Many of you are probably sitting in front of a computer that has the amazing CCleaner application (review) installed. It helps keep your computer free from clutter by deleting unimportant files and cleaning up the registry, which is especially useful after uninstalling a program.
The same people who brought you CCleaner have also thrown down the gauntlet on defragmenting. Defraggler Beta is a free app that, as expected, will defragment the files on your computer. It’s unique in that it lets you specify individual files to defragment, which are displayed in a list with the most fragmented first. By using this method you can get the most out of the defragmentation in as little time as possible.
One of the more interesting things is clicking on the filename listed at the bottom of the window. Doing so will highlight the fragmented blocks that correspond to that file on your hard drive, and you’ll probably find it interesting to see how spaced out specific files are.
Defraggler does require a quick installation, but after that you can grab the single executable file located in the Program Files folder and throw it on your USB drive. Everything is contained in that one file to promote portability, just like CCleaner! It supports 32-bit versions of Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista, and can handle both NTFS and FAT32 formatted drives.
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Tags: Freeware, Pre-Release, Software, Applications, Beta, Reviews, Screenshots
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Not bad, it’s fairly quick and very simple to use. In the future I would like to be able to schedule when the drive should be defragged or should I say “defraggled”
I’ve been using Defraggler for quite some time now. I came across it when I had to download a fresh copy of CCleaner. Since then Defraggling is the way to do!
I have another laptop which is my work machine – read as pretty straight forward installs with non-OS software –
– and I have all my fav bits sitting/tethered off of a WD Passport 140gb. When I cam e across this post on my RSS feed, I decided to install it as you suggested on my Passport. However, I installed it directly on my Passport ‘Portable Apps’ folder and it works like magic!!
Now, if you’ll excuse me I got me some Defraggling to take care of on this ’straight-laced’ machine!
And for the command line junkies there’s always Sysinternal’s Contig, blazing fast.
I use Defraggler after CCleaner once a week (no schedule) since some months-for CC at least- Both are handy and your article’s well done and attractive for those who don’t know Piriform free products. A big thank to this team.
That would be a really nice option. I wouldn’t think that it would be so difficult to add, but it would be tremendously helpful to the users.
Glad I gave you that idea!
They definitely make some amazing software, and I hope they keep pumping it out.
It seems they are not on the way to become paying, so I hope too!
I don’t think so. They are well respected by the software community for providing free quality apps, and I don’t think they would turn to paid software and tarnish that reputation. I have noticed that they do bundle things like the Yahoo! toolbar with their programs though, so they probably make money off of that.
I’ve been using it with Vista for a while and I’ve been pretty happy with it although I haven’t noticed any speed improvements in my computer after Defragging.. I did a test defrag recently on my internal 250Gb D: Drive – Defraggler reported my drive as defragmented in 20 minutes, pretty impressive even though it still showed a large amount of nasty red squares.
I then used Vistas built in defrag program on the same drive and that continued for over one and a half hours! So my question is, if Defraggler did such an excellent and rapid job, what was windows defrag doing for all that time? Is Vista slower but far more thourough, is Defraggler actually doing what it’s reporting?
Fragmentation is a continuously occuring phenomenon, and if allowed to build up unchecked, it can degrade performance. So, the best solution is an automatic background defragmenter i.e one that can continuously put down fragmentation as it rises, unlike a manual/ scheduled defragmenter that leaves the field open to fragmentation in between runs.
The manual/scheduled defragmenters also tend to be resource hogs and you cannot use the PC when they are running, while good auto defraggers have I/O sensing and utilize only idle resources. The latest auto defraggers can also defragment with less than 5% free space, so really, there is no reason anymore to waste time on manual/scheduled defraggers.