# Which tool is best for HDD Defrag / RAM Defrag?



## [mnm] (Aug 18, 2007)

Hi!
I was wondering if there are HDD Defragmentation tools that are significantly better than the one that comes with Win XP. And if there is a free one amongst the best.
Also if you would recommend RAM Defragmentation and which tool is best for that. Amongst the free and paid-for ones. 
Thanks!


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## Rache (Sep 30, 2002)

For hd defrag Diskeeper Lite is free and good http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1207 , but I don't know about ram defrag.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Ram defrag is *snake oil*.  There is no need to "defrag" RAM.


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## jkskinsfan (Nov 11, 2004)

This is a little bit Off Subject, but is it ever necessary to Defrag the Registry or does defragging the HD defrag the Registry too?


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## randy_california (Jul 16, 2007)

A couple of free Disk Defragmentation Utilities I've used in the past before settling for O&O Defrag.
Power Defragmenter GUI 2.0.125
Auslogics Disk Defrag

For Registry Defrag, Compactor, Optimizer.
NTREGOPT

I've never heard of RAM Defrag and didn't know such a animal existed, anybody know where this snakeoil can be viewed? lol


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

There is no significant gain to defragging the registry, or even compacting it. However, there is a real risk that the process goes bad, and you end up with a doorstop. 

However, I like the free defrag utilities, worth checking out.


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

JohnWill said:


> There is no significant gain to defragging the registry, or even compacting it. However, there is a real risk that the process goes bad, and you end up with a doorstop.
> 
> However, I like the free defrag utilities, worth checking out.


Or it could be a paperweight!


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## Marbleman (Jun 20, 2007)

There are many 3rd party defragmentation tools that are better than the ones that come with windows. Personally, I prefer Diskeeper Pro; it's not free, but does a great job especially with the automatic defrag.

As for RAM defragmenters, I have never tried those, but they appear to be nonsense.


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## Success Inc. (Sep 16, 2007)

As a rule of thumb, you will generally want to eschew your OS's _"packed-in"_ system utilities in favour of specialised software specifically engineered to the task. The logic behind it being, if _Vista's_ or _XP's_ built-in defraggers or firewalls, et al. were all that great, there'd be no point in a *Kaspersky *_Antivirus _or *ZoneLabs*' _Zone Alarm_ CEO getting up in the morning.

:up: For HDD defragging, I personally use *RAXCO*'s _Perfect Disk 8_. I find it is one of the very best (if not _*the*_ top) HDD defrag tool.

:down: Now, as far as RAM defragging is concerned, _well_... I cannot say I've seen any substantial (indeed, *any*) benefits in doing this. I've not noticed any system performance improvements, memory read/write logs show no difference in access times, and applications essentially run at pretty much the same benchmarks as before the RAM defragging.

That said, it's enough evidence (for *me*, anyway) to lead me to think that RAM defragging is not a real tweak, despite what a leading company like *Elcor Software's *_TweakRAM_ synopsis reads:

*...TweakRAMs main feature is memory defragmentation (it solves the problem of scattered programs code, so that your CPU doesnt have to waste time on code lookup). Many programs, including Windows, accumulate huge amount of libraries, but not all of them are necessary. TweakRAM finds such blocks and unloads them to swap. When some of this data becomes necessary it is loaded back to RAM again. Sometimes it happens that when program exits not the whole memory it allocated is released. Thus the program is not running any more, but some memory cant be used by other programs. TweakRAM finds such memory leaks and flushes them to swap file, thus increasing size of free RAM.*

Sure, ok... a few milliseconds' difference really means nothing to me. I'd rather simply invest in memory module upgrades, as with that you'll notice marked improvements in your system's performance.

Still, if you're not convinced, you may want to try that utility, or look at *Iolo's *_System Mechanic,_ which also has a memory defragging utility (I'd advise you to get a copy of *v6.0*, rather than *v7.0* - it's a far better version; the upgrade lost something in the process, shamefully...)


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## redoak (Jun 24, 2004)

jkskinsfan said:


> This is a little bit Off Subject, but is it ever necessary to Defrag the Registry or does defragging the HD defrag the Registry too?


Registry "cleaners" often do more harm than good, and they can completely ruin a system at worst. :down: The Registry is not touched when you 'defrag' the hard drive/partition.

