Best Defragmenter?

[hansolo77]

So I decided I'd spend the day today doing some Defragmenting of my Home Server drives. I thought I had it scheduled to do it on a routine, but apparently it's been disabled and hasn't ran in over 3 years! I have been using Raxco's PerfectDisk Server 11. As identified in the name, this program was made/released in 2011. It is now 2015. I looked online to see if there was a newer version, and there is. However, the latest version is only 13, which makes me think they've not come up with anything new in 2 years. I could be reading it wrong though. I checked some other sites I typically visit for software news, and true enough, the most popular site I go to (download.com) hasn't had any news about a new version since 2012 when I do a search. I'm OK with buying the version 13, but before I do, I thought I'd ask the family here what they use. Is there a good alternative to PerfectDisk that would be ideally used in a server environment (ie; multiple drives [in my case 13], sequential drive defragging [not all at once], ability to schedule routines, offline [before Windows boots] modes, etc)? My Dad likes something called OODefrag? but I'm sure. I've heard of Defraggler (I think it was advertised with CCleaner is why I know of it) but I'm looking for something more robust. Any ideas?

[tthurman]

I've used O&O Defrag a good bit, and had no problems with it.

Defraggler is made by Piriform, so yeah same parent company as CCleaner. Also have had no problems with it either.

I/O bit makes smartdefrag which I've also had no problems with.

These are just the ones I've ran in recent years, and all in all I can't say that I see a huge advantage in one over the other. Maybe O&O, but that may be because I paid for it, but I wouldn't consider it to be a game changer amount of difference though. Most likely I've ran the IOBit one the most, in both the stand alone, and their entire utility suite (which gets to bloaty for my liking)

IMO any of them are better than the older windows versions, but honestly I haven't even bothered with third party ones since Windows 7, and I can't tell any performance hit, but it is ran more routinely.nowdays too.

FWIW, I always did the deep optimize, total defrag, whatever each respective company refered to it as for their best defrag routine (aka the longest time eater) the first time, and about every month or so after that.

[hansolo77]

Yeah I'm the same way. PerfectDisk has their trademarked "SMARTPlacement", which puts files more frequently used together. Then they have the more classic "Consolidate Free Space" which puts everything as tight as it can at the beginning of the drive to give you larger free chunks, and they have just a plain "Defragment" which simply defragments the files, but doesn't move them around on the drive. I typically do the SMARTPlacement, and had it scheduled to run every 2 weeks at midnight on each drive sequentially. Then I also had it set to do an Offline mode (system reboots and does the work on page files, etc) every month. I don't know why they were both disabled, and I never thought to check until today, when I realized it said last time ran was 2012 lol.

[DazzleHP]

I was going to mention SmartDefrag too but then i see Todd mentioned it already There is a standalone version which is completely free. I've used it for many years but can't honestly say how well it will perform in a server situation as i've not tested it. But when it comes to defragging individual drives it is pretty darn good. You can choose from different "levels" of defrag, for instance the basic, which will just make sure all chunks of relevant data are next to each other, to "deep defrag" which will do the same, but take frequencies into account such as how often something is used and for how long. It will then move your more popular programs/material towards the front of the disk, hence faster load/access. It's pretty cool.

[Adultery]

Defraggler here fwiw.

[Draco1962]

Just a cautionary note if you have an SSD - don't defrag it unless you want to kill it. Reserve defraggin only for the standard HDDs.

[tthurman]

Good idea to mention that!

Auslogics is another I've used extensively, that I had forgot about.

I went through a period where I was obsessed with defragmenting and machine optimization, but I've since gotten past that!

[DazzleHP]

I went through a period where I was obsessed with defragmenting and machine optimization, but I've since gotten past that!

Me too but i think that was mainly coz i used XP for a long long time and it was almost essential to do such things. With recent versions of Windows though you can keep things running pretty smooth with general maintenance and common sense

[hansolo77]

I've not had any issues, I just wanted to give my server a fresh spring cleaning.. ya know? I went ahead and grabbed the latest version of PerfectDisk Home Server, since I already know how it operates and never had any problems with it. Thanks for the tips and suggestions though guys.

