A program for defragmenting an external hard drive. The best programs to defragment your hard drive on Windows
Before choosing the best defragmenter, you should understand the main function it performs. Files that end up on the local disk of the computer are placed quite chaotically. Over time, this can cause the system to operate slowly, since, having accumulated in a large volume, various data will interfere with fast reading. This process is called fragmentation. To correct the situation and organize files, defragmentation is used, which redistributes information, freeing up space and reducing the time the system processes data.
Windows 7 OS is currently a very popular system that has a beautiful design and is more convenient to use than its predecessor. However, it is also susceptible to fragmentation, which makes it very important to consider the question of how to choose the best defragmenter for Windows 7. Considering the main contenders, we can highlight the top five.
The first on the list is Diskeeper, which has proven itself well on Windows XP. It not only copes well with its main task, but also makes the fragmentation process more difficult in the future, which has a positive effect on the speed of the system and its programs. According to many experts, Diskeeper is the best defragmenter for Windows 7. It has one very characteristic feature. Even 1% of free disk space is enough for it to work. In comparison, any other application will need at least 5% of clean space to start functioning.
The disadvantages include low operating speed. In fact, it is the slowest defragmenter. And besides, it only works with entire disks, so it won’t be possible to speed up the work of individual sectors.
The O&O Defrag application from German developers is also familiar from Windows XP. One of the generally recognized leaders in the segment. He has a number of distinctive abilities that allow him to act as efficiently as possible. Compresses system files, MFT areas and Works with any file systems, copes well with very large disks. We can safely say that O&O Defrag and Diskeeper are the best defragmenters.
Among the disadvantages of this application, high system load is noted, which makes it difficult to use on weak computers. Very rarely, but still sometimes it freezes during operation and offline defragmentation fails.
The Raxco PerfectDisk defragmenter has proven itself well. It works quite quickly, has several modes and can defragment not only entire disks, but also individual files. The big disadvantage, especially for novice users, is the complex interface.
Ashampoo Magical Defrag. A pretty good defragmenter, but nothing more. It performs its main function better than the standard Windows tool, but it does not stand out in anything special and is much inferior to the applications described above. Unlike the top three, the program is absolutely free.
Auslogics Disk Defrag. This is perhaps the best defragmenter for Windows 7 that you don't have to pay for. You can use both the installed version of the product and the portable one. Demonstrates the speed of the system before and after defragmentation. The disadvantages include the relatively low functionality of the program, especially in comparison with commercial versions, but the high speed and efficiency of operation have allowed it to achieve wide distribution.
Each user must decide for himself which defragmenter is better, since each of them has its own weaknesses and
The hard drive is one of the most important components of a computer, but not all users pay due attention to it. If the processor, video card, RAM and other components fail, they can be replaced quite simply, whereas if the drive breaks down, the computer owner will lose all his data, which obviously no one wants. To avoid hard drive failure, you need to carefully monitor it and defragment it regularly.
What is disk defragmentation
The defragmentation process is very simple and very important, but many people forget about the need for it. It is the organization of files on the hard drive in such a way that the operating system can access them more easily and quickly when requested.
While the hard drive is operating, new information constantly appears on it. The user downloads files from the Internet, installs programs and games, creates new documents and performs a number of other tasks. When information is stored on a hard drive, it occupies a certain number of free clusters on it. At the time of deleting, changing, copying files, the clusters are cleared, but free space is formed between one and another file on the hard drive. Disk defragmentation is necessary to organize the files on the disk so that they follow each other sequentially, and there are no free clusters left between them.
Disk defragmentation on Windows is necessary because:
Some users know about the need to defragment, but do not do it. This is due to the fact that this process is very lengthy, and organizing files on a large storage device can take up to ten hours. At the same time, the procedure time can be significantly reduced; to do this, it is enough to perform it monthly, as recommended by hard drive manufacturers. The more often you defragment, the less data on the drive will have to be moved, and therefore this process will happen faster.
Important: Defragmentation is only necessary on spinning head hard drives, while it is not necessary on SSD drives. The process of defragmenting a solid-state drive will only lead to a reduction in the number of rewrite cycles to it, but will not provide a performance increase.
How to defragment a disk
To defragment a disk, you need to run the corresponding process. The Windows operating system contains a special tool that allows you to defragment your hard drive. Unfortunately, it is not perfect, and in most cases it is more convenient to use third-party utilities. Different programs contain their own algorithms for defragmenting the drive. Below we will give an example of several such applications and tell you how to perform the work of organizing clusters using the system's tools.
Defragmenting a hard drive using Windows
If you're wondering how to defragment a disk in Windows 10 or earlier versions of the operating system, it's quite easy to do. To run the standard defragmentation tool you need to:
Please note that you can also configure “Schedule optimization” in this menu item. When selecting the appropriate item, you must specify the frequency of the process and the hard drive/drives that will be subjected to it. After this, the system will automatically defragment the drive according to the selected schedule.
Hard drive defragmentation programs
There are dozens of applications that allow you to defragment your hard drive. Each of them has its pros and cons. Some are better suited to large hard drives or drives that are installed on servers, while others are good for home use. Below we suggest considering a couple of free programs for defragmenting your hard drive.
The simplest and most convenient application for defragmenting a hard drive on a home computer is Defraggler. The free version of the program, which can be downloaded from the official website of the developers, does not have wide functionality, but it copes with its main task.
The application is officially localized into Russian, and it allows you to defragment not only the entire disk, but also an individual program or folder. The program also provides an option for quick disk defragmentation.
