Screenshots: Five excellent Windows defrag tools

PerfectDisk Professional

PerfectDisk Professional is a tool for defragmenting the hard disks on Windows PCs. It allows you to perform defragmentation at boot time, on a scheduled basis, or manually. It also gives enables you to prevent auto optimization from occurring during specific periods of time.

PerfectDisk Professional

As a bonus, PerfectDisk displays your hard disk's SMART information and includes a nice dashboard view that consolidates status information, SMART information, scheduled tasks, and alerts.

PerfectDisk Professional sells for $29.99, but a free trial version is available for download.

Ashampoo Magical Defrag

Ashampoo Magical Defrag includes all the features you would expect from a commercial defrag application. It performs deep analysis of your system's hard disks and automated defragmentation. Unlike some defragmentation applications, however, Magical Defrag is SSD aware—which is important, since old school defragmentation can shorten the life of an SSD.

Ashampoo Magical Defrag

The other cool thing about this application is that it includes a screensaver that uses a world map view to show the machine's defragmentation status. The screen saver is a little bit tough to explain, but it is worth a look.

Ashampoo Magical Defrag sells for $14.99, but a free trial is available for download.

O&O Defrag Professional Edition

O&O Defrag Professional Edition has a built-in cluster inspector and an option to optimize thin provisioning. The application also features a built-in reporting engine.

O&O Defrag Professional Edition

O&O Defrag Professional Edition sells for $29.95, but a free trial version is available for download.

UltimateDefrag Freeware Edition

UltimateDefrag Freeware Edition is a handy defragmentation program. The cool thing about UltimateDefrag is that it allows you to choose the type of defragmentation you want to perform.

UltimateDefrag Freeware Edition

UltimateDefrag lets you defragment files only,   perform a consolidated defragmentation, or  base defragmentation on filename and folder name, recency, or volatility.

WinUtilities Free Edition

WinUtilities Free Edition is another good option for those who don't want to use the native Windows defragmentation feature. The thing that makes WinUtilities different from the other defragmentation tools on this list is that it comprises an entire suite of utilities, not just a defragmenter.

WinUtilities Free Edition

WinUtilities includes a disk cleaner, a registry cleaner, and an uninstaller, just to name a few. Note that the free version contains only basic utilities, while the paid version contains enhanced utilities.