Disk Defragmenter

collisster · 7 Jun 2006 at 17:32

What is the best and quickest free disk defragmenter?
Thanks

Conrad11 · 7 Jun 2006 at 17:50

There are Lite versions of Diskeeper......Version 9 is the latest I believe and is avaialbe on the intel site

collisster · 7 Jun 2006 at 17:59

intel? I've got an AMD

Unromantic__Me · 7 Jun 2006 at 18:02

Im on AMD and I use Diskeeper 10...should more than do the job, is a pretty awesome piece of sotware

collisster · 7 Jun 2006 at 18:03

Is it quicker than the windows one?

Sputnik II · 7 Jun 2006 at 18:35

collisster said:
intel? I've got an AMD

Makes no difference, just go download it from the intel site. I seem to remember its bundled in with some other utilities which will only work on intel CPU's but, diskeeper will work on any CPU. or it did last time I downloaded it.

Lithium UK · 7 Jun 2006 at 19:04

We use o&o Defrag at work and it is excellent.

It is not free tho.

fps133 · 7 Jun 2006 at 19:05

I use Diskeeper 10. Very quick and light on resources - had no probs.

There's a 30 day trial on their site.

movingtables · 7 Jun 2006 at 19:21

i use the windowsXP "regularly" and it does it in about 5-15 mins.
not had to reinstall OS for 16 months and runs smooth as.

Mikey1280 · 7 Jun 2006 at 19:25

Just google diskeeper lite, no need for other bundled stuff. Its pretty, better than windows I find

quadboi · 7 Jun 2006 at 20:08

What does a defrag ACTUALLY do -Been a question I have kept to myself for some time now...

Erm, how much hdd space do I need to do it aswell..

Only on a 60gb hdd, and got 20gb free.

movingtables · 7 Jun 2006 at 20:33

sjohal2006 said:
What does a defrag ACTUALLY do -Been a question I have kept to myself for some time now...

Erm, how much hdd space do I need to do it aswell..

Only on a 60gb hdd, and got 20gb free.

as far as i know it puts fragmented files back where they came from so the OS and each programe runns as smooth as when it was installed when all files were together.
thats my made up guess

quadboi · 7 Jun 2006 at 20:38

Hehe, ok will run PerfectDisk

Lithium UK · 7 Jun 2006 at 20:45

sjohal2006 said:
What does a defrag ACTUALLY do -Been a question I have kept to myself for some time now...

When files are first written to an empty disk, they are written in a nice continuous piece of disk space. But when files are deleted they leave gaps inbetween the remaining files.

Then when more files are written, if the new file does not fit into the gap the OS will write part of it into the gap and put the other half elsewhere on the disk.

This obviously slows down the read speed on the file.

A defragger rearranges the files in to continuous space again.

I hope you can follow, I don't think I explained that very well.

sjohal2006 said:
Erm, how much hdd space do I need to do it aswell..

Only on a 60gb hdd, and got 20gb free.

It varies, depends on which defragger you are using, 20gb free on a 60gb should be more than enough space .

quadboi · 7 Jun 2006 at 20:46

So, what about this :

Ok do I jsut click on the right pane "Defragment" and do I either click "Defraagment only" or "Smaart placement (recommended)"

Please help

OR do I right click on the drive and do "offline" degfragment, ?

SiriusB · 7 Jun 2006 at 20:49

sjohal2006 said:
What does a defrag ACTUALLY do -Been a question I have kept to myself for some time now...

Erm, how much hdd space do I need to do it aswell..

Only on a 60gb hdd, and got 20gb free.

Windows isn't very neat when writing files to the hard disk. Whenever possible it puts the file in a gap of free space large enough for it to fit. However sometimes a file may grow in size, so it will split the file and put the extra bit somewhere else it might fit.

You can't stop files from getting fragmented but you can keep it to a minimum. Best way is to keep different kinds of file on their own partition. So, put your system files on one partition, applications on another, data on another etc. This way fragmentation is restricted and in some cases nearly eliminated.

Take my Media drive for instance. 90% of the time Im only listening to my music so that drive rarely gets fragmented - only if I do some serious organising and clear outs.

A disk defragmenter basically takes a look at your hard disk and sticks files back into one piece. It will usually move other files around to help it do this. However, some defraggers such as Windows defragger wont worry about free space consolidation. So although your drive might be defragged, you could have bits of free space all over the show.

Good defraggers will do its best to move all the free space to the end of the disk. This should help increase performance as the drive doesnt have to go as far to find the data.

As long as you have about 10% of your drives capacity free it should be plenty for a good defrag. Any less and the defragger may struggle.

SiriusB

Sputnik II · 7 Jun 2006 at 20:51

movingtables said:
as far as i know it puts fragmented files back where they came from so the OS and each programe runns as smooth as when it was installed when all files were together.
thats my made up guess

I don't think thats right.
The way it was explained to me is that, a fragmented file is broken into several little pieces if the first available space on the hard disk is too small for the whole file. Defragmenting is the process of joining these little pieces back into a single piece on another available part of the drive. This rings true as some software cannot accept having bits of it moved on the hard disk and you have to exclude them from the defrag.

movingtables · 7 Jun 2006 at 21:53

Sputnik II said:
I don't think thats right.
The way it was explained to me is that, a fragmented file is broken into several little pieces if the first available space on the hard disk is too small for the whole file. Defragmenting is the process of joining these little pieces back into a single piece on another available part of the drive. This rings true as some software cannot accept having bits of it moved on the hard disk and you have to exclude them from the defrag.

to be honest i kinda ment that but it came out all wrong lol.

collisster · 8 Jun 2006 at 21:08

Is diskeeper quicker than the built in windows one?

Sputnik II · 8 Jun 2006 at 21:26

collisster said:
Is diskeeper quicker than the built in windows one?

Yes, the built in windows one is actually made by the same company but, Diskeeper is faster. The first scan takes time but after that its very quick. It has lots of options to set it up for automatic defrags too. Mine takes about 20 seconds to do a mild defrag on 8Gb's of data.