Third party defragmentation utilities: Worth the Hype?

April 5, 2008

1. Introduction

In the murky world of third party companies marketing fish oil solutions to nonexistent or over-hyped problems, this article attempts to address the domain of third party defragmentation solutions. Without going into too many technical details, the term fragmentation can most commonly be defined as the cluttering of the pieces of a file across the hard disk. This can have an effect on hard drive seek performance that ranges from being nearly undetectable to bringing a computer system to a near halt. Microsoft claims that its New Technology File System, or more commonly NTFS (the file system used on both Windows XP and Windows Vista) is not affected by file fragmentation however, all versions of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 have shipped with a built in defragmentation utility. Let's get to the bottom of this!

2. The nature of the beast

While most file systems attempt to avoid file fragmentation, it is both unavoidable and an undeniable source of performance drain. Programs that attempt to open a large quantity of small files in a short time typically suffer the most from file fragmentation; games are a good example. Now, I am not saying that by defragmenting your hard drive you will increase your FPS to over 9000, but you may be able to greatly decrease your level load times. More on that later. Microsoft has provided a built-in (read: free) defragmentation utility, called defrag, with Windows. For the typical user, the defrag utility is sufficient. However, gamers and those with high performance constraints will find it lacking in features and customization. One thing that can be said about the defrag utility is that it will typically get the job done... even if it takes a week. There are some boundary cases in which the defrag utility will not adequately function, or will refuse to function at all these include: when the disk is more than 85% full, when the disk is filled with atypically large files, for example DVD ISOs. These cases are where third party utilities begin to shine.

3. Third party utilities

PageDefrag at work (Click to see larger version)

There are a few third party utilities out there that do not cost any money; and if there is one thing that I like better than tools that work; it's free tools that work. Some of these tools are even offered by Microsoft itself. A good example of a third party utility is PageDefrag. PageDefrag augments the capabilities of the defrag utility by providing boot time defragmentation of important system files. I suggest that if you do not purchase an "all in one solution", that I discuss below, you use this utility frequently. There is also a hidden command to defragment important files that your computer accesses during the boot process. If you click start, then click run, paste the following line into the box, and click the ok button:

rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

Then, in a few minutes, your Windows machine will automatically and silently defragment and realign important files in your boot sequence. This works on both Windows XP and Windows Vista. I have seen this shave 20 or more seconds off of a boot sequence on a particularly slow booting machine. You only need to do this once a week.

JkDefrag at work (Click to see larger version)

If you happen to run into one of the boundary cases that I discussed above, or are interested in a faster tool than defrag, I can't think of a better defragmentation utility than JKDefrag. This utility typically defragments and optimizes my drives in about half of the time that defrag takes. As a bonus, JkDefrag will automatically defragment all of the drives in your system. JkDefrag can also be configured as a screen saver or be run from the command line as part of a script. For more niche applications where a single directory is frequently the source of most of your fragmentation, Microsoft provides the Contig utility. Contig is an esoteric utility that is run from the command line and performs directory based optimizations. If you are a gamer, or a software developer, this may be the utility for you. You can set up a batch file on your desktop to automate the action of Contig. At the first sign of performance drain, you can run a quick defrag that will complete in minutes not an hour or more. I don't suggest using Contig for a system wide defrag, but there is no reason that it wouldn't work.