• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

A better defragger?

M

micrometers

Diamond Member
Is there a defragger out there that is noticably better than the default windows defragger? I've used like defraggler and I couldn't tell a difference.
 
If you're not happy with the built-in defragger, then try Microsoft's OTHER, little-publicized defragger: Contig.

(1) Get Contig free here.

(2) Make yourself a folder under Program Files (x86) and stick the contig.exe into it. Don't make a shortcut on your start menu to Contig. Just let it simply sit in there.

(3) Next, download the 3rd party GUI by rejzor.tk named, "Power Defragmenter 3.0" which is available from many software download places like twocows, softpedia, cnet, or rejzor's own download place here.

(4) Put Power Defragmenter 3.0 into the same folder as Contig and put a shortcut to Power Defragmenter 3.0 on your Start menu.

All this is free.

A nice feature of this duo is that you can defrag a single file or folder if you want to.

(I used Contig & Power Defrag for several years on WinXP, but on Win7 I just use its native defragger.)
 
Defragmentation has been overrated for a long time, now. In either NT 4 or 2k, they started reading fragments out of order. With XP and up, you get scheduled or background defrags, which only leave the pagefile and some system files fragmented, but these are not going to make any significant difference (page file access is random anyway, so fragmentation of it from auto-growing is negligible). In Vista and newer, they do effective file and general block I/O caching.

If you get heavily fragmented files, make sure you are running the defragger, and maybe do it manually, if it doesn't keep up.

Also, make sure NCQ is being used. If not, you are seriously missing out with just about any HDD from the last ~4 years.

If your drive is slowing you down, you need a faster drive, more than you need a defragmenter. Mainstream HDDs have simply not kept up with the rest of hardware speed advancements.
 
PuranDefrag is the best free defragger!

It checks which files you use most and places them on the fastest part of the disk. It also has a Boot Time defrag that places your boot files at the beginning of the disk for faster boot time. Just like paid Defraggers do!

- Puran Intelligent Optimizer - PIOZR
- Directories Consolidation for speed boost
- Optimization by Freeing Space
- Automatic Defragmentation for worry free defrag
- Boot Time Defragmentation for system files like MFT
- Low Priority Defrag for work while defrag experience
- Individual File/Folder Defrag for selective defrag
- GUI and Console Command Line Defrag Supported
- Restart/Shutdown After Boot Time Defragmentation
- File/Folder Exclusion or exclusion by wildcard facility
- Native support for 64Bit Windows
- Supports Windows Xp/2003/Vista/2008/7/8
- It's Free



The Windows built in Defragger is the worst defragger I've used! Very basic, all it does is places the files next to each other consolidating free space, no optimization what so ever
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It does optimize. It's on the menu.

Defragment & Optimize Disk Defrag doesn't only defragment files - it can also optimize your hard drives' file system to gain even higher performance. The program's optimization algorithms allow you to defragment free space, move system files to the fastest part of the disk and clear the MFT Reserved Zone from regular files. In addition to that, Disk Defrag is supplied with a powerful engine that can easily defragment large multi-terabyte volumes.
 
Last edited:
So, has anyone benched the "optimizations"? It wouldn't be hard to do. Years ago I benched SpeedDisk on XP. After "optimizing" the files, My boot times slowed, and file system benchmarks showed slower access times :^S
 
lxskllr said:
So, has anyone benched the "optimizations"? It wouldn't be hard to do. Years ago I benched SpeedDisk on XP. After "optimizing" the files, My boot times slowed, and file system benchmarks showed slower access times :^S
Click to expand...

For the boot-optomization routine I mentioned, people were reporting their results.... lessee here...

for me it improves the startup from 60s to 35s. And this is a lot.
Click to expand...

Startup went from 42s to 30s.
Click to expand...

About 30s is reduced (from 2' to 1'30", it includes the time for starting up some services as Gadgets, ...)
Click to expand...