If anything, I bet I got a few of you to consider doing your own defragmenting now.

[Draco1962]

Actually reminded me that I needed to download and install Samsung Magician for optimizing and trimming my SSD.

[ExedExes]

For a paid solution, I've been using Perfect Disk 13 for about a year. LOVE IT. The Smart Placement/OptiWrite stop fragments from even making it on to the drive. I have it set to defrag once a week and it takes less than 10 minutes to do this 750GB drive.

For a free defrag, Defraggler is great, from the same company as CCleaner. It has quick and regular defrag options.

The Windows defrag USED to be good.

[hansolo77]

+1 for Perfect Disk. I'm kinda buggered about it's default defrag method for my drives though. When I installed it, the default was my C drive to use SMARTPlacement, and all the 13 other drives use "Consolidate Free Space". I know you can change the default. But if the program thinks that's the one it should use, I'll use it. The problem is, I've never used that method before, and it took 15 hours to do ONE drive, let alone 13. I cancelled it for the others. I think my problem though is because I have a lot of TV Shows and Movies, and hour long MP3's that take up huge chunks of space that it has trouble moving around on the disks quickly.

To EE (since you use it ) do you think I should leave it as is, or change it to the SMARTPlacement mode?

[ExedExes]

This is my setup. On my system volume (C:), I had it set to SMARTPlacement. That was the default setting. The other partition (Recovery) was set to Consolidate Free Space by default, probably because it doesn't get accessed unless a backup/restore is needed. I would keep your main volume set to SMARTPlacement, it will make your schedule defrag faster. *see attached file at bottom*

Also make sure OptiWrite is enabled; in about a year it prevented over 6.5 million fragments on my drive according to its counter; imagine the life extension this drive is getting!

That's under your Global Settings > StealthPatrol -

You'll also need to make sure C: also has OptiWrite on under the StealthPatrol tab -

Finally, give it a Boot Time Defrag every couple of weeks. That defrags your system files as well as the pagefile, improving startup times.

[hansolo77]

Thanks for the tips. I'll doublecheck my settings but I'm pretty sure that's how I'm already set up.

[brienj]

If you have NTFS drives and Windows 7, use the built in one on a schedule. Works great on my system.

If you have an older version of Windows or don't use NTFS, then you might want to use an aftermarket one.

[tthurman]

If you have NTFS drives and Windows 7, use the built in one on a schedule. Works great on my system.

If you have an older version of Windows or don't use NTFS, then you might want to use an aftermarket one.

I do this as well, and while I've been satisfied with the results, I have to think some of the aftermarket utilities could easily be superior, even on NTFS. MSE proves that MS has a history of putting out less than stellar freebies, but instead the "something's better than nothing" type mentality. Much of what they release is tailored to the masses, and not the enthusiast crowd, IMO.

[hansolo77]

Hey Exed...

I've noticed a few times when I go in through RDP on my server and open up PerfectDisk, it's showing an optimization as Paused. Any idea why they would Pause instead of finishing it's task? I think it might have something to do with the settings, but I'm not sure I understand.

I think it's this screen that needs "tweaked". These are the default settings. Should I change the first box, so it will run when the Kernel is using more CPU? My thinking is that if the CPU hits a usage higher than the default 40%, it stops it's tasks (since it's setup to run only when idle). Would changing that make the program work under higher stress? I'm also assuming that "User Mode" means when I have the PerfectDisk program open, rather than just the system files running in the background. Is this correct?

Also, my StealthPatrol tab doesn't have the MODE Switch. I'm wondering if there is a setting somewhere I have disabled, or not properly configured. It could be just because I have the Home Server version, where you're using Business.

[ExedExes]

Yes, the reason that the defragmentation pauses is because your system is reaching those pre-defined thresholds, since the program is designed to use as few resources as possible during its work. I would try to change those numbers if your system can handle it.

User mode and Kernel mode are two different kinds of CPU load procedures, it has nothing to do if you're using it or not.

Also, all your drives have the OptiWrite switch to on, so they should be good to go.

I'm using the regular PerfectDisc 13, nothing special or no special version.