Auto Defrag

[RagnaroK]

Yo!
Looking for a program that will defrag my numerous amount of hard drives, one after the other, without me having to interact and make choices (should be all done automatically). From what I know, the internal WinXP defrag can't do this. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks!

RaG

 

[NetRyder]

Most, if not all, third-party defragmenters can perform scheduled, unattended defrags. Check out:

PerfectDisk (www.raxco.com) - My personal preference
Diskeeper (www.diskeeper.com)

O&O Defrag and VoptXP are other alternatives. I've never tried these two, but I assume they should have defrag scheduling as well.

If you want to use the built-in defrag software, you could just create a batch file that you can schedule to run at whatever interval you want using the Windows Task Scheduler.
The batch file (lets say, defragment.bat) would look something like:

@echo off
defrag c:
defrag d:

A command prompt will open in the background when the defrag is scheduled, and will close once the series of jobs is done.

 

[RagnaroK]

Thanks NetRyder. I don't really want to use WinXP's defrag, because I'm plain tired of it.
But will those programs you stated do what I want them to do?
eg. Once C: drive has been defragged, move onto D:, then E:, etc.

 

[Perris Calderon]

I wrote a batch file a while ago to allow you to defrag on schedule even without the a third party software, I'll find it for you

 

[coathanger007]

Norton Speed disk too.

 

[lechtard]

The best I have used so far was Diskeeper - You can set it to defrag a couple of diff ways. For example: you can have it defrag any drive (or all drives) at boot up, you can have it defrag any drive (or all drives) while in screen saver mode (this is how I have it set up - Basically it defrags while the screen saver is running while in the same process using no resources), you can have it defrag any drive (or al drives) once a week (I have it set like this also), you can have it defrag any drive (or all drives) everyday, you can have it defrag any drive (or all drives) continously (this means that it will defrag when it needs to). It is a nice little app, fast also - I would suggest anyone to try it out ...

 

[NetRyder]

Right, as I said, most if not all all of the above third-party software includes a defragmentation scheduler.
Now which one you use just depends on your preference. Give a couple of them a try, and see what works best for you.

 

[coathanger007]

What's more important than scheduling is thoroughness of defrag - this should be the comparison point.

 

[ghayes]

With PerfectDisk and the just released O&O V6, you can schedule a defrag and have it process one drive after another.

With Diskeeper, a defrag schedule will defrag all drives selected at the same time (not one after another). As with the built-in defragmenter, you could accomplish this with Diskeeper if you used their command line interface and created a script that did something like the following:

diskeeper C:
diskeeper E:
diskeeper F:

- Greg/Raxco Software
Microsoft MVP - Windows File Systems

Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.

 

[RagnaroK]

Thanks for all your suggestions. Appreciate it! I'll give some of the third-party softwares a try, and if it's not up to my standards, I'll use the batch file. Let's see how I do.
Thanks again.

 

[NetRyder]

Originally posted by coathanger007
What's more important than scheduling is thoroughness of defrag - this should be the comparison point.

Only problem there is that people never come to a consensus as to which app does the best job. A comparison of third-party defragmenting software just turns into a multiple-page long thread with "I use xyz, and it's the best" posts.

 

[Perris Calderon]

/agrees with netryder

but thinks you will like perfectdisc best of all...actually, money back on thirty day free trial guarantees are hereby proclaimed

 

[RagnaroK]

Originally posted by dealer
but thinks you will like perfectdisc best of all...actually, money back on thirty day free trial guarantees are hereby proclaimed

Actually, I think so too. Seems like PerfectDisk does exactly what I want it to do.
Thanks to all. Appreciate it!

RaG