Vista - Which Defragger do you use and why?

I've heard good things about the commercial apps Perfect Disk and O&O, and the freebie jkdefrag.

My main concern with jkdefrag is this:
"The "Prefetch\Layout.ini" file is not yet supported. This means that JkDefrag will undo the boot optimization of the built-in XP and Vista defragger."

I'm not sure what that means but it doesn't sound good...

So which Defragger should I buy? (Or is Vista's own defragger good enough?)

Opinions?

I use perfectdisk 10 , ive been perfectdisk for a very long time , i know it can be set to defrag bootime files but as for that blurb you mentioned ive no idea

PerfectDisk - Defrag Software for Your Desktops, Servers and Enterprise

it is certified by microsoft for Vista , not that it means a whole lot

To understand that disclaimer it's necessary to understand "prefetch".

Ever since XP, Windows has monitored its own boot sequence and the first 10 seconds of every app startup. For example, if you start Photoshop.exe, a whole bunch of DLLs and "filters" are loaded into the Photoshop process during its first few seconds. The prefetch mechanism keeps tabs on what's being loaded on a per-process basis and writes logs with its observations into the \windows\prefetch folder. (It does the same thing during the Windows boot.)

The Windows defragger then uses that prefetch info to rearrange those files and sections of files which are commonly loaded together on a given machine into contiguous blocks on the HDD, so that the head can read as much as possible without having to seek and wait for further rotational delay - a very slow operation, comparatively speaking.

That disclaimer appears to be saying "we don't handle prefetch so if you use our defragger we'll move the files/fragments around in a way which will undo their prefetch optimisation." However, the use of "yet" makes me optimistic that they intend to implement this as an additional feature in the future

Personally, I can't be bothered using any defraggers. I just let Vista do its thang and I don't seem to have any noticeable fragmentation problems.

Have you tried a "full" (not default) admin:command line defrag with Vista? it is best to do this in conjunction with a sfc scan and diskcheck for optimal results and improved speed and performance.
H2S04 give it a try and tell me what you think.
for more Info (and user comments): How To Make Vista more responsive and faster

sfc /scannow
defrag c: -w
note- this (-w) means consolidate all fragments regardless of size. default defrag will not consolidate fragments 64MB in size or larger)

Gary

Gary and H2:
I'm assuming you don't do a lot of downloading, processing .rar's, or ripping and deleting, etc. or I think your Vista would get pretty fragmented and you'd notice a slowing down, if you don't defrag.
I can't believe you don't at least set the Vista defragger to do it's "thang" once a week or so!
I did the defrag via command that rive recommends above, yesterday. I only did it because I am getting ready to shrink my C drive with Paragon Partioner so I thought it might be a good idea (not sure).
I'm still debating on whether to get O&O, Perfect Disk, or jkdefrag (and live with its slower booting - thanks for the explanation. I wonder just HOW much slower it will be without the pre-fetch...? I'm thinking it may not make that much difference because I always go into Configure StartUp apps and uncheck all but the things I really need in there so I "only" end up with a half dozen or so including my firewall, and macro utility, MS Works Calendar and one or two other things).

Vista has a once a week defrag scheduled in the task scheduler by default (at least it did here). When I first started using Vista I would try running the defrager from the tools tab of the drive properties dialog and it always said it was not needed. The vista defrag works fine and in the background (I have better things to do than watch boxes or lines move around) and yes I do a lot of downloading etc. Another defragger is not really needed unless you do like watching lines or boxes moving around.
If you do get another defragger, I suggest that you be sure to remove the scheduled entry for the windows defragger to avoid problems.

Gary

I recommend Perfectdisk its simply the best defragger there is but if you dont want to spend money then right click on your desktop and select new shortcut. In the location box type C:\Windows\System32\Defrag.exe -w -v %SystemDrive% then click next and finish. Then right click on your desktop again and create a new shortcut and in the location box type C:\Windows\System32\Defrag.exe -b %SystemDrive% then click next and finish.

This gives you two shortcuts the first one is to defrag the hard drive and the second is to defrag the boot files.

Dont rely on the standard defragger as its **** and misses out files bigger than 64MB, boot files, metadata, page file etc

I agree 127%, but I don't know how to do the thumbs-up smilie thing

My line about my "using defraggers" was poorly phrased. What I meant was that I don't invoke any defraggers myself - I just let Vista's in-built defragging keep things tidy in the background.

Rt. click on the pic and save to your hard drive. When you want to use it in a post, click on the paperclip. A window opens to upload a file. Browse to the pic to select. Click the upload button (you can close the window when uploaded). Click on the paperclip again and select the file. Submit post and wallah.