Free Defrag for Home Use

very good
key review info
application features
  • MultiCore-Optimization
  • (3 more, see all...)

In the case of O&O Defrag Free Edition the name reveals both the purpose of the application and the fact that it is actually free of charge. The application sports two defragmentation speeds which can be programmed to start when a user defined amount of fragmentation is detected.

As opposed to the paid editions available, the freebie is not packed with features and tackles the more simplistic side of the defrag process offering the minimum necessary to optimize the performance of the targeted drives.

Installing the application is an easy task that can be clicked through without the worry of pushing any third party software into the system. At the end of the process you can go through a two-step configuration process; this is not mandatory but it’ll inform you of the benefits of the program and run you through an abridged version of the scheduler.

The interface is pretty simple and straightforward, with the functions and menus ruling in the upper part of the screen, in the ribbon bar, while the drives are listed underneath. The lower part of the screen is reserved for showing information on the scheduled job, reports and the current status of the selected drive and the files on it.

You have to know from the start that O&O Defrag Free Edition displays plenty of options that are available only in the paid editions of the product. However, these are greyed out in the freebie, so that they do not create any confusion.

The principle driving this application to better defragmentation is called zone filing. It consists in dividing the files on the system into three categories according to their access frequency and purpose. Data that needs to be accessed quickly (system and program files) is placed on the fast lane of the hard disk while less used files are moved to slower areas. This way fragmentation is prevented and ulterior defrag jobs complete in a shorter amount of time.

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Unlike the paid editions, the freebie does not offer the possibility to customize the file zones, but the default configuration is optimal for most users. Also, you can take a peed at the settings for each of the 3 zones. System data and program files are amassed in the first zone, the second one contains user data selected based on the date of last access while seldom used items are included in the third zone (slowest area of the hard disk) and its purpose is mainly to consolidate free space.

Given that there are only two defragmentation methods available in O&O Defrag Free Edition, Optimize and Optimize /Quick, only one of them, the former, deals with defragmentation of free space. The other is designed to move the data in the correct zone.

Our tests were performed using the default procedure (Optimize) which also arranges the files to maximize the resulting free space and it is more thorough. These affected a heavily fragmented (94.92% according to O&O Defrag covering 506 fragmented files) 2GB partition with 200MB of free space.

After the first run, this took 5’42’’ to complete, the application managed to reduce fragmentation of the drive to 79.26%, dropping the amount of fragmented items to 347. The next session finished in much less time (37’’), but the impact was minimal, resulting in 78.84% fragmentation generated by 339 files.

For the second test we made more room for the defragmentation process and raised the amount of free space to 438MB. Running a new analysis of the drive O&O Defrag Free Edition reported 285 fragmented items and a fragmentation rate of 76.26%, still way above the average.

Under these improved conditions the optimization completed in 2’59’’ and the result was 61.88% fragmentation; the number of fragmented data dropped drastically to only 53, a figure very close to what programs of the same feather showed, namely 46.

Pursuing our goal of getting the application to give its best we repeated the procedure to reduce the fragmentation to 45.38% and 4 files in 1’43’’. All other software we compared it to displayed a similar percentage of file displacement (45%). Striving to squeeze even better performance, we did the test again but 18’’ later nothing was changed.

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Upon increasing the amount of free space to 528MB, almost the size of the largest fragmented file on the drive which weighed 270MB, O&O Defrag Free Edition displayed a fragmentation rate of 48.6% and the same amount of troublesome items: 4.

Insisting with defragmentation it managed to improve the figures to 30.26% and 3 fragmented elements. Further tries brought no improvement. However, running Perfect Disk did better the state of the drive, despite the different reading from the two programs. O&O still showed a defragmentation, but only 19.22%, while PD reported only 0.3% and excellent values for both performance as well as free space fragmentation.

During our tests the application managed to reduce fragmentation up to a certain extent. The final analysis still showed a worrying level of fragmentation which could not be further improved, despite the fact that another product succeeding in doing exactly that.

The set of options available in the freebie is not large, nor is it complex. You get to access simple functions in easy to reach spots. However, configuration panel is filled with options available in the upgraded issue (boot time defrag, file inclusion/exclusion list, automatic optimization, Activity Monitor).

Even the scheduler comes with limitations, as it allows you to set up only one job. On the upside, it allows you to choose multiple drives to be defragged in different ways. On the same note, you can specify a fragmentation threshold that triggers the optimization job.

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The Good

The easy to navigate interface and the well placed buttons are definitely a plus for the application. It manages to drop fragmentation on heavily fragmented drives in a very short amount of time.

You benefit from reports that include the type of the job ran as well as the date and time of the completion. There is a wide variety of file sorting: fragmented items, large fragmented elements, large system files, fragmented locked data or large files.

Zone Filing algorithm places system files that require fast access at the beginning of the disk while less used data is pushed to slower areas, thus improving overall system performance.

The Bad

There are plenty of restricted and very useful options visible, which makes configuration a bit frustrating. During our tests defragmentation stopped at a pretty high level, although there was still room for improvement.

We could not get a look at the help file as it would not load the content itself, making visible only the table of contents.

The Truth

With all the results at hand, drawing a conclusion regarding the benefits O&O Defrag Free Edition brings to your system is easy. The application does a good job as long as there aren’t too many fragmented large files. It will improve the performance of the drive, but other free defrag tools will do it to the same degree.

user interface 4
features 3
ease of use 5
pricing / value 3


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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