Software → What is the best defrag program?

Hello all,
Shopping for a defrag program and wanted some input.

1. What do you think is the best defrag program for windows (XP Pro/Home)?

2. What features and reasons make the program the best in your mind?

Thanks,
J

Hi, cavileer:

Have a look at this thread:

»DiskKeeper?

HtH

Prefect Disk 6 just came out and it's the best. I always used Norton Speed Disk but didn't like it for XP so I tried Diskeeper and it worked. I had used a earlier version on NT 4. Some one turned me on to prefect Disk and I'm not looking back.

PerfectDisk is the best for WinNT.

Thanks, i'll check out perfect disk...anybody hear of "O&O Defrag" If so what are your thoughts on it?

Thanks,
J
[text was edited by author 2003-07-06 19:45:32]

I tryed o&o defrag a while ago and found it really slow, but it does give you allot of options like defragging files and putting them is alphabetical order. I also vote for Perfect disk 6.0, more thorough than Diskeeper.

I tried Perfect Disk on my W98SE box and I had the trial version. During the ENTIRE TIME I had the trial, Perfect Disk refused to run. It kept saying that my disk was not fragmented enough to need for it to run. I thought that very strange because I have Diskeeper7 (decided to try Perfect Disk because of comments here) and it schedules runs frequently. I also have Diskeeper Lite and during the time I was trialing Perfect Disk, I was not also using Diskeeper7 which I had uninstalled. I had not done any defragging for about a month when I began the Perfect Disk trial. After Perfect Disk kept telling me that I needed no defrag(!), I fired up Diskeeper Lite and it reported moderate fragmentation and said I needed to defrag. I could see the fragmentation on the chart. Perfect Disk reported NO change in fragmentation during the entire trial. I never once got to use Perfect Disk before the trial period expired. Where Perfect Disk was insisting I had almost no fragmentation when I went to PCPitstop, my score there was severely reduced due to the amount of fragmentation found. So, I am not impressed with Perfect Disk!

I recommend Diskeeper 7 for XP and Diskeeper Lite for W98SE. Diskeeper Home edition won the Editors Choice and the 5 star award from PC Magazine June, 2003.

edited for typo.

Another vote for PerfectDisk! Norton Speed Disk works much the same, But PerfectDisk is the best for a modern OS like XP. Been using it with XP Home for a couple months now. Before that it was Norton SpeedDisk, I used it for years, Also a Very good program. Diskkeeper is the default Windows XP Defrag utility, If you want to use that. Hardly worth buying if it's built in though.
»www.raxco.com/products/p ··· tdisk2k/

[text was edited by author 2003-07-07 02:53:13]

said by Mele20:

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I tried Perfect Disk on my W98SE box and I had the trial version. >

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Perfect Disk Is mainly for WINNT OS, NTFS, 2000/XP.

Hmmm...Raxco claims that it works on W98 and ME. So are they lying?

Can't see why you guys would recommend a product that doesn't even have phone support and that has testimonals in order to get people to use it! Diskkeeper was awarded two major awards from PC magazine in June and Perfect Disk won nothing.
Diskeeper in its basic form is part of all Windows defrag. Diskeeper and Microsoft work perfectly together. Why use a product foreign to the OS when there is a much better product?

I use Diskeeper 7 It is rock solid on xp and 100 times better than the diskeeper that is on xp by default.

said by Mele20:

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Hmmm...Raxco claims that it works on W98 and ME. So are they lying?

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No it works with 98/ME. You said that yourself. It just works better with NTFS. Most if not all defrag programs made for 98/ME won't even run on a NTFS file sys. I no for a fact Norton 2000 speeddisk won't. Also in your OP you say I run DK 7 on XP and DK-L on 98, so you have to have 2 defrag programs, 1 for NTFS and 1 for FAT32.

Hi

I like Raxco Perfect Disk. I used it effectively on WinME and more recently on XP Home Edition. It does a good job as far as I am concerned.

Regards

Gordon

>They do have phone support. I have called em myself on 2 seperate occasions for info I wanted about their product.

You didn't say you were a business user. Yes, they have phone support for business users. The home edition does not have phone support. I am a home user.

>No it works with 98/ME. You said that yourself. It just works better with NTFS. Most if not all defrag programs made for 98/ME won't even run on a NTFS file sys. I no for a fact Norton 2000 speeddisk won't. Also in your OP you say I run DK 7 on XP and DK-L on 98, so you have to have 2 defrag programs, 1 for NTFS and 1 for FAT32.

I never said it works with 98/ME! What I said was that I had the trial for 30 days and it NEVER would run during the trial. It kept telling me that I had a very small amount of fragmentation and did not need to defrag and there was no way I could force it to run. After about two weeks of it refusing to run, I opened Diskeeper Lite and had it analyze my hard drive. It reported moderate fragmentation and recommended a defrag. I did NOT let it defrag. I wanted to see how long it would be before Perfect Disk would tell me I needed to defrag.

When the 30 day trial with Perfect Disk was up, it STILL had not defragged!! It still claimed that I had such a tiny amount of fragmentation that I did not need a defrag and refused to run. I then went to PCPitstop which gave me my lowest score ever because I had so much fragmentation of the drive! At that point, I again opened Diskeeper Lite and had it analyze my hard drive. It had been two weeks since I had let it analyze and over a month since any defrag. Diskeeper Lite reported more fragmentation than it did at the two week point. Because Perfect Disk trial was over and it had never run, I allowed Diskeeper Lite to defrag the drive. Took considerably longer than usual because I had gone so long without a defrag.

