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One of the remedies I often recommend for a sluggish system is to defrag the hard drive. For those unfamiliar with the term, defragging involves reorganizing your hard disk by placing files closer together so your operating system can find them more quickly. Your Windows operating system comes with a disk defrag utility of its own, but anyone who has ever used it knows it takes an unbearably long time to do the job. Fortunately there are excellent free defrag utilities you can download to make your system run better immediately.
An intuitive interface makes it easy for anyone to defrag a hard drive.
(Credit: CNET Networks)One of my most recommended free defrag apps is Auslogics Disk Defrag, but another program which was recently released might be even better. IOBit's Smart Defrag quickly analyzes your hard drive for fragments and sets to work piecing them back together. It can defrag several drives including partitions simultaneously. It can also optimize file locations and free space to get the best performance out of your hard drive, though this process takes a bit longer. The full scan time for my test machine's 75GB hard drive (without optimization) took just over 4 minutes. While Auslogics Disk Defrag runs in about the same amount of time, it's the added options of Smart Defrag that might make it your No. 1 defrag utility.
Hit the scheduling button to set up when you want Smart Defrag to do its dirty work.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Smart Defrag lets you set up a schedule for defragging your hard drive so you'll never forget to run it. You can set it up to defrag at a certain time every day, every week, every two weeks, or at any interval you want. You also can have it defrag your hard drive every time you log in to your system or even have it set to autodefrag when your computer is otherwise idle. While it remains active in your system tray (unlike Auslogics), the footprint is small and doesn't significantly interfere with other processes.
Enable autodefrag to make sure your computer is always running at peak performance.
(Credit: CNET Networks)One option, which seems small but has long been on my wish list for Auslogics Disk Defrag, is the ability to have Smart Defrag shut down my computer when it's finished. My favorite time to turn on a defrag utility on my home gaming machine is right before going to sleep, and with the autoshutdown feature, I don't have to worry about leaving my system running over night.
Smart Defrag is a free program, but the developer asks for donations if you like the software. My guess is, once you try it out, you might think a few bucks is worth your time for this excellent utility.
Hopefully, there aren't too many Windows users left who don't have Auslogics Disk Defrag. In case you don't, though, this is an excellent time to stop using the slow, native Microsoft defragger and upgrade--for free!--to an app that works better and faster: Auslogics Disk Defrag.
Even on older Windows XP systems, the program runs reasonably fast. Chose a hard drive from the drop-down menu to get a read on its stats such as free and used space and get a visual comparison in a pie chart. One click starts the defragging, and along with a visual table representing the various bits and bytes that are being shunted around, you also get a running ticker of the file currently being defragged. Disk Defragger spits out a bar graph and an HTML report at the end, lacking only a final sector map.
Auslogics, publisher of the popular Auslogics Disk Defrag, also makes another defragger: Registry Defrag. Does it actually work? Is it all smoke and mirrors, or does using this free program result in faster clock times?
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Though we have several machines here at Download.com running Windows Vista for testing purposes, I have to admit that I haven't yet made the switch at my workspace. Maybe it's because with Windows XP, I like the way things are set up; I like the look; and I can rest assured that all my favorite downloads are going to work without fail. I'm not saying Vista won't support my programs--and I'm sure I'll make the switch at some point--but for now I'm sticking with XP.
Even though XP is my choice for now, as a major-league software nerd, I still try to find ways to improve upon a good thing. Rather than leaving well-enough alone, I continually search CNET Downloads to see what programs I can find to make my OS run even more smoothly. A few downloads I've come across trim down existing applications, clean out system flaws, and keep the whole XP operating system running at optimal speed.... Read more
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I admit I'm a digital pack rat. I have a directory of images on my local drive devoted to LOLcats. I have gigabytes of FLAC files from live concert recordings and MP3 files from music sites such as CNET Download.com Music.
I'm good at regularly backing up my information to DVD and moving some files permanently to backups, but my 160GB hard drive is usually pushing full capacity. To keep my machine running at a speed I like (and deserve!), I have to perform regular maintenance. While there are lots of ways to optimize your hard drive, my basic method requires only three steps. ... Read more
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