Disk Defragmentation

Because Microsoft offers not very detailed internas about NTFS, no one can _REALLY_ be shure not to destroy his NTFS-Partition if he uses "own code".

What all this defragment-programs do is actually calling windows api calls.

The wiki article states that beginn with NT4 windows includes this apis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation[^]

And the Technet article explains a little more.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc778290%28WS.10%29.aspx[^]

I use Diskeeper to defrag as it is much faster, completely transparent and it prevents fragmentation.

Also, MS Disk Defragmenter was developed in collaboration with Diskeeper back in the days of Windows 2000, so Diskeeper works very well with Windows.

Here is a link about the co-development of Disk Defragmenter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_Defragmenter[^]

Here is a review that talks about Diskeeper's transaprency and ability to prevent fragmentation:

http://disk-defragmenter-software-review.toptenreviews.com/diskeeper-professional-review.html[^]

..

Thanks for the reminder! Haven't defragmented in a while. I use the built-in one.

SSD's

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If you have an SSD, you may not need to or even want to defragment. This is because of the way SSD's tend to manage data. If a given block has been written too many times, the SSD may switch that data to be on a new physical block. So, SSD's sort of fragment themselves even if the data appears to be defragmented (they are fragmented on a hardware level, not on a data level). And since SSD's have good seek time, it is essentially unimportant when files get fragmented. Defragmenting SSD's may also reduce the lifespan of your SSD, so it is not recommended. If your hard drive is not an SSD, however, defragment away!

I have been using Auslogics Disk Defrag. I never had a problem, but I "defrag" my HDD rather seldom. If you take a look at the version number (4.5.3.0), in the past, this program has had a lot of updates, because manipulating the filesystem ís a dangerous business. and, there are other programs and vendors manipulating the filesystem and they do it very well, too. my recommendation is to pick a well known/tested tool and be careful. watch out for data loss! and don't defrag ssds!