iDefrag for Mac

Powerful and flexible, iDefrag for Mac helps you get the most out of your hard drives by featuring five separate defragmentation algorithms for different levels of fragmentation, each designed to minimize the risk of data loss. It's a potent app, but to enjoy its features you have to invest in the premium version; the trial edition comes with big limitations.

After a speedy installation, iDefrag for Mac informs you that the demo version allows you to tweak settings -- but not to defragment your hard drive. You begin by selecting the disk to be analyzed and, once you provide the administrator password, the analysis starts. The duration of the disk analysis varies greatly depending on the size of the drive and its speed, but in our tests we were able to complete an analysis of a 150GB hard drive in approximately 70 seconds. When it comes to the defragmentation, itself, you can choose between five algorithms, which increase in complexity and thus completion time. All of them provide better performance afterward. A nice touch is the option to receive an e-mail notification once the defragmentation is finished.

If you want to get the best out of your hard drives, you will appreciate iDefrag for Mac. While it does come with a price tag, its powerful algorithms and pleasant interface make it worthwhile. This is definitely one of the better hard disk management tools currently available for Mac OS X.

Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of iDefrag for Mac 2.2.6.