When any files get on a hard drive or any other storage medium, data fragments are not written sequentially, but randomly. To work with them, the hard drive has to spend a lot of time and resources. Defragmentation will help to create a clear structure file system, sequentially record the data of each program or a single big file for maximum speed work hard disk and wear of its mechanical parts when reading information.

Smart Defrag is a very advanced file defragmenter introduced by a famous developer. The program will help you quickly and easily put things in order hard drives personal computer user.

Files are written in fragments every second of work operating system. Regular funds Windows does not have functionality that can monitor the state of the file system in real time and correctly, sequentially record all data.

Autoanalysis will detect the current fragmentation of the file system and notify the user if the indicator exceeds the set one. It is performed independently for each individual storage medium.

Auto defragmentation of disks

Based on the data received during autoanalysis, the disk is auto-defragmented. For each hard drive or removable media, the auto-defragmentation mode is enabled separately.

Auto-analysis and auto-defragmentation is performed only when the computer is idle to protect user data from damage. You can select a period of computer inactivity from 1 to 20 minutes to run these functions. Defragmentation or analysis will not be performed if the user has left a resource-intensive task in progress at that time, for example, unpacking an archive - to specify the system load limit at which the optimizer automatics are activated, you can specify a value in the range from 20 to 100%.

Scheduled defragmentation

This feature will be useful for users who have a huge amount of information on their computer. In such cases, the fragmentation of the file system regularly reaches very large values. It is possible to fully configure the frequency and time of the start of defragmentation, and it will occur in given time without the participation of the user.

Defragmentation at system boot time

Some files cannot be moved during defragmentation, because are currently in use. Most often this concerns system files the operating system itself. Boot defragmentation will allow them to be optimized before they are busy with processes.
There is a function to configure the frequency of optimization - once, every day at the first boot, every boot, or even once a week.

In addition to the non-relocatable files defined by the program itself, the user can add his own files.

The largest files in the system are defragmented - the hibernation file and the paging file, the MFT and the system registry are defragmented.

Disk Cleanup

Why optimize temporary files, which in most cases do not carry any functional load, but only take up space? Smart Defrag will delete all temporary files - cache, cookies, recent papers and transitions, clear the clipboard, trash and icon thumbnails. This will significantly reduce the time that will be spent on defragmentation.

List of exclusions

If it is necessary that the program does not touch a certain file or folder, they can be entered into the file or folder before optimization. White list, after which they will not be parsed nor defragmented. Again, adding large files will greatly reduce optimization time.

Auto update

The developer is constantly improving his product, so installing and working with the latest version of the program is the key to a high degree of its performance. Smart Defrag can exit new version install it yourself, without paying the user's attention to it and saving his time.

Quiet mode

Automatic operation of Smart Defrag requires the display of some notifications about the progress of tasks. Many users know how inconvenient it is when watching a movie or important point in the game, a notification appears in the corner of the screen. The developer paid attention to this detail, and added the “silent mode” function. Smart Defrag monitors the appearance of full-screen applications on the monitor and does not show any notifications or make any sounds at this time.

In addition to full-screen applications, it is possible to add any programs at all when they are running - Smart Defrag does not interfere.

Defragment individual files and folders

If the user does not need to optimize the entire disk, but only needs to work on a large file or a heavy folder, then Smart Defrag will help here too.

Defrag games

A separate function is to highlight the optimization of the files of these games to achieve the highest performance even in moments of real action. The technology is similar to the previous one - you just need to specify the main executable file in the game and wait a bit.
In addition to games, you can also optimize large programs like Photoshop or Office.

Information about the status of the hard disk

For each drive, you can view its temperature, usage percentage, response time, read and write speeds, and attribute status.

Advantages:

1. The program is fully translated into Russian, but sometimes there are typos, which, however, are not so noticeable against the background of opportunities.

2. Modern and very clear interface allows you to immediately understand even a beginner.

3. One of best solutions in your segment. This confirms its being in the top of the best defragmenters.

Flaws:

1. The main drawback is in free version functionality is not fully disclosed. For example, in the free version, you cannot perform auto-update and activate automatic defragmentation.

