Disk Defragmentation

[Knite]

Diskeeper stinks...if you turn on the wrong options it can slow your system down and cause fragmentation...and I've tested 3 different versions.

If you want a really good freeware disk defragmenter...auslogistics disk defrag.

I'm going to put in a 2nd vote for Auslogic's Disk Defrag.
MUCH faster than the windows one, and newer versions can handle free space better too (to help slow down future fragmentation).

[BoilerDown]

I don't know of a good reason not to use what comes with Windows. 

I don't know why, but some people have a thing against defraging often, or that its "better" to wait until the drive "needs" to be defraged.  I haven't seen any evidence supporting this, however.  I personally defrag after every time I apply a Windows update, so about once a month.  It doesn't "need" defraging, and it won't ever "need" it either, if I keep it up.  Takes about 3 minutes I'd guess, so its not an inconvenience.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I don't know of a good reason not to use what comes with Windows. 

I don't know why, but some people have a thing against defraging often, or that its "better" to wait until the drive "needs" to be defraged.  I haven't seen any evidence supporting this, however.  I personally defrag after every time I apply a Windows update, so about once a month.  It doesn't "need" defraging, and it won't ever "need" it either, if I keep it up.  Takes about 3 minutes I'd guess, so its not an inconvenience.

There are two downsides to frequent defragging:

1) You lose time over little to no benefit, windows has had semi-automatic defraging since xp
2) Defragging often wears down your hdd prematurely

[Dragon]

My Vista machines defrag once a week, needed or not.  XP's I tend to do at least once a month.  I use the pre-installed software.