{redoak}


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## muddler (Sep 17, 2007)

Hello MNM. Do you mean ram recovery, if so you could try memoturbo (not free ware) but you also could try windows built in recover bad sector tool.


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## zbd21 (Mar 2, 2005)

Review and testing of several defrag programs.
Personally I use and like JkDefrag.

http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2007/04/great-defrag-shootout-part-1.html

Free Defrag Utilities for Windows

* Auslogics Disk Defrag
* Contig*
* DefragMentor Lite CL 
* IOBit SmartDefrag 
* JkDefrag* [review: thumbs up] 
* Microsoft's Windows Disk Defragmenter
* PageDefrag* 
* Partition Logic 
* Power Defragmenter GUI 
* Rapid File Defragmentor Lite 
* SpeeDefrag 
* SpeedItUp FREE 
* UltraDefrag 
* WinContig


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

muddler said:


> Hello MNM. Do you mean ram recovery, if so you could try memoturbo (not free ware) but you also could try windows built in recover bad sector tool.


Free memory is wasted memory. MemTurbo is the 21th Century equivalent of Snake Oil, in other words, it's worthless!


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## cuttlefish (Jan 18, 2007)

I reckon all the speed it up - make it faster - blazing improvement stuff is all crap!!

Get out and get some more RAM and then you will notice a difference.

I gave away registry cleaners and the like yonks ago and have never had a problem.

All smoke 'n mirrors stuff!


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## MysticEyes (Mar 30, 2002)

Marbleman said:


> There are many 3rd party defragmentation tools that are better than the ones that come with windows. Personally, I prefer Diskeeper Pro; it's not free, but does a great job especially with the automatic defrag.
> 
> As for RAM defragmenters, I have never tried those, but they appear to be nonsense.


None of the paid apps are any 'better', faster maybe. Most just add another layer of unneeded junk to an already overburdened OS. If you think the fancy defraggers will improve performance over XP's, you are mistaken.

My favorite oft repeated quote from PC World.

_When the PC World Test Center set out to determine the effectiveness of the defrag utilities in our set of suites, plus that of Diskeeper 8 from Executive Software, our analysts found no evidence that defragmentation enhanced performance. On a desktop system from the PC World office* with a heavily used, never-defragmented hard drive, *the lab conducted speed tests using a range of applications before and after defragmenting the drive with each utility. In the end, the Test Center saw no significant performance improvement after defragmenting with any program. This result flies in the face of the received wisdom that fragmentation hinders performance, though much older PCs (with slower and smaller hard drives) and heavily used servers may benefit more from defragging.

We used to say that defragging would speed up a system, but with today's larger, faster hard drives, that no longer seems true.

The PC World Test Center's tests reveal that defraggers don't actually improve performance. And Steve Gibson, president of PC consulting firm Gibson Research Corporation, confirmed our findings_


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Also to add what mystic eyes said, /i Listen to Steve's "Security Now" podcast and although yes he did say no more performance changes occur, the defragging is good for the hd as when the files are organized, loading programs requires less drive head movement therefore, creating less wear on the hd. Therefore drive defrag is good once in a while, but it is not life or death like it was in the olden days of the FAT filesystem.


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## muddler (Sep 17, 2007)

Hello JohnWill. Surely unrecovered memory is wasted memory. Still I don't want to get in a general debate as my experience is limited to learning from my mistakes and must be guided by those in the know.
ps I love the american colloquialisms. (snake oil)


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## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

As John states, RAM defrag tools are snake oil! The problem of memory leaks is an application problem perhaps best dealt with by exiting the program and restarting it. Only newer versions of the apps may correct the problem if it is known and the developers can fix it.

As regards pagefile and registry file fragmentation, the tool PageDefrag v2.32 by Mark Russinovich is highly recommended here.

-- Tom


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## WhitPhil (Oct 4, 2000)

muddler said:


> Surely unrecovered memory is wasted memory


Two key thing to remember with these type of programs:

1. They do NOT to anything on their own. Instead they *force* Windows to take in use ram and move it to the pagefile. 
2. When and if Windows needs more ram for running apps it *would havel* found these same chunks of ram and move them to the swapfile. The difference being that these chunks are most likely "old" with a low likelyhood of being paged back in.

And there really isn't such a thing as unrecovered memory. If windows can't "recover" it, these programs can't (since they need windows assistance).


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