Smart Defrag 2 2.5

Overview

While the storage space of modern hard drives is constantly increasing, the large amounts of data placed on them can quickly become fragmented. Consequentially, this will have a significant negative impact on the performance of your computer in terms of data access, read and write. Moreover, the larger the drive is, the longer it will take conventional defragmentation software to finish the job and thus, users always feel tempted to postpone it mostly because there is not much you can do on the computer during the defragment procedure.

This is where innovative defragmentation software utilities like Smart Defrag come into play. The advantage of this utility is that the defrag process occurs in the background, therefore it does not interfere with the applications you are running. In addition, Smart Defrag uses a relatively low amount of system resources, so the performance is not hindered one bit. But let us analyze this utility and see what the fuss is about.

Installation

Smart Defrag is a relatively small application (the install kit only occupies 3.7 megabytes from your hard drive). However, it will always require that you keep 30 megabytes free in order to run properly. In addition, the minimal requirements for Smart Defrag are a 300 MHz or better processor and at least 256 megabytes of RAM. The installation process for Smart Defrag is quite speedy and intuitive. Once the program has completed the installation, you will be asked whether you want to install the IOBit toolbar for the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers, as well as a couple of other system utilities that Smart Defrag comes bundled with. 

Interface

Unlike most applications designed with a practical purpose in mind, the interface of Smart Defrag is quite appealing. The combination of black, grey and blue of the sleek design gives this software utility a professional look. The Smart Defrag window has two sections. In the upper part, users can see the drives and partitions installed on the computer as well as a list of options selected for each of them. The lower section contains the graphical display of the hard drive or partition fragmentation and the subsections needed to configure the application.

While you may not be a tech savvy, the learning curve for Smart Defrag is really low and you can usually rely on the default settings in case you are not sure on whether activating a certain feature for all the drives is a good idea. The bottom part of the application’s window includes a section with the latest news and freebies from the developer and his partners, but it can easily be turned off if you find it to be a nuisance.

Pros

The obvious advantage of downloading Smart Defrag is that you get a lightweight, effective and, on top of that, free software utility that can significantly boost the performance of your system. Smart Defrag boasts to be the fastest defragmentation tool at the moment without having to cut corners on the proficiency of the job. This is particularly important for modern hard drives with a high amount of storage space, as we all know how long defragmenting those takes.

However, Smart Defrag is far from being a simple defragment utility. This software will actually streamline the files on your computer and arrange them based on the frequency of access. Therefore, you files will always be optimized and your computer will reach its full potential in performance. Moreover, unlike the traditional defrag applications, Smart Defrag can be used during the boot up sequence, thus giving it access to files that are locked once the booting is complete.

Cons

A few of people who own hard drives designed by Intel have reported that Smart Defrag has certain issues. On all accounts, it may be a simple incompatibility problem with the technology used for certain models.

Alternatives

The main competitor for Smart Defrag at the moment is Auslogics Disk Defrag, an application that seems to be a little bit more popular. Other defragmentation utilities worth mentioning are Disk Defrag and Swift Disk Defrag.  

Conclusion

Smart Defrag is a fast, but nonetheless effective, defragmentation utility and, the best thing about it is that it is free. However, it is just as powerful as any paid defrag utility and it does not hug all the system resources, even though it runs in the background.