Better than Windows Defragmenter

Back in the old days, when Windows 98 and Windows 2000 were the major Windows systems, when you ran the built in defragging program, it would show you a nice graphic representation and bring the promise of speeding up the operating system.

While, in Windows Vista and in Windows 7, you don’t get those fancy graphics. I’ve experimented with many different alternative defragging solutions. Here are some of my suggestions.

Defraggler

Defraggler, from the same people who make CCleaner, is pretty clever. It anylizes the files on a particular drive and then reports back. You can then select individual files or all of them to defragment which is loads faster than defragmenting the entire drive. While Defraggler isn’t the perfect solution as it doesn’t optimize file position, it is useful for doing a quick defrag after moving some pictures from one location to another or maybe after you word with a legacy word document.

MyDefrag

MyDefrag was formerly known as jkDefrag. jkDefrag never required an install but MyDefrag does which is a bit sad. At the very least, you can defragment an elephant with this. I have it set to run every morning at 5am, just a little dusting. I do a deep cleaning once or twice a month. I have it optimize my server drive too. It really works well. The one tiny problem I find with it is that there are too many choices! I assume Slow Optimize is the deep-defrag, but who knows for sure?

Diskeeper

I once tried a trial version of this Diskeeper. While I had it, I liked it. It automatically would defrag anything by using magical on-the-run defragmenting magic, or so it said. It isn’t free but it is probably the most comprehensive defragmenter I’ve ever used.

What defragmenters do you use? How often do you run your solution?