Defragmenting

[Arakorn]

I'm going to defragment my harddrive, but for the first time, I'm thinking of using a 3rd party defragmenter. So I have some questions:

• What are the pro's/con's of using a 3rd party defragmenter instead of using the default Windows defragmenter?
  What are good 3rd party defragmenters?
  Which are the fastest/most effective 3rd party defragments?
  
  And should I use two defragmenters? (First defragment with one then with another)

[Sammur-amat]

if you stick with default (win) defragmenter, at least you know it wont be any :wub:-ups due incompability..

[Spiff]

The windows one is fine, you just have to run it at least twice in a row to get the best results.. im sure i read that the software microsoft brought in to windows for defragmenting was intentionally limited to only be partially successful, so you have to run it a few times.

Third party things are all fine and well but youll find very few decent freeware defragmenters, the best ones are always on limited demo and require you to pay eventually.

In any case, there are two defragmenters in the useful applications thread Here, i havent actually tried them though... might do that now.

[Arakorn]

Yes, saw them. But I wanna get someone that confirms either way before I start the defragmention, as it takes a hell of a time

[krazykarl]

Perfect disk works fairly well, but you have to pay for it.

[Spiff]

Just use the windows one if you arent sure, leave it on over night i suppose if you havent got handy paritions

[Erik]

Defragging isn't that important for NTFS, I doubt you wil even notivce the difference.
But if you must just do as Spuiff said: do it at night or when you are at work/school.
IIRC you can even tell wondows to shut down when finished, so you aren't even wasting electricity.

[Arakorn]

I know, the question I want answered is the 3rd party or Windows...
I guess I will start now and then watch TV or something, alternatively tomorrow when school starts at 10.