Fragger

Fragger is a lightweight and portable piece of software that enables users to simulate file fragmentation on a selected drive, in order to test the performance of a defragging tool, such as Defraggler or Power Defragmenter. It does not actually tinker with the existing files, so there is no disk of corrupting data.

Since installation is not a prerequisite, you can save the app directory in any part of the hard disk and just click the executable to run.

Another possibility is to save a copy of Fragger to a USB flash disk or similar removable storage unit, in order to run it on any PC with minimum effort, as long as it has .NET Framework installed.

An important aspect to take into account is that the tool does not create new entries in the Windows registry or Start menu, leaving the disk clean after removal.

The GUI is represented by a single window with a clear-cut structure, where you can point out the drive to fragment using the tree view, as well as choose the file data type between ASCII, binary, ASCII and binary combined, highly compressible ASCII, ultra compressible ASCII, or create many small files via ASCII.

The task starts with the click of a button and, during this time, you can view the total file operations and size of written data. It can be stopped at any time.

After running tests with the defragging application of your choice, you can remove the simulated files using Fragger by performing a full cleaning job. There is also an option to run a partial clean, but this actually increases fragmentation by creating space to be filled with additional fragmented files.

CPU and RAM are heavily used during Fragger's runtime, which is normal, so users may have to postpone their normal activity on the computer until the application is done. We have not come across any issues throughout our evaluation, though, as it did not hang, crash or pop up error dialogs. It may take a long time to fragment a drive, depending on the chosen method and drive size.

Fragger is a great help for those who want to test the abilities of a new defrag software utlity by simulating heavy fragmentation on the disk.