I did optimisation, improved to 30+ seconds boot time
Click to expand...


So if boot time is a criterion, then the boot optomization routine is worth doing for HDD users. But MagicAndre1981 warns to stick with the built-in Windows defragger:

Note! DON'T USE OTHER DEFRAGMENTATION PROGRAMS AFTER THE OPTIMIZATION, USE ONLY THE INCLUDED MS TOOL, BECAUSE EVERY TOOL PLACES THE FILES AT A DIFFERENT OFFSET ON YOUR HDD, BECAUSE ALL TOOLS THINK THEY KNOW IT BETTER!
Click to expand...
 
Thanks mech. That's a pretty good increase. I don't remember the numbers I was getting(It was very long ago), but optimizing "felt" like it slowed down the machine. IOW, it wasn't just meaningless bench numbers. It perceptively slowed down the computer in routine use. I also repeated it by running the native XP defrag. XP defrag sped the computer up, and SpeedDisk slowed it down again when run.
 
karmypolitics said:
Is there a defragger out there that is noticably better than the default windows defragger? I've used like defraggler and I couldn't tell a difference.
Click to expand...

And you likely won't ever tell the difference unless the drive you're using is utter crap or you have a very niche workload that depends on huge contiguous reads like near real-time A/V editing.

Defrag software has largely been snakeoil with companies tricking people into paying for their wares with scary language and dubious statistics. Sure some synthetic benchmarks may see improvements from large contiguous files but most people's workflow doesn't fall in line with that. With read-ahead, filesystem caching, on-demand paging in of data, etc you're unlikely to hit the large, contiguous reads that would benefit from defragging files often enough to make an appreciable difference in performance.
 
Snake oil or not, I wonder if 3rd party defragger's optimization affects win7's prefetch or superfetch. They are what makes win7 snappy, right?
 
jobz said:
Snake oil or not, I wonder if 3rd party defragger's optimization affects win7's prefetch or superfetch.
Click to expand...
If it is only run occasionally, a 3rd-party defragger shouldn't have any affect at all.

They are what makes win7 snappy, right?
Click to expand...
No. Windows 7 has, mostly from Vista, a wealth of little tweaks in how it handles I/O scheduling and caching. Superfetch helps if you do the same thing every day, and start and close applications all the time.
 
karmypolitics said:
Is there a defragger out there that is noticably better than the default windows defragger? I've used like defraggler and I couldn't tell a difference.
Click to expand...
Personally, I have always preferred PerfectDisk to Diskeeper (Windows). But for the majority of users, built-in means are adequate enough. Best investment you could make would be a faster media (i.e. SSD).
 
Last edited:
The only defragger that can offer any real "improvement" is one that allows you to customize the locations of files on the disk. You can place certain programs on the outer tracks of the disk to take advantage of the high read speeds in that location. However, the gains are not very significant, few programs really benefit from it, and why on earth would you mess with that today when you can buy a SSD?

As far as just defragging in itself, anything other than built in is a waste of time and/or money.
 
Merad said:
The only defragger that can offer any real "improvement" is one that allows you to customize the locations of files on the disk. You can place certain programs on the outer tracks of the disk to take advantage of the high read speeds in that location. However, the gains are not very significant, few programs really benefit from it, and why on earth would you mess with that today when you can buy a SSD?

As far as just defragging in itself, anything other than built in is a waste of time and/or money.
Click to expand...

And even with the potential gains from moving files to the outer tracks of the disk how do you guarantee that those files are read in whole from there when necessary? Demand paging virtually guarantees the opposite will happen so if your data is on the outer track and other related files aren't that seeking is going to hurt more than it helps. You would need to place any file that might be read on those outer tracks which is pretty much impossible. You could go the extra step of short stroking the drive and leaving ~90% of it unpartitioned and wasted, but at that point you might as well attach a spoiler and paint flames on the drive too because that will give you about the same performance boost.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top