2. By default, when installing the program, there are checkboxes that may cause the installation of unwanted software in the form of toolbars or browsers. Be careful when installing, uncheck all unnecessary checkboxes!

Conclusion

Before us is a modern and ergonomic tool for optimizing a personal computer. A proven developer, frequent additions and bug fixes, quality work - that's what helps her confidently lead the list of the best defragmenters.

Our hard drive fills up evenly during use, one sector after another. But when we delete files or uninstall programs, the disk begins to fragment - filled areas alternate with empty ones. This leads to a longer circulation of programs on the hard disk, and therefore to a decrease in system performance.

There are a lot of tools for defragmenting a hard drive. Of course, we will consider a free and very high-quality application, because it is definitely not worth buying a program for these purposes.

Program from the company Piriform Ltd , which gave us a well-known system cleaning product - .

Interface

The graphical shell of the program is very simple and not oversaturated with unnecessary elements. In order to start a regular disk defragmentation, you need only two mouse clicks. At the top of the window there is a list of all disks, and at the bottom there are three tabs with defragmentation options. The first tab contains information about the selected disk. The second tab "List of files" is designed to defragment individual files on the hard drive that you need to find in advance. Well, the "Search" tab is used to select individual files and folders for defragmentation.

Functionality

Defragment individual files and directories

The first thing that distinguishesfrom some other applications is the ability to defragment only certain directories and even files. This is done in order to save time that is spent on processing unnecessary parts of the hard disk. For example, if you have a permanent collection of music or videos stored on your hard drive, and you do not delete or move the files of this collection, then you can say that there are no fragmented sections in these directories, therefore it is not worth spending time processing them. Conversely, if some of the directories are actively moving and deleting files, then these directories should be defragmented first. The Search tab provides several options for finding files to defragment. You can select files by size, or search for fragmented files only in a specific folder.

If you conduct several searches for files according to different criteria, then all the results will be displayed in total on the “File List” tab and, select required files you will be able to defrag them.

Defragmenting a single folder or file can be easier. From the Actions menu, select Defrag Folder or Defrag File, select in File Explorer desired folder and a separate file, and defragmentation will start automatically.

Such features of the program, in my opinion, are very useful. Usually, the process of defragmenting an entire disk takes a very long time, often several hours. At this time, the machine can “slow down” very much and prevent it from working normally. Therefore, by selecting the most sections of the hard disk, and defragmenting them in minutes, we lose these problems.

Settings

Defragmentation has two modes - normal and fast. You can specify the parameters of fast defragmentation in the program settings, as well as set a schedule according to which defragmentation will start automatically.

Another useful option of the program is automatic shutdown PC after defragmentation. If you decide to defragment the entire disk and, for example, leave it to run at night, then after completion the computer will turn itself off.

Outcome

One of the main advantages Piriform is the possibility of defragmentation individual directories and files, which saves a lot of time. Otherwise, it may seem too simple, but it does its job well.

To date find good program, besides free, for defragmentation hard drive no problem. All of them quite effectively cope with their task. It would seem that more is needed. Quite a bit - the ability to defragment individual specific files.

To make it clear, defragmentation is the movement of fragments of information scattered throughout the drive to neighboring areas. Its benefits are undeniable. The read/write head does not need to make big jumps, which increases performance and reduces overall wear on the drive itself.

Now to the question of why you need to defragment individual specific files. Let's consider such an example. The user does not indulge in experimental installation and removal of programs. Doesn't do video or photo editing. Its main working tool Microsoft Word. Which he uses one hundred percent. Every day creating dozens of new files, editing and copying existing ones, and so on.

As a result, the bulk of the new fragments will be occupied by Microsoft files word. So why defrag the whole HDD, if you can limit yourself to office files.

How to defragment individual files.

To defragment individual files, there is also free utility Contig. available from the manufacturer's website.

Unzip the utility. Since it does not have a graphical interface, but works from command line, put a copy of the utility in a convenient location. In my opinion, the most convenient directory would be C:\Users\user_name. Why exactly this one? Because when you start the command line, this parameter is written automatically. You just have to add your parameters, already for the Contig utility.