Auslogics Disk Defrag Free is a free version of the application of the same name from Auslogics. You can also download it from the official website of the developers. The application is slightly more functional than Defraggler, and it does not have a Russian language, which makes it more difficult to work with. At the same time, the program has a number of functions that are not available in the official Windows hard drive optimization tool and in the Defraggler application.
Despite the fact that users often prefer to use third-party ones, we recommend using the one built into the Windows 7 and 10 operating system (for Windows XP it is still better to choose an external tool). And there are a number of very significant reasons for this.
1. Saving resources. The built-in defragmenter in Windows does not have additional modules that constantly hang in memory and show us how beautiful they are and what great benefits they bring by showing us hourly lists of files that they defragmented, as third-party products like to do.
2. Unified sorting algorithm, which was chosen by Microsoft (Windows authors). In the absence of comparative tests, it is impossible to understand which file sorting algorithm is better. Therefore, we give preference to the algorithm from Microsoft, since in this case they know better which sorting option is more suitable for their operating system.
3. SSD support. All modern Windows, from 7 to 10, support working with SSDs. The Windows defragmentation program is no exception in this regard - it detects the presence of an SSD drive and automatically skips this drive without defragmenting it. Third-party utilities often claim that SSD defragmentation is necessary and perform some of their own dubious sorting algorithms for this.
4. Scheduled work. The built-in Windows tool can be configured to run automatically. In Windows 7, to do this, you just need to set the day and time to start (you can also configure the computer to automatically turn on for this, and turn off when completed, if you plan such procedures for the night). In Windows 10, everything is even simpler - defragmentation is carried out automatically during system downtime. This happens as part of an optimization process that's built into Windows 10 and starts automatically the moment you step away from your computer.
Previously, defragmenting a hard drive was a completely ordinary procedure, even if it was not clear how to do it. The only thing everyone knew was that it somehow speeds up the computer. In the past, I have written many articles about defragmenting the hard drive, page file, and registry. During the popularity of Windows XP, defragmentation was important and it made significant changes to performance.
Over time, many companies began selling third-party defragmenters that supposedly did the job faster and more thoroughly. Some programs were quite good, but for the most part, they did everything the same as the built-in Windows defragmenters or even worse. Sometimes, after installing a third-party defragmenter, there was no need to be surprised that the computer was running slower than before.
Third party defragmentation procedure
The only time I could really recommend using third-party defragmenters is when your computer is completely loaded with different data stored in different places. For example, if you have four different hard drives installed on your computer, each of which contains different types of data, such as music, videos, operating system files, etc. In this case, third-party programs allow you to defragment each disk in a specific way.
If one drive contains a large number of small files that are frequently used, you can use third-party programs to defragment the drive so that all files are sorted according to the last date they were used or the date they were created. For discs that have huge music and video files that are not frequently used, the disc can be sorted according to folder size or file size.
Optionally, you can also defragment only specific files or folders instead of the entire drive. Obviously, as you can see, only isolated cases bring benefits, and the time and effort spent on this do not lead to serious consequences.
Another case where a third-party defragmenter would be useful is a client whose hard drive was almost full. I needed to use a third party program to move all the data to the beginning of the disk. This helped free up some space and speed up the computer.
The built-in Windows defragmenter is the best
For 99 percent of the people reading this article, Windows' built-in defragmenter is ideal for keeping your hard drive running well.
A group of people went through the trouble of testing various defragmenters such as Defraggler, MyDefrag, etc., and found that in Windows 7 and above, these programs do not speed up reading and writing data on the hard drive by a noticeable amount.
This is because modern hard drives are much larger and thus have more free space. Because of the extra space, Windows does not fragment files in large quantities.
In addition to large hard drives, modern computers and hard drives allow you to access data much faster than before. Thus, if your hard drive is partially fragmented, you will not feel much difference in the speed of data access. Only if your hard drive is highly fragmented will you see some slowdowns, but this is almost impossible to track due to Windows' built-in defragmenters.
In Windows 7 it is called Disk Defragmenter, and in Windows 8 and above it is now called Optimize Drives. By default, it automatically runs this program once a week, trying to keep your disk close to 0% fragmentation.
Solid State Drive (SSD) does not need to be defragmented
The days of automatic defragmentation are gone thanks to the SSD (Solid State Drive). This type of drive does not read or write data like a traditional hard drive and does not need to be defragmented. Apparently Windows automatically disables disk defragmentation on SSDs because defragmentation wears out the drive.
If you are looking for a performance boost when data is read and written, you need to purchase an SSD. Even the cheapest and slowest SSD is much faster than a traditional hard drive.
My Windows 7 computer took over 40 seconds to boot up and now takes less than 5 seconds after I upgraded my 7200 rpm hard drive to a 256GB Samsung SSD. SSDs are usually smaller in size due to their higher price, but just loading an operating system on an SSD can make a big difference, even if you store all other data on a separate, slow hard drive.
Conclusion
I hope that everything I said above is clear, but if not, then I will summarize what I said. If you're using Windows XP on an old computer, you really need to upgrade. If you are deprived of this opportunity, then manually enable the built-in defragmentation. If you're using Windows Vista or higher, you don't need to upgrade anything, since Windows will automatically defragment any traditional hard drive and eliminate SSD defragmentation.
If you are a tech freak and want to squeeze the last drop out of your computer, then install a decent third-party defragmenter and set the settings accordingly. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy your already optimized hard drive. Another way to improve your computer's speed is to uninstall unused or unlicensed software.
