[m16si]

I just installed fresh windows xp and i wanted to ask which defragment program is best ?

I used to had Diskepper but im fed up with it !

And i want to try something new and better

any ideas ?



thnx

[TheFlash428]

PerfectDisk is pretty nice, but it's not free.

Raxco PerfectDisk

Lots of great features and it's certified by Microsoft.

[EarthJim]

I can recommend you Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0. With this suite you can defrag your disks, reorganize the hard disk drive structure, and optimize disk space usage. The suite includes Acronis Partition Expert product which allows you to automatically or manually merge, split, resize, copy, and move partitions without losing data. Disk Director is not free but I'm quite pleased with this software and I'm sure you won't be disappointed with it too.

[Jeremy]

Diskeeper 2007. Completely automatic, no need for schedules. It runs invisibly in the background (you can see the one process in Task Manager) but no system tray icon ever appears. I mean, after using it for one month you realize, "Why do I ever manually try and defrag?" It just makes life a bit easier. Many people who disagree with its methods for whatever reasons will just say "No, it's not good for your system, use <whatever>". But screw it, it works terrifically.

[CoffeeFiend]

Bah. Anything but diskeeper

PerfectDisk or O&O.

BTW, there's already a topic with 13 pages just for this.

[chilifrei64]

I know it is not a program.. but just use this script and run it as a scheduled task

http://lazynetworkad...ntent/view/6/6/

unless of course you wanted more options. Then I would go with Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0

[Jeremy]

crahak, on Nov 2 2006, 01:58 PM, said:

Bah. Anything but diskeeper

@Crahak, still waiting for your response here.

[jcarle]

Diskeeper 2007.

[CoffeeFiend]

Jeremy, on Nov 2 2006, 03:16 PM, said:

@Crahak, still waiting for your response here.

What do you mean, "still"? There's like a whole hour between your 2 posts. That's not exactly a long time to wait for an answer, is it?

[gunsmokingman]

I made a HTA that uses scripts to run the built in Defrag and CleanMgr.exe
The Thread

DiskInfoDefrag_V2.exe

[m16si]

I tired Diskeeper 2007 and it's a piece of crap. I ran it 4 times during the night and Diskeeper said there is still 20% fregmentation.

I uninstalled it and installed O&O Defrag 8.5 pro and i ran it and it said that i have 57% fregmentation i ran it, and it completely removed all fregments and the system runs great. Im really pleased with O&O Defrag 8.5 and i would reccomend it to everyone !

Thnx bye

[MGadAllah]

EarthJim, on Nov 2 2006, 05:09 PM, said:

I can recommend you Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0. With this suite you can defrag your disks, reorganize the hard disk drive structure, and optimize disk space usage. The suite includes Acronis Partition Expert product which allows you to automatically or manually merge, split, resize, copy, and move partitions without losing data. Disk Director is not free but I'm quite pleased with this software and I'm sure you won't be disappointed with it too.

100%

[m16si]

I also tried Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 but i don't like it. The program looks a lot like Partition Magic 8.0. And im just looking for a defrag. program not a whole suite.

Im very happy with O&O Defrag.

Thnx anyway

[rado354]

You will not really find a lot of difference between the defragmenters...
My choice is PerfectDisk 7.0.46, O&O was too buggy for me.

[Jeremy]

Keep an eye on this topic.

[Andromeda43]

m16si, on Nov 6 2006, 08:23 AM, said:

I also tried Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 but i don't like it. The program looks a lot like Partition Magic 8.0. And im just looking for a defrag. program not a whole suite.

Im very happy with O&O Defrag.

Thnx anyway

Just a question, out of pure curiosity,,,
Did you buy O&O or did you get the trial software?

I went to their web site to take a look and didn't like the
invasive registration procedure. If they are going to give
you something for free, then it should be free of personal
questions too. Oh well, that's just a personal gripe and
nothing against the software itself. By the way, what is the
retail price of the registered software?

At least once a week, in some forum or another the same old
question comes up about "What is the best Defrag Software"
or some such. It's been hashed and re-hashed to death.

The only answer comes in the form of a question....
"Have you found one that does what you want it to do?"
and "Are your expectations realistic"?

It seems like each person has their own idea of what the
perfect defrag should do. I've seen NO perfect defragger
since the revised Defrag.exe program was released with
Windows ME. That was not a trial and it was FREE.

