How2: Defragment your hard drive

Hard drives, by nature, are one of the slowest components in a computer. Other components in your computer, like the CPU or RAM work much faster because they don't have moving parts. A fragmented hard drive (HD) makes your computers slowest component even slower causing an unnecessary data bottleneck. Wikipedia does a good job delving into HD fragmentation here, and the process of defragmentation here - check it out if you're curious about all the dirty details including fun terms like file slack, slack space, and other geekish vocabulary.

For the purposes of this post I'll try to distill things down to what you need to know. Again, simply put, a fragmented HD is a slow HD. Much like a mechanic can "hear" engine trouble, a computer technician can often "hear" a fragmented drive as it churns away, trying to access the data from several different spots on the drive. If your HD has started making audible grinding/churning noises lately, there's a good chance that it's fragmented.

If your computer is running slow, and you suspect fragmentation might be part of the problem, there's hope! There are numerous programs available that help you defragment your HD quickly* and easily. Some are even free!

*"quickly" is somewhat relative, and directly related to the size of your drive and the severity of the fragmentation. An average size drive can take anywhere from hours to days to defragment, so plan accordingly (run the defragmenting program at night or over a weekend, don't start it bright and early 8am on a Monday morning and expect to have your computer back by 9am).

Also, before you defragment, it's a good idea to cleanup the HD by deleting old or unneeded files to help free up space. If your drive is completely full, you won't even be able to defragment it. Most defragmenting programs require 5-10% free space. If you have a 40 gig drive, make sure you have (at least) 2-4 gigs of free space before you try to defragment. Having free space available will also help keep the drive running fast once it's defragmented. A full drive, even if it's defragmented, will run slowly compared to a drive with a bit of free space available.

Now, on to the software. Note* You'll notice that I don't recommend Windows Disk Defragmenter (Windows built-in tool for defragmenting). That's because it's hideously slow and you can't use some programs while it's running. However, once you've defragmented using one of the tools below, you could perform a defragment using Windows Disk Defragmenter to ensure that your system is completely optimized. Using Windows Disk Defragmenter after you've already defragmented will allow the program to run much faster than it would without defragmenting first. Sounds silly, I know.

Free tools:

Defraggler

I'm usually a proponent of free tools, when then work. I've numerous posts on good free tools, including a recent one on free anti-virus options here. For defragmenting I recently discovered Defraggler.

Defraggler is great because it's simple to install and run, and it defragments faster than any other program I've used (and I've used a few over the years). Another nice feature of Defraggler is that it can defragment entire drives, or individual files. Also, I can run Defraggler on my system while working on other tasks and it doesn't slow my system down like other programs I've used. One drawback is the fact that you can't set Defraggler to scan and defragment automatically, which is a nice feature available in other defragmenting programs. It also ins't as full-featured as other defragmenting tools. But if you're looking for a simple, effective solution, Defraggler is your best bet.

Other free tools include:

1. Auslogics Disk Defrag
2. PageDefrag is used to defrag your page file, registry, and other Windows system files that many defragmenting tools, including Windows Disk Defragmenter, arent able to defrag (because they are in use while Windows is running). PageDefrag runs during a reboot cycle before Windows loads.
3. JkDefrag - defrags and "optomizes" by putting larger files (like media files) in the slower parts of the drive, and putting system files like directories essential for system performance in the faster part of the drive. JkDefrag has lots of custom options for an advanced user to play with.
   
4. Contig - a command line defrag utility
   

Non-Free (but good) tools:

1. PerfectDisk - I'ts not free, but it does a very good job. And you can schedule it to defrag regularly, including during reboots. I originally downloaded the trial version of PerfectDisk 8 because my HD had issues that Windows Disk Defragmenter kept choking on. I was so impressed by how well the program worked that I purchased it. I continued to use PerfectDisk 8 regularly until I discovered Defraggler. Now I use Defraggler regularly (because it's fast and easy) and I use PerfectDisk 8 occasionally to catch anything Degraggler might have missed.
   
2. O&O Defrag - This program consistently popped up as a good professional solution during my research on this topic. It may be worth looking into depending on your setup.
   

In closing, there's a really great article that covers this topic in much greater detail. It's called The Great Defrag Shoutout. It's extremely comprehensive and the author lists his top picks (JkDefrag and PerfectDisk) at the end.

Be sure to check out the rest of Quick fixes for a slow Windows PC.