My Review of IO Bit Smart Defrag (Freeware)

Entry for March 22, 2009

REVIEW: IO Bit Smart Defrag disk defragmenter

My previous disk defragmenter was Ultra Defrag from Source Forge. Unfortunately, they upgraded to version 3. Then their program started always moving all of the data all over the target drive in an attempt to defragment just a few fragmented files. This started taking a long time, especially on my Windows Active System Partition. So I used Revo Uninstaller to remove all traces of Ultra Defrag, and went to start over.

I am a member of the Hinsdale (Illinois) Computer Users Group (HCUG) and our leader, John Shannon, presented a brief piece on a C Net review of Smart Defrag by IO Bit. This freeware program does disk optimizing, in the fashion of the Norton Optimizer from System Works, my all-time favorite disk defragmenter. The display looks upside-down compared with Norton, but otherwise is quite similar, if a bit less informative. Still, the actions and intended actions of Smart Defrag can be clearly seen, and reports can be viewed at the click of a mouse. Multiple drives or partitions can be handled simultaneously, and a multi-partition report can be viewed. If one so desires, the program can be left active, showing up as an icon in the Windows System Notification Tray Area, and there is an option for on-the-fly defragmentation. The program can be completely dismissed with a right-click option from the Tray Icon. All at no charge for a "pro" version. I do not like to do anything on-the-fly, as this takes up system resources, and I have only a single-core P4m processor, shared graphics memory, and total RAM of just 512 Mb. My security programs (Comodo Pro Firewall and Avast Anti-malware) take up enough CPU cycles, in my opinion.

Defragmenting starts with Analysis, and a Report can be viewed. There are three levels of optimization, and the usual recommended level is Fast Optimize. This takes only a few minutes in my partitions, which are never more than 40Gb each, and only my Acronis Backup Partitions are anywhere near full of data. The resulting improvements in Windows speed and keyboard/mouse responsiveness are very noticeable, and last aa long time before I am even tempted to redo the optimization process. Yet another reason not to use the on-the-fly option. There are options for on-boot or on-shutdown defragmentation, shutting off the computer when finished, and scheduled defragmentation runs. All would be useful in a desktop environment, but I have a laptop, and it does not remain on or in Standby all the time. As a way of paying for the product, IO Bit has a button for computer optimization (like PC Tools Optimizer on line scanner), and (like the PC Tools scanner) to get anything optimized (except defragmenting) a fee must be paid after the scanner shows its results. I prefer to leave these on-line scanners alone.

All things considered, I find Smart Defrag to be a very good utility for optimizing hard drive performance, internally and externally. While there may be paid products which could do a better job, this one is light on system resources, can be completely dismissed, and is free. It is, like all good freeware, good enough.

-- LittleWolf -- Sun., March 22, 2009 -- 3:47 PM CDT (USA) -- All Rights Reserved. --

Sunday March 22, 2009 - 04:36pm (CDT)