14 DAY TRIAL // Fragmentation is, and has been a constant in working with computers. No matter what computer you have or what hard disk you have inside, it is going to get fragmented. As the drive becomes more and more fragmented, working with it becomes slower, and this is a particularly sensitive issue today, because, due to the constant updating of the system and of system components, even if they files themselves do not become fragmented, they get scattered all over the drive, further increasing access times.
This is a very old issue that has been partially addressed, and many feel that HFS+, the file system used on today?s Macs is so good that you do not need to defragment. This is only partially true. The Mac will automatically make sure that files are not fragmented by placing them somewhere where there is enough free space, however, this is only done for files that are below 20MB is size. While this is great for all those small files, anything above 20 MB is going to get fragmented. Furthermore, while a file is saved from fragmentation, the first available free space that it will fit in is not necessarily the best place for the file. Another thing that will not get done by itself is free space defragmentation, and this is particularly important, because the swap file must be contiguous on the disk. If free space is not defragmented you can start experiencing virtual memory problems long before you actually start running out of disk space.
All this having been said, defragmentation is still a healthy and often necessary part of working with a computer, and iDefrag is up to the task.
Smart Defragmentation Apple has raised the problem of defragmentation utilities actually making your computer slower. This is because of the Adaptive Hot File Clustering that is present in Panther and newer versions of the system, which keeps the important files in the ?Hot Band.? Other defragmentation utilities can cause harm by moving files out or in this ?Hot Band,? but with iDefrag this is not a problem since is has full support for the Hot Zone.
In addition to this, it also has a host of other options such as ?Per-Class Sorting? which will sort files of a particular class according to the sort order specified in the class definition file. It can also compact the B-Tree metadata files that hold the file system directory information to recover free space and improve performance. If there is enough contiguous free space, it can even rebuild these files instead of just compacting them.
Last but not least, iDefrag will go to lengths to make sure your data is intact, and it can read and check the data it writes when moving files, and will re-write data that doesn?t match. This helps protect against bad sectors and the potential loss of valuable information that can result from them.
A wealth of information Besides showing the fragmentation of the entire drive, color coded depending on the file types, it will also show detailed information about the file that is selected, you can see what the file is, who it belongs to, what the permissions are, when it was modified. As if that wasn?t enough, in the case of fragmented files, it will also show the fragmentation of the data and resource forks, complete with a visual representation and breakdown by blocks.
You can view the statistics of a volume or a list of all the fragmented files on that volume, each with detailed information.
Many ways to skin a cat iDefrag offers five different defragmentation tools which are: Disk compaction; Metadata optimization; Advanced, programmable optimization; Full Defrag and On-line defragmentation.
The first four are basically offline algorithms that require the disk to be un-mounted, and cannot be used with volumes that have open files. The last method, however, will work even on file systems that are currently in use.
The programmable optimization algorithm uses a classification engine that can be seen at work at coloring the blocks on the display, and it can be configured with arbitrary expressions in a simple text file. You could, for example, group all the files that have the word ?Softpedia? somewhere in their name and are between 100KB and 100MB in size, into one place, or move all the files from a certain directory into the same part of the hard drive. iDefrag has the power and flexibility to let you do anything you want.
The Good Flexible and powerful, offering you all the information you could possibly wish for. Easily find and defragment files using powerful, safe options.
The Bad Can be a little slow, and the registration method can be a pain at times, but other than that, it?s all good.
The Truth A great defragmentation tool, ideal for both the casual user and the people who do computer maintenance for a living.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
