In days of yore, Norton Speed Disk allowed me to specify which files went where (beginning, end) – this way subsequent defrag runs would go very, very quickly. It also assisted in disaster scenarios – I knew where the files were, so recovery was much faster and the odds of them being contiguous were extremely high.
So. What modern defrag software does the same, and, preferably, doesn’t treat me like a child?
Distrix Ultimate Defrag seems to do this, but before I make the purchase, is it any good, and is there a better one?
You can give Defraggler from Piriform Ltd. a shot. It is a neat little free tool. You can checkout the menu under settings -> options
defraggler is simple and works
Hi Laga,
I'd like to put in my vote for Diskeeper software. It handles the task of organizing which files go where with technology called I-FAAST. Defrag tasks are thus very quick!
If you'd like more info, please let me know.
-Alex
Joining the conversation rather late, I'd recommend you check out MyDefrag, which is a defragger/optimiser written by Jeroen Kessels. It sounds like just the thing you are looking for, is scriptable, and unlike O&O Defrag it is free.
That does look promising! I'm a fan of scripting, lol. Thanks, Oron.
I'm pretty sure Ultradefrag can. You have to define it in the options file.
http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/en/index.html
Thanks for that suggestion, I'll look into it.
Laga,
Was Ultradefrag the answer to your question?
That and my original suspect, Disktrix UltimateDefrag. At the moment I'm leaning towards UltimateDefrag. I'll set this question as resolved.
Cheers, everyone!
O&O Defrag has similar capabilities by setting up zones based on file usage, but it appears that you have more control over file placement with Ultimate Defrag. I used O&O Defrag for a while several years ago on specific client machines and found it easy to use and effective at the task. I have not used Ultimate Defrag so I cannot speak to its efficacy. None of my machines currently use third-party defraggers as the built-in Windows defragger is adequate for my purposes and most of my machines are rebuilt frequently. It also appears that Norton still does produce their Norton Utilities which has Speed Disk, Disk Doctor, Registry Cleaner, Registry Defragmenter, unErase, Service Manager and other tools. I hope to be downloading the trial of it next month and giving it a thorough test.
The last time I checked, Speed Disk's capabilities had been severely reduced - there wasn't much customizing at all. Norton overall I lost faith in a long time ago, which is a huge shame as they used to be ultra reliable. I still keep their DOS tools on my utility USB.
I tried O&O defrag a few years back and was turned off for some reason. I'll give it another go, thanks.