What is a good Vista defrag program?

I was wondering what a good Vista defrag program is? I'm sick of the built-in Vista defrag taking forever and a year, and not even doing it's job that well. Any info would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

Diskeeper Premier 2007 get my vote

 

Hi
Go for Raxco Perfect Disk which is truly perfect. I have it for more than 3 years and I am really satisfied with it.
It also has Microsoft certification.
http://www.raxco.com

touradg

 

Auslogics Disk Defrag. COmpletely free and one of the finest products/

 

i'll second that one

 

I'll have to agree with touradg....I'm using a 30 day trial now of Perfect Disk 8 and it's pretty impressive. 39.00 bux if you want to keep....hmmmm It's complete and fast.

 

My vote goes to O&O Defrag Pro.

 

If you are looking for a free replacement, try Auslogics as mentioned above. I used Diskeeper 10 when both it and Vista were in beta and it did the job, but in the end I went with a freebie program (and it has been quite adequate)......

http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/index.php

 

Auslogic is the best defrag program

 

I thought so to till I ran it then analyzed with the regular vista def rag and it said it needed def raging.

I guess thats why Auslogic goes so fast is because it is not getting half the disk.

 

Sorry I can't agree.I do the same thing and no worries for me .

 

Odd, as I've experienced the exact opposite with the native defragger. At any rate, Ausolgics does get periodic updates and added features. Vista's defrag app will likely never be updated, as XP's was not.......

 

i used the auslogic defrag with vista once and it killed my hdd. errors (for bad sectors) filed the event log and i had to change the hdd.

i'll stay away from this program.

 

A defrag program can't kill your hard drive in normal use. More likely your HDD was dying and Auslogics moving things around simply started running across bad sectors as your drive ran out of spare sectors to remap to. Here is a good article outlining the problem.

 

JkDefrag is another great free one. It's what I use.

 

I am another Auslogics fan because i set it to use high system resources and it takes 10-30 seconds for it to finish. I don't like the default vista one at all.

 

You can't defrag a drive in 10-30 seconds. Once it is fully defragged it might run that fast.

Gary

 

Well it's close to 30 seconds. Sometimes it's 30, others it a minute or two but the point is that i can set it to defrag much faster than other defragers let you defrag. Although i barely use any of my 400gb hd (which may explain the quick defrag) it's still very fast and a useful setting for people who just have their desktop open, and want a quick defrag.

 

I'm using UltraDefrag from DASoft,

it's a free nostupidfeatures program. It defrags and it does it good ;-)

 

Exactly what features would you find stupid in a defrager Jade?

 

ultimate defrag

 

I use Diskeeper Pro 2007, both on the laptop as well as desktop. Works great!

 

PerfectDisk 8 is the perfect candidate!
Look no further!
Dont be deceived by all those free junk software

 

Hey don't rank on Auslogics like that. Don't knock it 'till you try it.

 

O&O Software Defrag is the best

 

Ok, so I downloaded Auslogics' Defrag due to popular demand and free. I don't understand how it can be this quick, but still do its job? It's done in minutes... where as regular Vista defrag takes hours... Could anyone explain how it defrags ~50 gb's so quickly? Literally like 3-5 minutes.

 

By not doing a proper job?

Its simple a hard drive reads at like 50MB/s and can write at 50MB/s but not both at once. So we can assume teh fastest the drive can move data around itself is probably 25MB/s. So if you want to completly degfrag (asin rearagnge all your files into optimum positions) 50 Gig will take (50000/25)/60 which gives 33 min. Unless you are running Raid 0 in which case you may get faster but its simple math & the physical limit of the drives. Also with small files it goes alot slower than this coz then the access time has a big effect but i wont go into that.

My vote goes for O&O defrag. only defrag tool ive had that doesn't screw up when it comes accross a 2TB array. And it can be fast or rearagnge all your files into a way that best suits your use.

 

If you just recently defragged with the Vista app and it took hours, then the drive was not nearly as fragmented when you ran Auslogics. Hence the shorter time........

You might be overthinking this by a tad. Once the defrag program has processed & moved all of the modules that make up a specific file, there is no need to move them again (unless the files were altered in some way or drive space is becoming a concern).

As an example, I have about 30 VOB files on my computer, totaling over 32GB in size. Once the modules were processed and relocated during the first defrag run (which took some time), the defragger now just blows right past them on subsequent scans in mere seconds. That's 32GB that it now essentially "ignores", saving a boatload of time.

Transferring those VOB files to a nearly empty USB drive had the same effect, as they had already been processed so there was no need to do it again (even though they were now located on a totally different hard drive).

Oddly, the Windows defragger does not always act this way (especially the one in XP). It seems to love moving the same files over & over & over again.....

My guess is that different programs use somewhat different algorithms in how drive space should be managed.

 

Finally! A believer! See the defrag is fast!

 

It's FAST.I'm agree with you!

 

Are you really saying that you get quick defrag speeds too, or are you mocking me?

 

How can it defrag 50 gb so quickly? Because it wasn't defragging 50 gb, it was defragging the files on that 50gb drive that needed to be defragmented! There is a VERY big difference. If you had recently run the Vista defrag and then ran the Auslogics one, then the second defrag only had to defragment the items that had been fragmented since you ran the Vista one.

There is one and only one way to test the relative speed of two or more defragmenters. Make an partition image, run one defrag app. Restore the image, test defrag app 2. Restore the image, test defrag 3. Rinse, repeat...

