The best programs to defragment your hard drive on Windows. Overview of hard drive defragmenters

And this article will discuss the best programs for defragmenting your hard drive. All of them are free, and you can easily find them at the office. developers website (links will be provided). Some of them are in Russian, some are in English. But it is very easy to understand the programs, since they have a simple and intuitive interface. And most importantly: it is the same almost everywhere.

All of the utilities below work on Windows 7, 8 and 10, and some also on XP. And you can install them on any computer or laptop running on these OS.

Do you need a fast defragmenter? In this case, Smart Defrag from IObit is best suited. This is one of the fastest utilities for defragmenting a hard drive, and this does not affect the quality of the process itself. And all because the developers managed to create effective scripts that can significantly speed up the execution time of this procedure on large hard drives. Today this is very relevant - especially considering that HDD drives with a capacity of 1 TB and higher are found on almost all computers and laptops.

The main advantages of the Smart Defrag program:

3 modes of hard drive defragmentation - simple, deep, with optimization;
works in the background (does not interfere with your business);
high security of files (if the electricity suddenly goes out, nothing will happen to them);
optimized to work on Windows 7, 8, 10 and XP;
entirely in Russian;
free.

By the way, this utility can be configured so that it automatically defragments the hard drive at the right time. And this is very convenient.

Auslogics Disk Defrag

Another excellent free defragmentation program (in Russian) is Auslogics Disk Defrag. This is also a fairly fast defragmenter, which, moreover, takes up very little space. The impressive speed of this process is ensured by the fact that the utility transfers files to the fastest part of the hard drive - and as a result, this has a positive effect on the operation of the OS itself.

Main advantages:

supports Windows XP, 7, 8 and 10;
works in the background;
can run defragmentation automatically.

By the way, it has a distinctive feature - it can defragment both local drives and individual folders with files.

It is recommended to use the Auslogics BoostSpeed program on your computer or laptop. This is an excellent utility for optimizing and cleaning your PC, which has many useful tools - including the above-mentioned Disk Defrag. With Auslogics BoostSpeed you can not only defragment your hard drive, but also clean the registry, speed up the Internet, optimize services, etc.

Defraggler is the best disk defragmentation software. At least that's what many users think. It is very simple, convenient, and most importantly – free.

Its main advantages:

defragments the hard drive quickly and efficiently;
supports all versions of Windows (32 and 64-bit);
entirely in Russian;
can defragment the registry, as well as individual files.

Also, this defragmentation utility supports automatic shutdown of the laptop or computer after the process is completed. Therefore, you can safely run it at night or before leaving for work.

MyDefragGUI is a simple utility that is an excellent replacement for the built-in Windows defragmenter.

Main advantages:

effective file defragmentation;
availability of a task scheduler;
small size;
There is a portable version.

In addition, MyDefragGUI can defragment all types of drives - built-in and external hard drives, USB flash drives and memory cards.

Ashampoo Magical Defrag

Another great free defragmenter is Magical Defrag from Ashampoo. By the way, products from these developers are always warmly received by ordinary users, and this utility for defragmenting a hard drive is no exception.

It is a “set it and forget it” program. The developers themselves emphasize that Ashampoo Magical Defrag works quietly and unnoticeably, i.e. starts the defragmentation process only when almost all the resources of the computer or laptop are free. Therefore, you simply won’t notice any glitches or slowdowns.

Instead of a conclusion

Listed above are the top five free (or shareware) programs for defragmenting your hard drive. Therefore, if you do not like the built-in Windows defragmenter (or it does not work for certain reasons), install any utility. Links to them are given above, so you can easily install the program that you like the most.

Personally, I use IObit Smart Defrag. But this is just my opinion.

Despite the fact that users often prefer to use third-party ones, we recommend using the one built into the Windows 7 and 10 operating system (for Windows XP it is still better to choose an external tool). And there are a number of very significant reasons for this.

1. Saving resources. The built-in defragmenter in Windows does not have additional modules that constantly hang in memory and show us how beautiful they are and what great benefits they bring by showing us hourly lists of files that they defragmented, as third-party products like to do.

2. Unified sorting algorithm, which was chosen by Microsoft (Windows authors). In the absence of comparative tests, it is impossible to understand which file sorting algorithm is better. Therefore, we give preference to the algorithm from Microsoft, since in this case they know better which sorting option is more suitable for their operating system.

