Disk Defragmenters

[kendall.a]

Personally, I have spent the last hour doing some research on Puran. It mostly gets very positive reviews. I don't think the issue is whether it is a legitimate freeware. The issue is that certain people are spamming information on our main site about using Puran. In spite of what appears to be a solid offering with very good reviews, the fact that so many posts have appeared on our main site, I personally will not use the product.

Again, our concern hasn't been necessarily about the product itself, but the amount of spam being used to promote it.

I don't think I ultimately answered your question. I'm not the one who can "authorize" it's use on our site.

[Kyuzo]

I am not affiliated with Puran or any other software, I just wanted "optimization" help combatting system slowdown from my new security suite. I do know that when I downloaded Puran and (willingly) gave them my email address, I have only had one email from them. That one was a very courteous reply from a Mr. Gupta regarding a comment I had about the software. I have had no other correspondences from Puran-spam or otherwise. The anonymous posts in the Defragment section of TSA unfortunately run toward the obnoxious "mine is the only way to go, and no other" which, as Anupam mentioned ("making the moderators 'cringe' from the mention of Puran"), unfairly tars Puran without necessarily being of Puran's making. Sadly, this is one byproduct of anonymous posting- you never can tell who is doing the writing and how many times they've done it.

I will say this is not the case with Ashampoo, who contact me regularly regarding sales (I am not complaining, their reps are very nice people), O+O (I tried their software after seeing it mentioned in the anonymous postings) sent multiple ads for their products. PerfectDisk put me off thoroughly with their emails-so much so that I didn't even use the license they provided me.

Puran apparently offers a paid defragmenter and a freeware version. Avast, Avira, AVG, Ultimate Defrag and others offer free and paid versions of their software. Unless they prove themselves untrustworthy (the unfortunate issue with Iobits comes immediately to mind), I see no reason why Puran should not be included.

Kyuzo.

[Kyuzo]

I will mention that in the interest of disclosure, I did reply to one of the pro-Puran comments on the main site's "Best Defragmenter" page. I did not do this to "spam", but rather in simple agreement on one of the posts. I also have replied in favor of Auslogics for its speed and optimization, and for Avira, Audacity, Spyware Terminator, Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware, TCP Optimizer, and others. Never was this done to "spam", but just in reply or in defense of some software.

Perhaps it might be wise to specify in the comments section what is an acceptable comment. What IS an acceptable comment? Certainly a "well-done" for the reviewer is always welcome, but how many patts on the back does one need before the skin gets sore? Perhaps some type of IP address-identification might be instituted to limit posts-per-day.

As I said, I lament that the comments section sometimes becomes a wall on which spammers spray their wares, but I also hate to see efficacious software tarred with that same spraycan.

Kyuzo.

[Sope]

MyDefrag actually does have a "consolidate free space" mode which moves all moveable files to the fastest part of the disc.

Puran defrag claims that there is now no difference between their free and payware versions.

To quote from - http://www.puransoftware.com/Puran-Defrag-Download.html

"This is Puran Defrag Free Edition which is exactly the same as its commercial version
except you do not need to pay for it."

[Kyuzo]

I think I missed that when I used MyDefrag. It took me a bit of getting-used-to with MyDefrag's scripts. I don't believe I have used another program with a similar layout. I'm still unsure why JK uses scripts. I'm sure there's a good reason. When I downloaded the program I was worried as TSA's defrag editor mentioned that the new releases were "poor" without mentioning what made them poor. I need to take a look at MyDefrag again.

Thank you, Kyuzo.

[Sope]

Originally Posted by Kyuzo

I think I missed that when I used MyDefrag. It took me a bit of getting-used-to with MyDefrag's scripts. I don't believe I have used another program with a similar layout. I'm still unsure why JK uses scripts. I'm sure there's a good reason. When I downloaded the program I was worried as TSA's defrag editor mentioned that the new releases were "poor" without mentioning what made them poor. I need to take a look at MyDefrag again.

