Post Published on April 5, 2012.
Last Updated on April 28, 2016 by davemackey.

Piriform makes great products…and they are free (well, at least the basic versions…which include almost all the features). Defraggler is one of there relatively newer products – but still a great tool. I used to use Auslogics Disk Defrag but have since moved to Defraggler.
For those who aren’t familiar with the concept of defragmentation – fragmentation is something that happens on your hard drive (of your computer) over time. As files are written to the hard drive sometimes they are placed in multiple locations around the hard drive – this is known as a fragmented file. It takes longer for your hard drive to read or write to a file that is in multiple locations than one that is in one location. The process of defragmenting is taking all of these file fragments and putting them back together.
This makes your computer run faster and also can help reduce various and sundry strange errors which pop up on occasion from fragmented files. I know some folks claim this can’t be – but I’ve seen time and time again where a defrag without a checkdisk or other repair will clear up a blue screen of death or other significant error.
What makes Defraggler so nice?
- The price – free.
- It includes the ability to schedule it to run automatically on a regular basis at a time of your choosing.
- It shows you the status of files and how fragmented your drive is as it works – something Microsoft’s Disk Defragmenter used to do well, but now does poorly.
- It allows you to defragment individual files if you so desire.
- It is frequently updated.
- It runs fairly fast.
Go grab your free copy.
Yes, piriform always makes some good products, and also they are freeware. The best products form piriform are CCleaner and Defraggler.