Defrag me

**Reaperassault** · 04-07-2008, 05:24 PM

Since we have been on the topic of AV programs recently what about Defrag programs.

I'd love to know about a good free program that will work with vista and is better than the default program.

**uk-warrior** · 04-07-2008, 06:08 PM

I dont think you will get better....it's free....easy to use...and the speed!!

http://www.auslogics.com/en/download...frag-setup.exe

**Bamboo** · 04-07-2008, 06:48 PM

I am just using the stock windows one right now, but have used
http://www.defraggler.com/
in the past and it worked well. I have read articles that said it doesn't matter too much which you use as long as you use something. The reviews said the difference is only in tiny % points.
One reason a lot of people go with an aftermarket is they can be quicker to run than the stock windows, and they can offer schdualing so you can set it up to do in the middle of the night or something.
But the defrag in Vista does that pretty well and is easy to set up a set time.
See here:
CyberNotes: How To Schedule A Drive To Defragment
Microsoft Automatically Schedules Defragmentation In Vista

One other suggestion is no matter what you use, run this program 1st
CyberNotes: WinDirStat Shows What’s Hoggin’ Your Drive
Or the very simlular Sequoiaview (though their site is down for maintainance right now)
http://w3.tue.nl/maintenance/index.html
You can still download here:
http://www.win.tue.nl/cgi-bin/usr/se...counter3xp.cgi
I actually use sequoiaview a couple times a month to clean up all the crap that accidentally gets left around, especially on my OS drive (that I try to keep clean as possible).
I remember the 1st time I used the program I was blown away with what I found and deleted 30 gigs. off an 80 gig drive. I had crap like full length movies that I had backed up but somehow had gotten misplaced (at 4+ gigs apiece), old games that didn't show up in the uninstall list but were still there, etc.
Get rid of all that, then do your defrag.
Funny thing is right now my pagefile is the biggest block on the OS drive at 4 gigs. and it takes up about 20% of the results screen.

Edit:
One more good link I just found:
Defrag on the cheap

**Reaperassault** · 04-07-2008, 07:33 PM

would those programs be similar to CCleaner?

**Bamboo** · 04-07-2008, 08:27 PM

CCleaner just deletes unnecessary crap like old Flash movie files and temp folders from your computer that would be hard for you to do 1 at a time. (it is an awesome program that i use at least once a day)

The programs above just show you a visual picture of the files on your drive by relative size, so the bigger the square, the larger the file. I just mouse over the big squares and make sure they are things that need to be there.
For instace, below is both my C: and F: drives, with the Futuremark square highlighted.
From there I could open the file, explore it, etc., and decide if I needed to delete it or not.
You can see in the bottom right of the main screen with the C: drive that that file is 1. something gigs, and what % of the drive that is.
Extremely useful programs.

msdz · 04-07-2008, 09:01 PM

the program I liked when using XP was called Disktrix UltimateDrefrag but it is not fully compatible for Vista 64 bit YET. They are expecting a new release later this month which I hope it will be. I am not sure but it may be compatible for Vista 32 bit. Anyway, it is not free but it is the best I have ever used hands down, no if's, ands, or buts about it.
With UltimateDrag I could pick where i wanted my files on my hard drives which would make the computer run faster, in my old computer that was a must and I could definitely see a major improvement once I read the instructions carefully and monkeyed with it a few times to get things set the way I wanted. On the C drive I had all Windows folders on the outside of the disc which drastically improved start up and program load times and on my D drive was all my games. I had the game I was playing the most(PR at the time) as the first on the outer most part of the hard drive and when I loaded games, my old computer was able to load maps and get in game almost as fast as some of the newer computers with RAID0 and all that junk.
I know $40 is a lot for the program but was money well spent in my opinion. Oh, for Vista 64 bit, I can get it to defrag my D; and E: drives perfect but not my C: drive. It does not do C: very well at all, uess it doesn't know what to do with the Shadow Copies or whatever and leaves them in place. You can also set archived files and folders that are not used very much which are placed to the inner track of the hard drive(the slowest part). So with the games that have the .bik movie files that are not accessed while playing the game they get moved there, like the ones used for starting up BF2142, BF2, and PR that most people usually rename anyway.

**thedogwarrior** · 04-08-2008, 12:36 PM

Check out Power Defragmenter - http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/...agmenter.shtml - it's a GUI front end to a Microsoft/Sysinternals command-line utility, Contig.exe (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897428.aspx)

It works very well - and is very much faster than your typical defrag utility.

rooster · 04-09-2008, 03:48 AM

Its not freeware, but i finally bought Diskeeper, its set to defrag in realtime. There is no hogging of system resources and its running without any problems. Drives seem to be very well defragged. You can try the trial version.

gator skywalker · 04-09-2008, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thedogwarrior

Check out Power Defragmenter - http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/...agmenter.shtml - it's a GUI front end to a Microsoft/Sysinternals command-line utility, Contig.exe (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897428.aspx)

It works very well - and is very much faster than your typical defrag utility.

Agreed...