Any serial test of defrag programs is no test at all. I am not saying Auslogics one is not quick. I am saying none of the "tests" posted here thus far are showing whether or not it is fast. If you don't want to go through the rigors of truly testing using the same image for each defrag app, at least post the amount of defragmentation BEFORE the defrag operation and if at all possible the number of bytes actually MOVED in the defrag operation. Those numbers might assist in determining the REAL speed not the perceived speed of these apps.

Gary

 

I use this little tool since last year & I love it.Take only few sec to 1-2Min Max(Depend on how large your system data size and how frequently you do your defrag)

 

Alright Scud the reason i say the defrag is the best is because without the option to let it take up high resources it would take the normal 30mins to defrag, as i have done it before without this option on. But with the option on it is SUPER fast and able to defrag in a few mins rather than 30mins. That's what i'm saying.

 

Ok then what is it NOT doing when you use this option? What specfically does the option do? Can you provide a link to their website that explains the option or post a snippet from the help file about it?

BTW what sort of statistics does Auslogic's defrag provide about the work it does. Does it show number of bytes or sectors defragged by any chance?

Gary

 

Well i can't answer those question because i have a research project to do for one of my classes so you'll just have to install the program yourself to find out. All i can say is that that option allows it to use more system resources and that's why it is faster. You'll have to do your own homework.

 

Please stop defragging your drives. The idea you need to do this is an anachronism from DOS and Windows 95 days when you had the crappy FAT file system. Vista has a background defragmenter, so let it run and forget about it.

Feel happy with your newfound time and energy and devote the brainpower you were using to remember to defrag to something more useful.

 

Hey guys took your advice with Auslogics and I'm damn impressed. I haven't been this impressed since MS DOS 6.2 and the graphical defrag.

Orev.. pretty interested in what you said since I've heard many people say this. Any links to a conclusive test to support it?

 

Yet another happy defrager with Auslogics, try it today if you haven't folks!

 

There's a lot of information comparing FAT to NTFS, and many say that NTFS fragmentation is greatly reduced, but not eliminated with NTFS (compared to FAT). This is the case, and that reduced fragmentation can easily be taken care of with the background defragger that runs in Vista.

Interestingly, as I was tracking down sources, I came across one that said that defragging can actually be harmful. I agree and here's why:
If the defrag software take all of the frequently used files an smooshes them into one place on the disk, then moves other files to other places, etc... that leaves no room for the files to grow, which means they will get more fragmented, and you'll have to always defrag all the time. It's much better to have the files scattered around the disk (but all contiguous), than to have them smooshed into supposedly "faster" areas.

Another thing to keep in mind is that UNIX OSes do not need defragging, and actually you cannot do such a thing in the typical sense we are talking about here. There's just no need for it.

 

I should add that I actually DO defrag under 1 very specific circumstance: files downloaded via p2p/bittorrent. Those come in extremely fragmented, and watching video in that state is almost impossible. In that case, I use "contig.exe" from sysinternals (freeware, command line) in a batch file. I have also tried "Power Defragmenter GUI", which is a GUI front end for contig.

All contig does is defrag on a file by file basis. It does not "optimize" the disk, which is really the thing that can cause more problems.

 

Obviously it is not just an anachronistic throwback if Microsoft still sees fit to supply a defrag app for the crappy NTFS file system (and every other vendor). I never understood those who feel no need to defrag because they claim there is no performance benefit.

NTFS is old, and it's still based on a hierarchal file structure just as FAT was. Since Windows writes the data all over the drive in no efficient order, drive seek times are increased to load every module that makes up a specific file. The larger the file, the longer this process takes without any semblance of order. Granted, we are talking milliseconds, but it still adds up.

Supposedly, WinFS is supposed to alleviate these inefficiencies but I have my doubts (as it is still a deriviative of NTFS). I guess we'll find out......

I agree, and actually appreciate this function for those novice users (like my aunt )that generally do no maintenance to their own computer (as it saves me a great deal of time). I can't actually say how well it really does in her case, but it's better than nothing.

Myself, I'm not a fan of automatic-running scanners/updaters. For those that do a lot of drive intensive operations like media reencoding, it is not fun to have an extensive project botched because an auto-app suddenly demanded attention of itself.......

Anyhow, these are just my opinions (as everybody sees things in a different way).


EDIT: Orev, I didn't see your post above at the time.......BTW, I don't run any "optimizers" either

 

NTFS's fragments nearly as much as FAT but it's performance is less affected by fragmentation than FAT. It's always a good idea to keep the drive defragged more so for laptops than desktops because fragmented drives consume more power due to unnecessary head movement and drain batteries quicker. Also, from a performance POV a non-fragmented drive would be better than a fragmented one.

As for remembering to defrag or to set a schedule....you need to do that only with defraggers that run manually. As you said, with automatic background defraggers, you don't need to do anything...the system checks and maintains itself.

Defragging is not bad, just that file sequencing+placement and 100% free space consolidation are way overrated. It' visually nice to see everything bunched up tightly at one end of the disk and a nice fat block of white after it. But real world benefit is limited if those 'consolidated' files are often modified and fragmented.

I agree with you that having files contiguous (unfragmented) is definitely more important than sequencing+placing them or consolidating all the free space for most scenarios. Most defragmenters do offer this option of only a simple defrag.

 

I just tried "Auslogics" pretty cool, does the job just fine.

 

How long did it take you Brutal? Did you do a defrag right before using auslogics?