I don't understand why Perfect Disk would claim that my drive was not fragmented after a month! I am on the computer about 10 hours a day and I believe Perfect Disk has something wrong with it as far as W98/ME systems go. If Perfect Disk is intended only for NT based OSes then it should not claim to work on earlier OSes. What irritates me is that it DOES claim to work on W98/ME but doesn't. I have no objection to software that works only on NT based systems. I do object though to having my time wasted trying a program, for 30 days, that I believe will work on my system because the company claims it will and then it doesn't.

I have no idea what you thought you read, but I NEVER said that I run DK7 on XP! I only have ONE computer and it has W98SE on it. I have 2 defrag programs for one computer on FAT32. Diskeeper Lite is free, but no longer available from the Executive Software site. It is available though if you write the webmaster and ask for a link to it. I like it better for W98SE because it doesn't run in the background which is relevant for W98/ME because of the resource issue and other issues pertinent to these OSes. I did say that when I get a new computer with XP on it, I will use the full Diskeeper 7 as it is optimized for XP and has things on it that cannot be used on W98/ME. (I think you misread and thought I had said I already had XP).

Mele20,
I am also a home user. They were more than happy to help and answer my questions.

I dont work for them or anything. I just think that Perfect disc is a really good defragger and they do have phone support for both buisness and home users.

Also Perfect Disc works great for me on my 98SE partition as well. Its version 4 I believe and versions 5 and up are for XP which I use on my XP Pro partition.

As far as it telling you you can not defrag because its not needed, I aint doubting you but I never heard of such a thing. I am also curious as to why it would tell you that.

I've been using Diskeeper (Lite) for a long time now, and it works great. If I don't defrag for a month or so I can actually notice my boot up times are faster after defragging.

said by hd223:

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I've been using Diskeeper (Lite) for a long time now, and it works great. If I don't defrag for a month or so I can actually notice my boot up times are faster after defragging.

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Yeah the built in Defrag in XP {Diskeeper (Lite)} actually works pretty well.

the built in defrag in xp isn't diskeeper lite its more of a diskeeper lite lite.

>Also Perfect Disc works great for me on my 98SE partition as well. Its version 4 I believe and versions 5 and up are for XP which I use on my XP Pro partition.

>As far as it telling you you can not defrag because its not needed, I aint doubting you but I never heard of such a thing. I am also curious as to why it would tell you that.

Gee! I wish I still had it! Maybe I had it set up wrong, but I don't think so. Maybe this latest version, which I had, doesn't work right on W98 whereas earlier versions do....I don't know.

> I just think that Perfect disc is a really good defragger and they do have phone support for both buisness and home users.

I'm sure it works great for some users. People here recommend it a lot and like it. So, I am even more puzzled about my experience! As for phone support for home users:

Please note that technical support for PerfectDisk Personal Edition is provided by web access only. No telephone support is provided for PerfectDisk Personal Edition.

»www.raxco.com/support/wi ··· ws/pdpe/

So, I assume you have the full/business edition even though you are a home user? I read about each edition and seemed to me that the personal edition was the best choice for W98 users as there is all sorts of "bloat/additional features" on the other editions which might be fine for XP as XP can take all that, but not on W98/ME which cannot handle "bloat" and still run great. I am referring to edition 6.0. Version 4 probably had no bloat. (Just like NAV 2001 was great on W98SE/ME, but NAV 2003 is so bloated on those OSes that I left Symantec...I know, I know...time to get a new computer!)

Stay on topic! They asked about a defragger for XP Home not a defragger for a antique OS or rants, Etc.

[text was edited by author 2003-07-07 21:01:40]

Bobb, there is no need for personal attacks. YOU are the one who is off topic here! As for "ranting", I can't imagine how you could see my comments in such a light. That is absurd. If you want to attack me, you should send an IM not get the thread off track. I did not get this thread off track. If you will note in my first post here, I recommended Diskeeper for XP. I will be using Diskeeper 7 for XP when I do get a new computer. I then commented about my experience, on my current computer, about Perfect Disk. I think those comments are relevant to this discussion because they give insight into how Raxio conducts their business which applies to all OSes. I think that the thread starter would want to know if Raxio offers phone support or not. I commented on that...was that off topic? How? Several posters responded. So, I suppose you are angry at them too for being off topic...or are you just angry at me because I speak up when you make personal attacks here at dslr?

I was unaware that only people who have XP are allowed here to make comments to other XP users.

Diskeeper 7.0 works best for me. I've tried all the others too.

you people are too funny
the topic differs so much from the last post LOL

Disk keeper works well with XP, as does the onboard de-frag that comes with XP. Keep in mind if you load Diskeeper 7 on your XP pc, you will no longer be able to use the onboard XP de-frag utility. It won't be available! Keizer

Diskeeper7 is very good.

But i have had O&O defrag for 1.5 yr and never had any slowups or problems.I dont know about phone support--ive never needed any phone support on any software i have.

You can enable boot-time defrag ,which defrags your paging file,registry files and mft upon reboot.

I also use O&O cleavercashe pro which works very well.This is on an xp-pro system using ntfs.

Now i may try PerfectDisk for a comparison.

I was using Diskeeper, but recently switched over to Perfect disk...Perfect disk takes a little longer but gives better results than diskeeper.

said by Keizer:

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Disk keeper works well with XP, as does the onboard de-frag that comes with XP. Keep in mind if you load Diskeeper 7 on your XP pc, you will no longer be able to use the onboard XP de-frag utility. It won't be available! Keizer

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That's because XP's built in defrag utility is a stripped down version of Diskeeper. Diskeeper 7 replaces it and is launched when you click on XP's defrag icon.

said by RXDOC:

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I was using Diskeeper, but recently switched over to Perfect disk...Perfect disk takes a little longer but gives better results than diskeeper.

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I recently bought PerfectDisk 6. Are there any special settings you use for best results?
Thanks...
howie

[text was edited by author 2003-07-08 10:59:01]