A good defrag software that can clean your hard drives and optimize them for maximum performance is what every computer user needs. I’ve compiled a list of 8 great defragmenters, most of which I have used myself, and I’m pretty happy with the outcome.
Diskeeper
Diskeeper is one of my favorite defragmentation softwares out there. In the past, I used to depend on the Windows built-in defrag utility to optimize and keep my hard disks in check but the perception changed after I tried Diskeeper.
After you have installed it, start the defragmentation once and it will fix any problems that your hard disk is currently suffering from. After that just leave it to Diskeeper. It will sit in the background and defrag your disks in real-time automatically when necessary. You’ll discover the change in your computer’s performance in no time.
You must be wondering that if it’s running in the background, your RAM/resources are being used making your PC slower. The answer to that is it doesn’t affect your system resources at all. It only uses the idle untapped resources to get the job done.
PerfectDisk
PerfectDisk is an extremely thorough defragmentation application that completes defragmentation in a single run instead of multiple passes. It’s easy to use since it walks you through step by step instructions to give you the maximum outcome with detailed statistics on the fragmentation status of all of your files.
PerfectDisk uses the minimum of your system resources and has the ability to schedule automatic system defrags. Just put it on autopilot and it take care of the rest.
O&O Defrag
Defrag is another great defragmenter which offers great flexibility. It automatically analyzes, defragments your internal and external hard disks. It comes with 5 defrag methods which particularly have different aims, each one achieving optimal results for the range of applications on each of your systems.
O&O’s defrag capacity is its other plus point which gives you the ability to defrag multiple volumes simultaneously. Its new background monitoring tool helps you defrag newly added and modified files automatically whenever your system is idle.
Defraggler
Defraggler is a freeware defragmenation software developed by Piriform Ltd, the same company that brought you the famous applications, CCleaner and Recuva. It allows you to defragment selectively individual files to get the job done in no time. All you need to do is run a analysis and it will list down all the fragmented files on the drive so you can select the files that you want to defrag.
It’s very easy to use. The latest version includes 64-bit support, has a nice interface and a faster defragmentation alogrithm.
IOBit Smart Defrag
IOBit SmartDefrag is a free software that offers the same features and quality as Diskeeper. The graph (as shown below) shows that it stands up head to head with the best defragmentation software out there. It gives you the options to do manual, automatic or scheduled defrags.
You’ll also notice “express” and “comprehensive” defrag options. If you choose “express” it will defrag your drives in much less time but if you choose comprehensive, it will do a great job.
It’s extremely easy to use and with its “install and forget” feature which works continuously, automatically and quietly in the background on your PC, it’s a must have
Auslogics Disk Defrag
Auslogics Disk Defrag is a great freeware application that gets the job done in no time. After downloading and running it, it took less than 10 minutes to defrag one of my drives giving a full detailed report. It is, no doubt, designed for fast optimization. The interface is sweet and anyone whose using a defragmenter for the first time won’t have any problems at all.
It’s simple, reliable and quite fast. I would recommend Auslogics for anyone to try, since it’s free of charge anyway.
Download Auslogics Disk Defrag
JKDefrag
JKDefrag is a very simple, free to use, application that can completely take you by surprise. It’s a free GPL project; and it runs by default without you having to set up anything. Installation is very easy, just unzip the downloaded file to a specified folder and run it.
JKDefrag is completely automatic, very easy to use, does not impose any kind of load on the computer resources, with several optimization strategies, and can handle floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and anything else that looks like a disk to Windows.
WinContig
WinContig is another great tool that lets you quickly defrag files without the need to defrag the whole disk. It’s easy to use and doesn’t create any installation directories or Registry entries on your computer. It gives you two options; “Quick and Smart”.
If you choose the Quick method, WinContig does look for the first amount of free space large enough to defragment a file into and uses it. Use this defragmentation method if you use tools like Windows Defrag to defragment your hard disk on a regular basis.
If you choose the Smart method, WinContig does look for the amount of free space that best fits a file into and uses it. Also, if there is no free space large enough to fully defragment a file into, WinContig does try to reduce the number of fragments of that file.
It’s free of charge for anyone, does a fine job and can be a good fit.
These were the 8 best defragmenters in my opinion that can get your hard disks clean and your computers optimized. If you think I missed something which should be mentioned and is better, please mention it in your comments.
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I have the Diskeeper Professional 2008 of the ones listed, and it’s awesome.
I tried a couple of the others, and they were not as good (my opnion only, ofcourse) as Diskeeper. DK used the least resources while running in Invisitasking mode, but it defragged very nicely.
Regards
-Sankar