3. SSD support. All modern Windows, from 7 to 10, support working with SSDs. The Windows defragmentation program is no exception in this regard - it detects the presence of an SSD drive and automatically skips this drive without defragmenting it. Third-party utilities often claim that SSD defragmentation is necessary and perform some of their own dubious sorting algorithms for this.

4. Scheduled work. The built-in Windows tool can be configured to run automatically. In Windows 7, to do this, you just need to set the day and time to start (you can also configure the computer to automatically turn on for this, and turn off when completed, if you plan such procedures for the night). In Windows 10, everything is even simpler - defragmentation is carried out automatically during system downtime. This happens as part of an optimization process that's built into Windows 10 and starts automatically the moment you step away from your computer.

If your computer thinks for a long time when accessing any files on your computer, you need to defragment hard drive.

Defragmentation- the process of updating and optimizing the logical structure of a disk partition in order to ensure that files are stored in a continuous sequence of clusters. After defragmentation, reading and writing files speeds up, and, consequently, the work of programs, due to the fact that sequential read and write operations are performed faster than random accesses (for example, a hard disk does not require head movement). Another definition of defragmentation is: redistributing files on a disk so that they are located in contiguous areas.

Okay, it has become clear that defragmentation is needed to speed up reading and writing files, but what program should I use? Which one is more effective? These are the questions this article will answer. 5 best programs for defragmenting your hard drive.

Auslogics Disk Defrag (free)

Auslogics Disk Defrag This is a simple disk defragmenter program. You can defragment multiple drives or select individual files or folders to defragment. Auslogics allows you to set application priority and can turn off your computer after defragmentation is complete if you want to defragment hard drives while you sleep but don't want to leave your computer on all night. Auslogics Disk Defrag is a free and portable application.

MyDefrag (Formerly JKDefrag) (free)

is an effective tool for defragmenting disks. You can run it in default mode and get not only a defragmented disk, but also an optimized file placement; or you can configure it via scripts and further enhance your disk optimization for your specific tasks. Even without setting up a script, MyDefrag does an excellent job of defragmenting files and moving them to get the optimal location on your hard drive. Files that are frequently used are grouped to improve performance. MyDefrag scans the space allocated for the system and moves files from that space back to more suitable locations.

PerfectDisk Enterprise Suite (paid)

PerfectDisk One of PerfectDisk's biggest claims is its "Space Restoration Technology" feature. In addition to optimizing disks during defragmentation, PerfectDisk controls disk writes to ensure that files are subsequently written in the most efficient manner to reduce subsequent disk defragmentations. PerfectDisk also analyzes your data usage and creates templates that are optimized for your file usage and work style. Can be scheduled or configured to run the program when the computer is in standby mode for continuous defragmentation.

(for free)

From the same company that produces the popular CCleaner and Recuva applications, is a portable defragmentation tool. It can scan multiple drives, as well as individual drives, folders, or individual files for some quick, specific defragments. When Defraggler scans a drive, it shows you all the fragmented files and allows you to either choose normal defragmentation or batch defragmentation.

Diskeeper (paid)

Like PerfectDisk, Diskeeper comes with additional features that usually require you to pay for. In addition to basic defragmentation functions, Diskeeper can quickly defragment system files at boot without burdening the operating system. Diskeeper, like PerfectDisk, has a system for continuously defragmenting files and optimizing new files for disk storage as it runs. When defragmenting multiple hard drives, Diskeeper chooses different algorithms based on the drive, such as optimizing the operating system in ways other than storage.

Order in the computer and in life, friends!

Good afternoon! Whether you want it or not, to make your computer work faster, you need to carry out preventive measures from time to time (clean it of temporary and junk files, defragment it).

In general, I can say that most users very rarely carry out defragmentation, and in general, do not pay due attention to it (either out of ignorance, or simply because of laziness)…

Meanwhile, by doing it regularly, you can not only speed up your computer a little, but also increase the service life of the disk! Since there are always a lot of questions regarding defragmentation, in this article I will try to collect all the main things that I myself encounter quite often. So …

FAQ. Questions about defragmentation: why do it, how often, etc.

1) What is defragmentation, what is the process? Why do it?

All files on your disk, while being written to it, are written sequentially in pieces onto its surface, often called clusters (many have probably already heard this word). So, while the hard drive is empty, file clusters can be nearby, but when there is more and more information, the scattering of these pieces of one file also increases.

Because of this, when accessing such a file, your disk has to spend more time reading the information. By the way, this scattering of pieces is called fragmentation.