Thank you, Kyuzo.

IMO MyDefrag is still an excellent defragger and has adequate default scripts to choose from (has a minimal GUI now in comparison to JKDefrag). On the down side, if you want to create your own custom scripts it gets a bit more complicated!

[Kyuzo]

Thank you, Sope. Other than creating new scripts (which I must admit I know nothing about), do you know of an advantage the scripts have over the GUI that the TSA editor mentons downloading? I wouldn't even know where to begin in creating a script!

I think one problem I had when testing MyDefrag was that another defragger had scattered the files so badly that MyDefrag had trouble optimizing them.

I was amazed at how different each defragger handled defragmentation. From what I learned from Ultimate Defrag's tutorials (when you register with them, you get 4 or 6 lessons in as many days! ), all the defragmenters use Windows' defragmenter's controller to move the files. You'd think the results would be relatively similar considering that fragmentation concerns an operational area.

Thank you again, Kyuzo.

[Rizar]

Originally Posted by Kyuzo

Puran moved all the files MyDefrag, UltraDefrag and Ultimate Defrag scattered...

Which MyDefrag script did you use? Do they all leave data scattered?

Another important point about defragging is the trade off between the wear that it saves and the wear that it causes.

MyDefrag, for example, has Daily/Weekly/Monthly scripts to help reduce wear and tear with daily defragging.

MyDefrag's daily script moves a minimum of data by not defragging large files and not filling all gaps. The weekly one does more defragging and gap filling. The monthly one sorts all the files by their full path.

[Sope]

Originally Posted by Kyuzo

Thank you, Sope. Other than creating new scripts (which I must admit I know nothing about), do you know of an advantage the scripts have over the GUI that the TSA editor mentons downloading? I wouldn't even know where to begin in creating a script!

MyDefrag is quite different to it's predecessor JKDefrag. IMO it doesn't really need a third party GUI any more.

Personally I only use the default scripts that come with the standard MyDefrag program that Rizar just described. You don't have to actually do anything with the scripts or create your own. After install simply run MyDefrag, then highlight your choice from the list of options provided (a brief description will then be displayed), select the drive you want to defrag, and click run.

[Kyuzo]

Sope: I understand what you are saying. For instance,when I first downloaded the program I looked at JK's explanation of how to write scripts. One example was something like (and I quote LOOSELY ): "slowdown, move files to ... etc." . I'm sure if I spent more time with it I'd probably get the gist. I, like you, used the defaults.

Rizar: Your point is one I considered as I tried all these defraggers. There were nearly a dozen or so, and I worried about the wear on my drive. For instance, the most interesting defragger, Ultimate Defrag, took nearly 6 hours to move the files where it wanted (this was from the edge originally to the edge, middle bands of isolated files, and large chunks at the spindle). Consider that I only have about 44,000 files (with app. 75% free space). I nearly choked when it initially said 17 1/2 hours (for whatever reason, its main bug on my system was grossly overestimating the time necessary to do the job)! When I bought System Mechanic in the mid 2000's, its optimize/defrag took more than 12 hours and STILL did not finish. I had to cancel the task and let Windows defrag put things back together!

On MyDefrag, for its initial opening, I used the monthly script. Then the next day I used the daily. My main complaint with it and Ultradefrag was that they put strands of files across the disk in various places (seeing where the files are is one GREAT attribute of Ultimate Defrag's circular disk map!). I'm not passing judgement on ANY of the defraggers since, frankly, I had no real way of measuring performance. I let the defragger work, then analyzed it with the Norton disk analyzer or WinUtilities' performance analyzer. Of the many I tried, one seemed to work for me better than the others.

To be honest, the main reason I started the thread was simply to discuss defrags and their various eccentricities, not to espouse any particular defrag (though I admit to finding Ultimate Defrag fascinating! ).

Kindest Regards and Thanks, Kyuzo.