BleepingComputer.com: Defragmenters

I just finished reading the tutorial on disk defragmentation. Out of curiousity and to learn more, I decided to follow the links to the third party defragmenters. Apparently, Speed Disk no longer exists, or else it has been relocated. When clicking on the speed disk link, I am taken to a page that discusses Norton SystemWorks. Doing a search on that page for Speed Disk produces a not found message.

Anyone know anything further about Speed Disk? Has it been discontinued or taken up by someone else?

Orange Blossom

This post has been edited by jgweed: 09 August 2006 - 09:19 AM

Is this the link you are looking for?
www.partition-manager.com/overview_details/speed_disk.htm
Or is it Symantec's Speed Disk you are referring to?
From what I've read, the Windows XP Defrag is more than adequate,but that may be an opinion of someone who would rather drink paint thinner than install a Norton product on their computer!

I'm not really sure TMacK. I read about it in this defragmenting topic. There was another one listed there as well, I've read a bit about that one, and it looks intriguing. I have pagefile and masterfile fragments that the Windows defragmenter has not been able to take care of for over a year now.

I know what you mean about being reluctant to install any Norton product: they are nearly impossible to get rid of - at least the AV products are.

Orange Blossom

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1207

maybe diskeeper lite will help it works well for me.

You can have a good read Here where the the pro's and con's of the Win XP Defrag,Symantec's Speed Disk and Diskeeper are covered.

Edit;A little something I just learned from the Xp Newsgroup about Page File files:

Quote

And about Master File files:

Quote

So it seems like you don't have to worry about deleting them because they are virtually undeletable.

Clear as Mud??

This post has been edited by TMacK: 08 August 2006 - 10:56 PM

A MOST interesting read TMacK. My thanks for posting that link It seems that every defragmenter has its supporters and nay-sayers. My guess is that it has to do with how one likes to run his or her computer.

I would say that quote about the masterfile is less clear than mud, though I did learn something about just what it is. I interpret the article to say that even if I deleted everything but the operating system, the masterfile table would STILL say its 89% full.

ambellina, I'll be sure to check out that link you sent. My thanks for posting it . The more options and information one has, the more wisely one's decisions can be made.

Orange Blossom

Your Welcome Orange Blossom.
If you don't mind,please let me know what your ultimate decision on this one is.

I like and use Speedefrag. Very clean.

Diskeeper Lite is the engine now used by Windows XP, replacing the older Windows defragmentation utility. It is faster but not nearly as much fun to watch.
Cheers,
John

This post has been edited by jgweed: 02 October 2006 - 02:28 PM

I did a trial on Ashampoo Magical Defragmenter a short time ago. This is a great little programme that defrags all the time and keeps your HDD pristine. Unfortunately it is not free, but I was so impressed I tried to buy it, (and believe me that is a first for me) but ran into too many problems trying to pay for it with differing currencies, so had to let it go. One day I will definitely get it.

The 30 day free trial is available here

Cheers

This post has been edited by rowal5555: 10 August 2006 - 05:45 AM

acklan, on Aug 9 2006, 06:30 AM, said:

Works great for me too.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I'll try these out one-by-one after I take care of a couple other issues and let you all know what I think. I'll probably even create a lengthy post describing what each does and doesn't do so that others can make an informed decision.

Orange Blossom

I use VoptXP for my defrag needs. It provides for defragging the pagefile and MFT. It is payware.

The downside is, that when I uninstalled the trial edition, it hosed all my startups. After fixing them manually, I emailed the folks there - and they said they had a fix for it!

I've decided on my defragmenter: Diskeeper 10 full version, which is payware unfortunately.

Reasons: I like to have manual control, and additionally I wanted something that will defragment the pagefile and masterfile and this one can because I can schedule a "boot-up" defragment. My masterfile did indeed get smaller, and I saw perhaps a 10% decrease in the masterfile usage (which is not the file size, but the amount of the file in use). I can set Diskeeper 10 to automatically scan if I want. It also provides lots of information about which files are most heavily fragmented, history, graphs, job history and so forth. There are some other reasons which will be come clear below.