Defragmentation is aimed precisely at collecting these pieces compactly in one place. As a result, the speed of your disk and, accordingly, the computer as a whole increases. If you have not defragmented for a long time, this may affect the performance of your PC, for example, when opening some files or folders, it will begin to “think” for a while...

2) How often should you defragment the disk?

Quite a common question, but it’s difficult to give a definite answer. It all depends on how often you use your computer, how it is used, what drives it uses, what file system it has. In Windows 7 (and higher), by the way, there is a good analyzer that will tell you what to do defragmentation , or not (there are also separate special utilities that can analyze and notify you in time that it’s time... But about such utilities - below in the article).

To do this you need to go to control Panel, enter “defragmentation” in the search bar, and Windows will find the desired link (see screenshot below).

3) Do I need to defragment SSD drives?

No need! And even Windows itself (at least the new Windows 10; this can be done in Windows 7) disables the analysis and defragmentation button for such disks.

The fact is that an SSD disk has a limited number of write cycles. This means that with each defragmentation, you reduce the life of your disk. In addition, SSD drives do not have mechanics, and after defragmenting, you will not notice any increase in operating speed.

4) Do I need to defragment the disk if it has an NTFS file system?

In fact, there is an opinion that the NTFS file system practically does not need defragmentation. This is not entirely true, although it is partly true. It’s just that this file system is designed in such a way that defragmenting a hard drive under its control is required much less frequently.

In addition, the speed of operation does not drop as much due to strong fragmentation as if it were on FAT (FAT 32).

5) Is it necessary to clean the disk of junk files before defragmentation?

If you clean up the disk before defragmenting, then:

speed up the process itself (after all, you will have to work with fewer files, which means the process will complete earlier);
make Windows run faster.

6) How to defragment a disk?

It is advisable (but not necessary!) to install a separate special. a utility that will deal with this process (about such utilities below in the article). Firstly, it will do this faster than the utility built into Windows, and secondly, some utilities can defragment automatically, without distracting you from your work (for example, you started watching a movie, the utility, without disturbing you, defragmented the disk at this time).

But, in principle, even the standard program built into Windows does defragmentation quite well (although it does not have some of the “goodies” that third-party developers have).

7) Should I defragment a disk other than the system disk (i.e., the one on which Windows is not installed)?

Good question! It all depends again on how you use this disk. If you only store movies and music on it, then there is not much point in defragmenting it.

It's another matter if you install, say, games on this disk - and during the game, some files are loaded. In this case, the game may even begin to slow down if the disk does not respond to it in time. As it should be, with this option, it is advisable to defragment such a disk!

How to defragment a disk - step by step steps

By the way, there are universal programs (I would call them “harvesters”) that can carry out complex actions to clean your PC of junk, remove erroneous registry entries, configure your Windows OS and perform defragmentation (for maximum speed!). You can talk about one of them .

1) Cleaning the disk from debris

Windows cleaning programs -

For example, I can recommend CCleaner. Firstly, it is free, and secondly, it is very easy to use and there is nothing superfluous in it. All that is required from the user is to click the analyze button, and then clean the disk from the found garbage (screen below).

2) Removing unnecessary files and programs

By the way, it is advisable to remove programs through special utilities: (by the way, you can use the same CCleaner utility - it also has a tab for removing programs).

At worst, you can use the standard utility built into Windows (to open it, use the control panel, see the screenshot below).

3) Start defragmentation

Let's consider running the disk defragmenter built into Windows (since by default it eats me of everyone who has Windows :)).

First you need to open control Panel, then section system and safety. Next, next to the tab “ Administration" there will be a link " Defragmentation and optimization of your disks"- go over it (see screenshot below).

An alternative way to run defragmentation in Windows

1. Open “My computer” (or “This computer”).

3. Then in the disk properties, open the “Service” section.

4. In the service section, click the button “ Optimize disk"(everything is illustrated in the screenshot below).

Important! The defragmentation process can take quite a long time (depending on the size of your disk and the degree of fragmentation). At this time, it is better not to touch the computer, not to run resource-intensive tasks: games, video encoding, etc.

The best programs and utilities for disk defragmentation

Note! This subsection of the article will not reveal to you all the capabilities of the programs presented here. Here I will focus on the most interesting and convenient utilities (in my opinion) and describe their main differences, why I chose them and why I recommend trying them...

1) Defraggler

A simple, free, fast and convenient disk defragmenter. The program supports all new versions of Windows (32/64 bit), can work both with entire disk partitions and with individual files, supports all popular file systems (including NTFS and FAT 32).

