Defrag

psp83 · Sep 10, 2010, 20:11:53

Whats the best 3rd party defragger for windows xp ?

Rik · Sep 10, 2010, 20:20:16

Perfect Disk, imo.

psp83 · Sep 10, 2010, 20:22:35

Is it free?

Rik · Sep 10, 2010, 20:23:21

No, but it's well worth it.

nowster · Sep 10, 2010, 20:45:04

MyDefrag http://www.mydefrag.com/

Totally free.

Baz · Sep 10, 2010, 21:54:53

i use auslogics

was recommended on here by some one.

sorry cant remember who but

Steve · Sep 10, 2010, 22:00:53

I think it was Q

Lance · Sep 10, 2010, 22:06:14

Has anyone ever really noticed the benefit from having a third party defragger?

Simon · Sep 10, 2010, 22:09:37

I tried one or two, PD being one, but found it seemed to do little but make the hard drive work constantly, so, rightly or wrongly, I uninstalled it.

Steve · Sep 10, 2010, 22:12:01

I think with today's hard drives I think there is little to be gained in terms of performance.

mrapoc · Sep 10, 2010, 22:54:22

auslogics

free

effective

automatic (if wanted)

does the job

zappaDPJ · Sep 11, 2010, 00:52:29

Quote from: Lance on Sep 10, 2010, 22:06:14
Has anyone ever really noticed the benefit from having a third party defragger?

No, not for years. In fact come to think of it, I've never even defragmented my current PC with the built in utitlity

psp83 · Sep 11, 2010, 02:10:31

Well it looks like this laptop has never been defragged.

3 hrs and only 7% done.. think I will stop it and start again in the morning!

DorsetBoy · Sep 11, 2010, 08:03:52

I use Puran (free version) http://www.puransoftware.com/index.html .

The standard defrags do nothing much for speeds on new discs however improved performance will defiitely be seen using a "Smart" placement system. The boot time defrag really does improve start times on all the machines I have used it on..

Gary · Sep 11, 2010, 08:29:30

I used to use PD for boot time defrags which dose make a difference and defrags metadata which is useful, saying that I don't use anything on the Mac, tbh most drives are so fast now you don't really see a huge difference and if you do its only short lived.

JB · Sep 11, 2010, 09:08:41

To agree with the previous posters, I don't notice any performance increase after defragging a modern HD.

Where I find it useful is before backing up with Acronis. As the defrag moves the data to the start of the disk the resulting data image backup done with Acronis TI is smaller. That's the only reason I defrag these days.

wecpcs · Sep 11, 2010, 10:49:24

Quote from: Lance on Sep 10, 2010, 22:06:14
Has anyone ever really noticed the benefit from having a third party defragger?

I have Diskeeper 2010 Home version on both our PC's (desktop & laptop) and the 2010 Windows Home server version on my WHS. They defrag the drives continually in the background without any loss of speed at all and the PC's boot up far quicker and the drives should therefore last a lot longer as data access is improved.

They are not free but once you have one copy, you will get periodic offers of discounts for additional licences and upgrades. I started initially with one copy of the 2008 version and slowly increased from there.

Colin

esh · Sep 11, 2010, 11:13:16

I also used PerfectDisk for Windows 2000 machines. I have found no need to use defraggers anymore since the new Windows systems, so it has caught up to Linux in this regard.

Lance · Sep 11, 2010, 12:41:13

So it seems a pretty mixed bag then, with generally people agreeing there is not a general need for a third party defrag tool, except for specific purposes (such as the acronis backup example given). FWIW, I've not got one on Windows 7

Niall · Sep 11, 2010, 12:48:34

I notice a speed/performance increase when defragging a HD. It normally is more noticeable when you start nearing capacity on the drive though I've found. I imagine that on SSD drives you wouldn't really see it unless you're specifically watching for it.

I use O&O defrag 14 on my Windows 7 machine, which is very good, and I've currently got the trial version on my mums 9 year old XP machine, and you see a HELL of a difference on that when defragged.

Rik · Sep 11, 2010, 13:05:53

I'm another who believes in defragging because (a) it used to make a huge difference on old and slow drives and (b) it just seems sensible to limit head movement.

esh · Sep 11, 2010, 13:42:51

For those who don't know, Win 7 automatically defrags frequently used files when idle.

Yes, defragging should only make a notable difference when near capacity. The largest effect will be when creating/moving/copying large files because in a near-capacity drive there will not be any contiguous space and it will end up scattered everywhere. Otherwise... not much. Plus, if you're that close to capacity, buy a new drive

psp83 · Sep 11, 2010, 14:03:32

I've never defragged on my Win 7 machine as it seems to do a good job itself with its auto defrag it does (as above)

I'm defragging my fiancee laptop that is a 5yr old win xp one, so the drive isn't as good as the newer ones in todays build.