I'm going to write some of my findings and experiences with the defragmenters I tried so that others may make their choices based on what they want.
---------
Diskeeper lite and Diskeeper 10 are both more robust versions of the defragmenter that comes with Windows. Both will replace the Windows version with their own in the Control Panel. Both also place a convenient icon on the desktop.

Diskeeper lite: manual control only. Seems to be lighter on computer resources than the one that came with Windows - my drive makes less noise than the Windows version when I use it - and it is free. Boot-up defrag is not available on the lite version, and the user does have to put up with ads suggesting an upgrade to the full version.

Ashampoo Magical Defragmenter: Of the payware versions I tried, this one was the least expensive. This one is automatic only. It runs in the background, but will 'snooze' if the user is using resource heavy programs or if nothing needs to be defragmented. When defragmenting, the little window that you can call up shows a pencil on a grid moving around. When it's 'snoozing' the pencil is motionless in the middle with zzz's coming out of the eraser. I thought, cute and if someone wants a completely automatic defragmenter, this may be just what they are looking for. The windows defragmenter, incidentally, is still available if this one is installed.

However, I discovered a disconcerting problem. I have dial-up connection and only one phone-line. It quite likely that if this were not the case, I would not have discovered this. I needed to make an important phone call, so I went to where the internet connection icon lives in my system tray when I'm connected. The icon was gone. I thought, okay, it disconnected - but it seemed strange as I get the connection window when this happens so I can log back in and reconnect, and this did not happen. I tried to open the connection again. No luck. I picked up the phone and I heard the distinctive sound that told me my computer was connected to the internet. I unhid all system tray icons - no dial-up connection icon. I went to internet connections in control panel and both my ISP dial-up connections said they were disconnected. In order to disconnect, I had to physically unplug my modem from the phone line. Then the disconnect window came up. When I connected again later, the same thing happened. No active connection icon, and I had to disconnect by removing the modem from the phone line. I uninstalled and deleted this program. The problem persisted. I actually had to do a system restore to a time prior to installing this program. I am absolutely certain that Ashampoo Magical Defragmenter was the culprit. Perhaps some folks might want to investigate to find out just why it seems to intervene with the internet connection or if this just happens with dial-up.

Speedefrag Manual only. From my experience, this one defragments while the computer shuts down. When you run it, you have the option shut down or a restart before it starts to defragment. It is freeware, and it is light on resources. The windows defragmenter is still available if the user wants to use it. I was not able to determine if it defragmented the pagefile or masterfile as I had already defragmented it with Diskeeper 10, but I think not. I believe that is only possible when booting up. It is quite good at defragmenting everything else. It does not provide much in the way of information or statistics and you can't see what it is doing.

VoptXP was the most expensive of the payware I tried. This might be an option for those who have a network or multiple drives to defragment as you can set it up to do just that. It also has a lot of other features that I didn't explore. Some of them replicated functions of other programs I use. It can be run manually or automatically, and you can tell it to skip files or folders. You can set it to run at boot up, so it can defragment the masterfile and pagefile. I found this one hard on my little near-sighted eyes. It has little itty bitty squares representing the space on the drive, and little colored squares move about on this grid while it is defragmenting. There is a key that tells the user what the colors stand for. It's kind of neat to watch if you've the eyes for it.

Alert This program has a mind of its own about where your files belong. It moved my entire directory of saved files: word documents, pictures, screen shots, you name it, from the folder I had specifically created for them into a completely different folder. I just about had a panic attack as some very important documents were not yet backed up, and I didn't see them at all when I went to the folder I keep them in. Fortunately I thought of using search for one of my documents and I found the entire works filed exactly the way I had, but in a completely different location - a system created folder that I never use. It was as if someone decided to empty everything from my file cabinet in my office and put it in the file cabinet in my house without telling me but otherwise keeping the organization of the files the same.

Orange Blossom

Hi,
there is also Auslogics Disk Defrag. This is the scanner I use. Its freeware and works for me.

regards,

Yourhighness