This is not a comparative overview, nor do I claim any kind of completeness. This is just a quick overview to show that there is plenty of choice, including free trials, free software and even fully open software.
Windows 2000 and later include a free defragmentation utility. This is actually a light edition of an old version of Diskeeper, essentially Diskeeper Lite.
You may already have another disk defragmenter included in some suite of tools.
Norton Speed Disk was originally part of the Norton Utilities and is now sold as part of Norton SystemWorks. Despite its name, Norton Speed Disk is not a speed monster.
JETdefrag is included in the Fix-It Utilities. It does not use the Windows defragmentation API, yet is slower than programs that do.
Executive Software offers several editions of its Diskeeper product,
including a Home Edition. None of these editions is free, but you can download a
30-day trial of their full product after providing a few personal details.
I know from personal experience with almost every version that Diskeeper
performs poorly when there is not much free space left, and not good at
consolidating free space either, but it is one of the few programs able to
defragment the Master File Table.
Total Defrag’s distribution on a bootable CD is no gimmick. It is is low-level disk defragmenter and probably the only defragger that can not just defragment the Master File Table, but even shrink it after doing so. You can download a 30-day trial without providing any detail.
O&O Defrag by O&O Software is another well-known product. There are several editions, but none of the editions free. There is special pricing for education, government, and non-profits. You can download a 30-day trial of O&O Defrag Professional Edition after providing a few personal details.
An attractive feature is the defrag screen saver; a defragger that can be installed as your screen saver. A limitation is that it gives up defragmenting when there isn’t enough free space.
Raxco PerfectDisk is available in several different editions, including
editions specifically designed for VMware Workstation and Server and Microsoft
Exchange.
None of these editions is free. You can download a 30-day trial of any edition
after providing a few personal details.
PerfectDisk can perform useful boot-time defragmentation, but PerfectDisk
most likeable feature is that it tries to complete disk defragmentation in a
single pass instead of requiring you to run it and again to obtain best results.
UltimateDefrag is a commercial product of DiskTrix. UltimateDefrag is not free, but you can request 14-day by providing some personal details. The trial, about 2,5 MB, will be emailed to you.
mst Defrag is a commercial product of mst (maintenance security tuning) software. It is available in several editions. There is a Home Edition, but it is not free. You can download a free trial without having to provide any details.
Ashampoo Magical Defrag automatically starts when your computer is idling, and stops as soon as you start using your computer again. Magical Defrag is not free, but Ashampoo does offer a free trial.
Puran Defrag is a commercial product of Puran Software. This commercial defragmenter has only one edition. Puran Defrag is not free, but a 30-day trail can be download without having to provide any details.
Vopt started as defragmentation for MS-DOS, and Golden Bow is still offering a version that will defragment under Windows 95, 98 and ME. The most recent version is for Windows 200 and later, including Vista. Vopt is no free, but you can download a free 30-day trial without providing any personal details.
Winternals Defrag Manager was a defrag product by Winternals. After Microsoft bought Winternals, Defrag Manager was withdrawn from the market.
Diskeeper Lite is a free light edition of Executive Software Diskeeper. This was a very popular tool for some time, but Executive Software has discontinued it, probably because Windows XP already includes Windows Defrag. You can still pick up it from various download sites.
No, this is not a mistake. The current version Ultimate Defrag is not free, but the previous version is. The current version is 2.0. Since 2008 May 8 version 1.72 is a free download.
The Winternals Contig utility continues to be available as a free download. Contig is a command-line utility for defragmenting a single file. Power Defragmenter GUI is a free graphic user interface for Contig by Excessive Software.
Another free Winternals tool that can now be found on the Microsoft site is PageDefrag, which will defragment paging files and the registry.
Auslogic Disk Defrag has a nice feature more disk defragmenters should have; it removes temporary files from your TEMP directories. That both avoids defragmenting them and frees up additional disk space to defragment the rest of the files.
The current version still lacks free space consolidation. Auslogic will not combine small blocks of free space into a large block. It may issue a "free space not found" error, because it can only defragment files that are smaller than the largest block of free hard disk space.
Auslogic Disk Defrag runs on Windows 2000 and later, including Windows Vista. It is a free download for both personal and commercial use. Auslogic hopes you will like it enough to buy their BoostSpeed product, but I just have to mention their Registry Defrag as the perfect companion product.
Defraggler is a new defragmentation tool by Piriform, a company best known
for its CCleaner utility. An interesting feature of this defragmentation tool is
that you do not need to defrag an entire hard disk just to defragment a single
file. Instead, Defraggler lets you select a file and defragment it a few
seconds.
It works on FAT32 and NTFS3 drivers. It runs Windows 2000 and later, including
Windows Vista.
Its free for both personal and commercial use.
IObit SmartDefrag is noticeably faster than Windows Defrag. It includes a scheduler and provides real-time defragmentation in the background. These two features that are major selling points of the commercial packages, yet SmartDefrag is completely free.
A complaint about SmartDefrag is that it sets a large part of its windows aside to bombard you with adverts for its products, but I did not experience this trying SmartDefrag version 5 Beta.
Dave Whitney’s Defrag is based on a TechNet article and its accompanying code. It is a command-line utility. That’s not fancy, but it does defragment free space, while Windows Defrag does not. That matters a lot when trying to reduce the size of VHD files used with Virtual PC.
JkDefrag is an open source defrag tool written by Jeroen Kessels. It is a command-line tool, and its home page has links to various third-party GUIs. It features an intelligent defrag screen saver; it will defrag your hard disk, but will not bother when you just did a defrag, and then simply run another screen saver instead.
UltraDefrag is an open source defragmentation tool developed by Dmitri Arkhangelski and Justin Dearing. Its download is just 300 KB. The defragmentation is done inside a kernel-mode driver.
No, no advice. This is just an overview. I will note that all the free programs are pretty small, so you can easily fit all of them on single memory stick.
The Excessive Software website is gone. The broken link has been removed.
Ashampoo broke the link to Ashampoo Magical Defrag. They seem to use version-specific links exclusively now, which are sure to break again. The broken link has been removed.
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.