I get as close to that perfect defrag as I can by taking an
entirely different tack to the problem of file fragmentation.

I do a backup of my C: drive with Norton's Ghost 2003, run
from a DOS boot disk. I follow that with a Ghost Restore.
All the files are re-written to the HD in sequential order as
they were put into the backup Image File. Of course, there
is NO space between files and NO fragmentation.

With my SATA hard drive, that whole process takes just under
12 minutes.

I know that other people like other software than Ghost, and
that's OK. I suspect the same thing could be done with Acronis,
etc. In fact, I did the same thing with Acronis 8 just a few days
ago to see what results I would get and it was similar except that
Acronis took a half hour to complete its backup instead of five min's
for Ghost 2003.

I'm not hawking any software here, just the idea of trying a completely
different process. If you have a backup program like Ghost or Acronis,
try doing a backup followed by a restore, then take a look at the drive
with Windows Defrag Analyzer.

Here's what the Analyzer shows after I've done it "My Way".



That's on a FAT-32 hard drive. Results may vary for an NTFS drive.

In years past, I've tried Diskkeeper and other alternative software.
I found them all "wanting".

This isn't meant as a tutorial or any such....just an alternative.

Happy Computing!
Andromeda43

[Jeremy]

That's no solution at all. Re-imaging your drive every day to put files in any sort of sequential order is severe excess stress put on the harddrive. Re-imaging doesn't even write the files back defragmented, anyway, so that defeats the purpose in itself.
I've been trying to think outside the box on this particular issue. PerfectDisk and Diskeeper seem to be the two most popular defragmenters. They both claim on their websites that they are the industry leader. That's just marketing, obviously. They each have their pros and cons and that's universal, but I won't get philosophical here.
I've found that Diskeeper Blog and PerfectDisk Blog can be very helpful in providing in-depth information that helps users better understand those pros and cons and finally figuring out which defragmenter they should use. Both work in two different ways yet claim prowess. One of them has to be better.
The simplicity of my understanding so far is:
PerfectDisk will take more time and put a heavier workload on the harddrive by using the SmartPlacement method; placing all files together in sequential order from the beginning of the disk spanning outwards. One pass does usually leave 0 file fragments remaining, so it is deemed very efficient. However, one reboot later and you have fragmented files again, anyway! Here's a scenario: Let's say for example if svchost.exe was placing near the beginning of the disk, for quickest access. The user then goes to Windows Updates and that file is overwritten with a newer patched one. Does PD move all files out of the way and squeeze that file where the previously written one does, putting an extraordinary amount of work on the drive for one file, or does it just place it at the end of the line, defeating the purpose of the previous task of placing it near the beginning for quickest access? This is something I should actually ask here, since employees from DK and PD are replying there. It would be wonderful to get clarification as to what happens in this scenario.
Diskeeper, while it doesn't do SmartPlacement, there is I-FAAST 2, which you can learn a lot about by reading Michael's (Project Manager of Diskeeper) blog entry. It does invisible (InvisiTasking) and completely Automated defragmentation in "Real-time", which you can understand thoroughly by reading another blog entry of Michael's. I previously used PD in the past when I truly believed it was superior in its efficiency. However, since DK2007 was released, I cannot be bothered to manually defrag my files. I would rather have DK manage my files in the background at no expense to my overall system performance than to have PD defrag them nicely during one session, let them fragment in 24 hours or two weeks (as users are frequently doing various tasks which result in varying levels of I/O (Read/Writes) then defragment them again.
In the long run, I think Diskeeper is more beneficial to the lifespan/health of the harddrive, the reason well-explained in the second blog entry of Michael's I provided a link for above, or again here.

[Zxian]

Just a note about what Michael says regarding DK2007:

Quote

When you first install Diskeeper 2007 it may well chug away at your file systems, even if you recently defragmented with Diskeeper 10.

This did happen on my system, and had me worried at first, but things are back to their quiet self now, and only the occasional defrag takes place, but I've never noticed it get in my way.

[Jeremy]

Probably an effect of I-FAAST2.

[jcarle]

I installed DK2007 on my wife's laptop. It does a beautiful unobstrusive job of keeping her hard drive defragmented and she doesn't even have to do anything.