Most users agree that the disk defragmentation software that ships with Microsoft Windows PCs is not the best piece of computer software to defragment a computer system efficiently. Probably the main point of criticism centers around speed but there are others that weight in as well especially where functionality is concerned. That’s the main reason why so many software developers have created their own disk defragmenting software for the Windows operating system. A quick search on the Internet reveals dozens of these software programs.
We covered our share of defragmenting tools in the past including the popular Defraggler, Ultimate Defrag, Joshua’s overview of defragmentation tools but also specialized programs like Page Defrag, Registry Defrag or Source Engine games defrag.
Ultra Defrag is another disk defragmenting software for the Windows operating system. The program is Open Source and supports both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Microsoft Windows operating systems. Some of its key features is the speedy defragmentation process and the low resource usage while running the process. It comes with an installer or as a portable version and can be run from a graphical user interface or the command line.
The defragmentation software can defrag entire system partitions or single directories and files if it is added to the Windows context menu during installation. The command line version of the disk defragmenting software comes with several advanced options like excluding files from the defragmentation process. Users can also launch Ultra Defrag during system boot to be able to defragment the system files that are locked when Windows is running.
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Why did you not put up the link for Ultra Defrag 3.1 http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/ ?
Dont work on my Windows 7 x64 as it needs to install a unsigned (!) driver -on the portable version, too!
System wide, effective defragmentation of windows systems involves more than an effective defrag tool. Personally, for XP, I first disable system restore, paging, and set recylcler to 0 and reboot. I then defrag and then set page file back to a fixed size at least double the physical RAM. I then restore system restore and recycler settings.
Just my .02
mule
I use jkdefrag and am thoroughly impressed with it. Even if you don’t use it the website is a wonderful resource to learn about the defragmentation process.
Given that most defrag tools are built using the Windows defrag engine you might want to bare in mind that the only way to defrag faster for those tools is likely to be by lowering the bar in the quality the of the defragmentation.
Look at JKdefrag, they openly use Windows defrag engine but because they raise the quality bar it’s often actually slower than Windows.
@Womble Yes jkdefrag is slower than many other defraggers in the initial defrag but there is usually a noticeable increase in speed from the second time onwards. It is rare that defragging takes me more than 10 mins.
I agree, im a big fan of Jkdefrag
Another vote for JKDefrag! Great program and does a very good job, also agree that it speeds up after the first run. My vista 64bit pc did not like it though. The program ran fine but caused vista to boot really slow and I don’t think system restore liked the files being moved around. My hard drive space went down big time after running it, which i think was something to do with system restore.
I use JKDefrag also. I run it 3 times a week while I am sleeping.
The only real deficiency in the program is that it does not defrag the MFT area. Do any of these other free utilities do this?
Nope, none of the free utilities defrag the MFT as far as I am aware. I don’t find them much of an improvement over the default Windows defragger.
I use Diskeeper 2009 Pro, and it does defrag the MFT, and does so even when running in automatic mode. It’s set and forget- install and configure it and there is nothing more to do..Diskeeper defrags in the background automatically as necessary. Ofcourse, it’s not free, but I find the auto defrag plus its other powerful features very useful for the 5 drives in my XP desktop.