A disk defragmenter can physically organizes the content of your hard disk into a contiguous block. In this post, you will be introduced five top-rated Windows disk defragmenter and learn how to schedule your disk defrag easily.
How does Windows store files on the hard drive? In the beginning, all items are arranged in good order on the sectors of the hard drive. But when you save, change, or delete files, the problem occurs.
For example, when you create a new document, Windows will find a place that is just enough for it and save it there. If you add new content to the document and the original place is not enough to store the additional file, Windows will look for another sector on the hard disk - probably on a different track or plate.
In this way, a complete file is stored in a different location. This is what we called fragmentation. Over time, file fragmentation becomes more and more. Obviously, it makes the Windows system take longer to locate and open the needed data, which results in a slow PC.
To deal with this issue, this article aims to introduce five handpicked disk defragmenter software that can decrease the degree of fragmentation to speed up your computer.
A disk defragmenter is a tool that rearranges the scattered files together on the hard drive, which helps you quickly and efficiently access the data. In other words, disk defragment tools for Windows 10 or 11 are used to optimize the hard drive and improve the performance of your computer by defragmenting your hard disk.
To know the answer to this question, you should figure out what is disk defragmentation. As you know, when a file is fragmented, it is scattered across a hard drive, which makes it harder for the computer to access a complete file.
While disk defragmentation is a process of organizing the fragmented files on a hard disk drive into contiguous blocks. Thus, defragmenting doesn't delete files, it just makes the file in good order so that the system can open it faster.
Yes, it is. As mentioned before, if your hard drive is too fragmented, your computer may run slowly and take a long time to respond. To keep your Windows 10 PC running smoothly, it's necessary to defrag your hard drive regularly. While a disk defragmenter Windows 10 is the tool that is used to help you do this quickly and efficiently.
List of best programs to perform disk defrag in Windows:
Comparison of the top five disk defrag tools:
|
Disk Defragmenter |
Platform |
Features |
Price |
Ratings |
|
AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard |
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP |
● Analyze the partition ● Defragment quickly and safely |
Free |
5/5 |
|
Smart Defrag |
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP |
● Perform defrag on a schedule ● Defrag files or folders |
Free |
5/5 |
|
O&O Defrag Free Edition |
Windows 7, XP, Vista |
● Run in the background ● Able to defragment SSD |
Free |
4/5 |
|
Defraggler |
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP |
● Customize defragmentation ● Clean junk files before |
Free |
5/5 |
|
Windows built-in disk defragmenter |
Windows |
● No installation required. ● Intelligent defragmentation |
Free |
4/5 |
AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a free and fast defrag program that can defrag not only internal hard drives but also external hard disks. As a user-friendly disk defragmenter, AOMEI software has very specific settings.
It enables you to choose your own partition to defrag and allows you to analyze the condition of the selected partition so that you can know if you need to perform the defragment on the hard drive. Besides, its graphical interface guides you to complete the defragment without no much effort.
Features:
✔ It's free and easy to use.
✔ It's compatible with all editions of Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista.
✔ This tool is equipped with a fragment filter that can identify the most fragmented files on the disk.
✔ It's easy to get from the website and only occupies a small amount of space.
✔ It offers some other functions to run your PC faster like cleaning junk files or wiping partitions.
The only disadvantage of this application is that the free Standard edition does not allow you to set up a schedule to defrag disk automatically on a daily, weekly, or monthly, which only exists in the Pro edition.
Smart Defrag is a great choice when it comes to selecting a defrag application for Windows computers since it has many powerful features.
Basically, it can defrag disk, boot time, game, and files &folders. As its name implies, it supports running a defrag schedule to remove the fragments from the hard disk at a regular time. Also, there is a cleaning feature that can clear cache files to help speed up the defrag process.
Features:
✔ This application is easy to handle.
✔ The supported platform is Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista.
✔ It can perform an auto-defrag on a schedule.
✔ You can download this tool to check and optimize your disk.
✔ It's more than a simple disk deframenter since it can defragment boot time and large files or enhance the performance of the game.
However, if you decide to choose this software to defrag your hard drive, please note that its auto-defrag feature is not applicable when your computer is idle. Moreover, some users reported that some other programs may be installed at the same time.
O&O Defrag Free Edition is a powerful tool that can work with both traditional hard drives and solid-state drives. With its organized and easy-to-use interface, you can run this tool automatically and manually.