The basic syntax of the utility is: contig [-v] [-a] [-q] [-s] [filename].

Options:

• the [–v] parameter displays information about the file defragmentation operations performed by the utility
• parameter [-a] fragmentation analysis
• parameter [-q] switches the utility to hidden mode, only summary information is displayed
• parameter [-s] recursive processing of subdirectories.

Now let's configure the utility for defragmenting office files located in the "My Documents" directory. That is, all files with the .docx extension located in the folder will be defragmented.

contig -s C:\Users\username\Docunents\*.docx.

Another option for the utility to work is to create a new file that has already been defragmented during the creation process.

The syntax for creating such a file is contig [-v] [-n filename length].

In this case, the utility for defragmenting individual files will find free space on the media itself and optimize the file in adjacent areas.

This is a process during which the location of files on the disk is optimized. This optimization allows you to increase the speed of working with files, and therefore improve the performance of your computer as a whole. In this article, we will talk about how to defragment a disk using the tools built into Windows, as well as using third-party programs.

Tips for performing defragmentation:

• Do not defragment drives. For SSD drives defragmentation is absolutely useless. It only reduces the resource SSD drive, while not giving any gain in speed.
• To perform defragmentation, you need free disk space. The more free space, the faster and better the disk defragmentation will be performed. The minimum amount of available space is 15 percent of the entire disk.
• If you want to get consistently high speed, then use scheduled defragmentation.
• Try not to use a disk that is being defragmented.

How to do disk defragmentation using Windows

operating room Windows system has a built-in mechanism for disk defragmentation. In order to use it, open "My Computer" and call the properties of the partition you want to fragment.

In the window that opens, go to the "Tools" tab and click on the "Defragment" button.

After that, the "Disk Defragmenter" window will open in front of you. Here you need to select the disk that you want to fragment and click on the "Analyze disk" button.

After the analysis of the selected disk is completed, you will see the percentage of fragmented data on the disk. If this percentage is significant, then you need to defragment. For example, I analyzed disk "E" and the percentage of fragmented data on it is zero. You do not need to defragment this drive. But after analyzing the “C” drive, it turned out that it was fragmented by 36 percent, which means it needs to be defragmented.

In order to defragment drive “C”, select it in the list of drives and click on the “Disk Defragmenter” button.

After that, the defragmentation process will begin. The time it takes to defragment a disk depends on the amount of defragmented data and the speed of the disk itself. As a rule, this takes at least several hours.

In addition to manually starting defragmentation, you can use scheduled start. To do this, in the "Disk Defragmenter" window, click the "Enable Schedule" button.

After that, you will see a small window "Disk Defragmenter: Reschedule". Here you need to enable the “Run according to a schedule” function and set up a schedule.

Defragmentation can be performed daily, weekly, and monthly. After setting the schedule, close all windows by clicking on the "OK" button.

Disk defragmentation using third-party programs

You can also defragment your disk with third party programs. Now there are many quality ones. Of the free ones, the most popular are Piriform Defragger, Auslogics Disk Defrag, MyDefrag, IObit Smart Defrag. Paid programs much more, the most famous of them are: O&O Defrag, Ashampoo Magical Defrag, Raxco PerfectDisk, Auslogics Disk Defrag Professional.

For example, consider the process of defragmenting a disk using free program Auslogics Disk Defrag Free.

After starting the program, check the boxes next to the disks you want to defragment and start analyzing them.

After analysis, the program showed that the C drive was 46 percent fragmented. In order to defragment this disk, check the box and click on the "Defrag" button.

This is all that needs to be done, it remains only to wait for the end of the defragmentation process.

Like the built-in defrag utility, Auslogics program Disk Defrag Free allows you to perform scheduled disk defragmentation. To do this, open the "Settings" menu and select the "Scheduler" item.

After that, a window with the defragmentation schedule will open. Here you need to enable the "Defragment automaticaly" function, select the defragmentation time and disks.

After that, Auslogics Disk Defrag Free will perform defragmentation automatically at the specified time.