Free automatic hard drive defrag programme wanted.

cirrus18

Free automatic hard drive defrag programme wanted.

Can anybody please recommend a good Free! hard drive defrag programme which will run in the background monitoring the state of the hard drive and automatically keep it defragmented.
Many thanks in anticipation.

nullogik

You could try O&O Defrag 2000 which is Freeware:
http://www.filehippo.com/download_oo_defrag/

I think Diskeeper used to do a "lite" version but its been discontinued. If you look hard enough, it still exists on various websites around the net, like this one:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1207

sra

http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/

Bit of a text-heavy site but a very good program.
I tend to defragment myself when I feel the need, but if I was going to have anything automatic I'd probably use the screensaver option in JkDefrag so that it was only running when I was not using the computer (You just do as it says - put JkDefragScreenSaver.scr and JkDefragScreenSaver.exe in the right folder and select it as your screensaver)

Debt_Free_Chick

Diskeeper Lite still seems to be available as Freeware - but check it's not simply a free 30 day trial.

Edit: sorry, same link as nullogik

albertross_2

defragging is overrated. Doing it once every few months manually is sufficient for most people.

wolfman

albertross wrote: »

defragging is overrated. Doing it once every few months manually is sufficient for most people.

Depends upon the file system you're using and how often data is being changed/moved.

Let's hope it's not FAT32

NTFS isn't so bad, it depends upon how often there are changes. It does suffer from fragmentation, but you shouldn't see a huge drop in performance.

And if you're using EXT3 you shouldn't ever have to bother unless you're very low on disk space

nullogik

I always do a defrag after uninstalling a program or after installing a new one - it really makes a heck of a difference to performance.

I run Diskeeper manually about once a month

coldron

wolfman wrote: »

Depends upon the file system you're using and how often data is being changed/moved.


NTFS isn't so bad, it depends upon how often there are changes. It does suffer from fragmentation, but you shouldn't see a huge drop in performance.

I agree, even NTFS systems arent immune to it. And i have to add that fragmentation is so consistent for some users that the performance is definitely hit. On our workstations we have such high levels of fragmentation to cause problems like system hangs and crashes. The most irritating problem is the lag in launching programs. One definitely misses the fluent activity that the system exhibited when it was brand new.