Similar to other defrag software, O&O Defrag Free Edition is able to perform disk defragmentation based on a scheduled time or has a view of all the fragmented files, which is helpful to make your system and program start faster.
Features:
✔ This tool is easy to follow.
✔ It can run in the background while you are working on the PC.
✔ It supports manual and scheduled defragmentation.
✔ The reports of hard drive defrag is extremely detailed.
✔ For SSD defragmentation, it combines six hard drive blocks into one.
Although O&O Defrag Free Edition seems to come with a lot of promising features, it still despairs users for its inevitable demerits: It is only compatible with Windows 7, XP, and Vista; it can't defragment removable hard drives; advanced features are only available in the paid version.
Defraggler, a tool provided by CCleaner, is an intelligent disk defrag application in Windows. It can defrag disk quickly and securely to boost your computer performance.
The simple interface gives you the convenience to choose to defragment an individual hard drive or specific files/folders according to your situation. This can save time if you don't want to defrag all the data on your drives.
Features:
✔ The interface is clear and the operation is simple.
✔ It can be used on Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP.
✔ It can clean junk files before defragging.
✔ The defragmentation supports full customization.
✔ You can perform schedule defragmentation.
Due to these wonderful features, Defraggler is chosen by millions of users. But before proceeding, you’d better take care of its disadvantages: The free version is capable of doing some basic defragmentation and the process is very slow.
Windows disk defragmenter is a program that has already existed in Windows. It allows you to improve data access speed by rearranging the fragmented files stored on your hard drive.
As a built-in feature, you don't need to download any third-party software to use it. It satisfies most users' defragmentation needs like setting a schedule defragment on both internal and external hard drives.
Features:
✔ It offers an easy-to-use interface.
✔ Most users are familiar with its operation.
✔ No installation is required.
✔ It is available to defrag disk on a schedule.
✔ It supports defragmentation for USB drives, SD cards, or solid-state drives.
With Windows built-in disk defrag program, you can experience a performance increase after defragmenting. But you should know it is unable to defragment locked files and the ways to open it vary from the different versions of Windows.
After looking through the list of the top five free disk defragmenter Windows 10, you should pick the most suitable one based on your needs. Since disk defrag can optimize the hard drive, it's great to form a habit of defragging your computer regularly.
How often should you perform disk defragmentation? Usually, it's better to finish it once a week. If you think it's time-consuming to run a defrag manually or you are worried that you'll forget to defrag the disk, you might as well try setting scheduled disk defragmentation.
Here we'll introduce you two of the most common and effective methods to defrag your disk daily, weekly, or monthly.
Step 1. Type "defrag" in the search bar and choose "Defragment and Optimize Drives" under "Best match".
Step 2. Then, hit the option "Change settings" in the "Optimize Drives" window.
Step 3. Now, tick the option "Run a schedule" and then, you can preset the frequency for defrag and select which drives to defrag by clicking on "Choose". Afterwards, hit "OK" to save the changes.
By enabling schedule defrag on Windows 10, you don't have to worry about the freezing computer caused by disk fragmentation. However, some users complained Windows built-in disk defragmenter schedule not working for no reason sometimes.
So, I highly recommend an all-in-one alternative named AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to you. It is the advanced version of AOMEI software we mentioned in the list, which is able to schedule defrag your hard drive more efficiently and securely.
With this reliable disk defrag program for Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista, you can not only defrag disk daily, weekly, and monthly, but also decide to defrag at which clock, on what conditions, and even whether at startup or logon on. Follow the steps below to see how this tool work.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, right click the disk and select "Disk Defrag" as the screenshot shows.
Step 2. In the popup window, click on "Schedule".
Step 3. Now, select the drive you want to defrag, decide whether or not to defrag daily, weekly, during logon or setup.
In addition to presetting how often to defrag, you can also determine on what conditions to defrag. When everything is set, click "OK" to save the changes.
By downloading the best disk defragmenter for Windows 10 or 11, you will get faster boot time, better disk performance, and more by simply defragging your hard drive. Any one of the five carefully selected software in this article can be your first choice. By the way, don't forget to schedule defrag your disk to keep your drives always in good maintenance.
To get a better computer experience, you can also manage and optimize your partitions by cloning HDD to SSD, deleting large files, resizing/moving partitions, moving programs or files, etc.