutely all files on the hard drive? Are any of them free?
The 'additional' problem with a fragmented paging file, or fragmented MFT for that matter, is that since they are un-movable by the default XP defragger, they can cause fragmentation of free space and other files that are being expanded. And since the XP defragger cannot move the MFT/PF, if they fragment the free space, there will often be insufficient contiguous free space for defragmenting other (otherwise defragmentable) fragmented files. I use the excellent Diskeeper 2008 Pro on XP, and have rarely felt the need to defrag the MFT by a boot-time defrag since Diskeeper defrags it when it's running normally. Only for the page file do you need a boot-time DK defrag, and that too very occasionally, if there is enough contiguous free space. (Otherwise set the PF on static custom size, or in a separate partition). Sorry, I know not of any free utility for defragging -all- the files.
excellent UltimateDefrag (www.disktrix.com/UDIntroduction.htm) its small and handy, unlike bloatware such as diskeeper/perfectdisk/etc