Disk defragmenters
Defragmenting your hard drives is one of those computer maintenance chores that has to be done now and then. In Windows Vista and 7, defragging is pretty much automatic with a default setting that runs the built-in Windows utility once a week in the background. Thus, most home PC users with Vista/7 no longer need to concern themselves with this task.
However, in Windows XP defragging has to be run by the PC user. A schedule can be set up but it requires a script and only power users are likely to do things that way. Defragging doesn’t have to be done all that often by the average PC user but the Windows native defragger is slow and some may wish for a faster and better utility. There are both commercial and free applications available. TechSupportAlert has a list of “Gizmo” Richards’ selection of the best free defraggers. His pick is MyDefrag and this application is also the favorite of others. Also often mentioned by on the Web are Defraggler and Auslogics.
The built-in Windows defragger is sufficient for many but it is very slow and doesn’t defrag everything. If you want something faster and more thorough, any of the freeware mentioned should do a good job. How often you should defrag is a function of your particular system and usage pattern.
I discuss the details of defragging in Windows XP at this link. There is also a Flash tutorial here.
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I changed to Diskeeper when I changed to Vista. I think its far far better than both Vista and the Windows 7 defragger. Diskeeper is really automatic and also defrags under low free space. I have no hassles abt defrag anymore.