By the way, regarding defragmentation of individual files - this is, in general, a unique thing! Not many programs can allow you to defragment something specific...

2) Ashampoo Magical Defrag

To be honest, I like products from Ashampoo- and this utility is no exception. Its main difference from similar ones of its kind is that it can defragment a disk in the background (when the computer is not busy with resource-intensive tasks, which means that the program is running and will not hamper or interfere with the user in any way).

What is called - once installed and forgotten this problem! In general, I recommend paying attention to it to everyone who is tired of remembering defragmentation and doing it manually...

3) Auslogics Disk Defrag

This program can move system files (which need to be the fastest) to the fastest part of the disk, thereby speeding up your Windows operating system somewhat. In addition, this program is free (for normal home use) and can be configured to start automatically when the PC is idle (i.e., similar to the previous utility).

I also want to note that the program allows you to defragment not only a specific disk, but also individual files and folders on it.

The program is supported by all new Windows OS: 7, 8, 10 (32/64 bits).

4) MyDefrag

Developer's website: http://www.mydefrag.com/

MyDefrag is a small but convenient utility for defragmenting disks, floppy disks, USB external hard drives, memory cards, and other media. Perhaps that’s the only reason I added this program to the list.

The program also has a scheduler for detailed launch settings. There are also versions that do not require installation (it is convenient to carry with you on a flash drive).

5) Smart Defrag

This is one of the fastest disk defragmenters! Moreover, this does not affect the quality of defragmentation. Apparently, the program developers managed to find some unique algorithms. In addition, the utility is completely free for home use.

It is also worth noting that the program treats data very carefully, even if during defragmentation some system error occurs, a power outage or something else... - then nothing should happen to your files, they will still be read and opened. The only thing is that you will have to start the defragmentation process again.

The utility also provides two operating modes: automatic (very convenient - set it up once and forget it) and manual.

It is also worth noting that the program is optimized to work on Windows 7, 8, 10. I recommend it for use!

Before choosing the best defragmenter, you should understand the main function it performs. Files that end up on the local disk of the computer are placed quite chaotically. Over time, this can cause the system to operate slowly, since, having accumulated in a large volume, various data will interfere with fast reading. This process is called fragmentation. To correct the situation and organize files, defragmentation is used, which redistributes information, freeing up space and reducing the time the system processes data.

Windows 7 OS is currently a very popular system that has a beautiful design and is more convenient to use than its predecessor. However, it is also susceptible to fragmentation, which makes it very important to consider the question of how to choose the best defragmenter for Windows 7. Considering the main contenders, we can highlight the top five.

The first on the list is Diskeeper, which has proven itself well on Windows XP. It not only copes well with its main task, but also makes the fragmentation process more difficult in the future, which has a positive effect on the speed of the system and its programs. According to many experts, Diskeeper is the best defragmenter for Windows 7. It has one very characteristic feature. Even 1% of free disk space is enough for it to work. In comparison, any other application will need at least 5% of clean space to start functioning.

The disadvantages include low operating speed. In fact, it is the slowest defragmenter. And besides, it only works with entire disks, so it won’t be possible to speed up the work of individual sectors.

The O&O Defrag application from German developers is also familiar from Windows XP. One of the generally recognized leaders in the segment. He has a number of distinctive abilities that allow him to act as efficiently as possible. Compresses system files, MFT areas and Works with any file systems, copes well with very large disks. We can safely say that O&O Defrag and Diskeeper are the best defragmenters.

Among the disadvantages of this application, high system load is noted, which makes it difficult to use on weak computers. Very rarely, but still sometimes it freezes during operation and offline defragmentation fails.

The Raxco PerfectDisk defragmenter has proven itself well. It works quite quickly, has several modes and can defragment not only entire disks, but also individual files. The big disadvantage, especially for novice users, is the complex interface.

Ashampoo Magical Defrag. A pretty good defragmenter, but nothing more. It performs its main function better than the standard Windows tool, but it does not stand out in anything special and is much inferior to the applications described above. Unlike the top three, the program is absolutely free.

Auslogics Disk Defrag. This is perhaps the best defragmenter for Windows 7 that you don't have to pay for. You can use both the installed version of the product and the portable one. Demonstrates the speed of the system before and after defragmentation. The disadvantages include the relatively low functionality of the program, especially in comparison with commercial versions, but the high speed and efficiency of operation have allowed it to achieve wide distribution.

Each user must decide for himself which defragmenter is better, since each of them has its own weaknesses and