When I saw this defragmentation tool I thought "Well... I don't really need this, Windows already has one". But then I saw Defraggler has been developed by the same people as Recuva and the almighty CCleaner, so I decided to give it a try. After all, I use external apps for many tasks that Windows can do by itself, so why not using a third-party defragmenter?

Defraggler is easy to install and goes straight to the point. Its most outstanding feature is the possibility to defragment individual folders and files simply by putting a tick next to them. In fact, the option to defragment the whole hard drive is much more hidden (either right click on the drive or use the top menu bar).

However, there are things I didn't like about this program. First, I found it a bit slow. Also, it would have been nice to have it minimized to the system tray or similar. Finally, I'd appreciate it if the program included some means to automate tasks: you can't schedule defrags, nor set the program to turn off the PC when it's done.

Download Defraggler 1.02.085 in Softonic

Hard Drive Inspector is a powerful, convenient and effective program based on the S.M.A.R.T. technology, which allows controlling the state of your hard disk drives. Most computer users argue that the information stored on their computer is the most valuable element of the computer system.

With the help of the S.M.A.R.T. System, Hard Drive Inspector allows you to predict a possible failure of the HDD before this occurs. As access to electronic information becomes more and more vital in business and at home, Hard Drive Inspector allows exceeding the traditional limits of HDDs reliability, thus extending the level of valuable user data protection.

Hard Drive Inspector has a flexible option system, which allows you to customize the functionality of this utility, according to your needs. Hard Drive Inspector has an easy-to-use, nice-looking interface. It also offers many useful features, which make the S.M.A.R.T. monitoring process full-scale and easy.

Download Hard Drive Inspector 2.100 in Softonic

No matter how organized you keep stuff in your computer, the only way to know how space is distributed on your hard drive is using a tool like fOsi X.

With fOsi X you can analyze your hard drive (or any other drive you select) and automatically get a complete graphical report that displays the space each one of your folders takes up. The visual analysis in fOsi X is much easier to read and understand, and gives a clearer view on how hard drive space is being used on your computer.

fOsi X lets you choose between bar charts or pie charts and also features the possibility to add a symbol legend and rotate the chart in real time. If you want to the save the report, the only way to do it is either by copying to the Clipboard or saving it as an image file.

With fOsi X you can obtain an instantaneous graphical chart that shows how hard drive space is distributed on your computer.

Download fOsi X Lite 1.3.1 in Softonic

PC Tools Disk Suite attempts to cover all possible angles when it comes to hard drive management.

PC Tools Disk Suite offers all in one hard drive management that integrates disk optimization, a cleanup tool, a defrag utility and even a partitioning and backup tool in one well presented and easy to use pack. Like most PC Tools products, the interface is the same as used across the entire line of products and clearly presents the options available to you.

As is to be expected, the cleanup and optimize feature of PC Tools Disk Suite aims to reduce unnecessary files and indicates how much free disk space it's recovered for you at any one time. The defrag tool reorganizes files on your disk and should speed up your system and it supports both FAT and NTFS drives. It's nice that you can select whether to defrag quickly or slowly in PC Tools Disk Suite although the fast defrag doesn't seem to make much difference at all. On the other hand, the long defrag does take a while and you¡'d be best to use it overnight.

The PC Tools Disk Suite Backup feature allows you select which files you want to backup regularly either manually or via scheduler and finally the Partition feature allows you to create, merge, split, resize, delete, copy, and move partitions. However, you'd be highly advised to backup all your data using the total backup option on PC Tools Disk Suite as disk partitions can result in lost or corrupted data very easily if you don't know what you are doing.

PC Tools Disk Suite is an incredibly comprehensive suite that covers all the major areas you need to keep your PC in tip top condition.

Download PC Tools Disk Suite in Softonic

Sometimes it's handy to have an all in one tool that does everything from cleaning the registry to system monitoring rather than several different apps. This is not only more likely to work properly and not conflict but it's also lighter on your RAM.

Desktop Maestro is an all-in-one cleaning and monitoring application that integrates registry cleaning, system monitoring and privacy cleaning. The developers PC Tools are well known for Registry Mechanic and Desktop Maestro combines the best of this tool with it's other flagship product, Privacy Guardian.

Desktop Maestro features the same clean and easy to administer interface that you get with most PC Tools products. Desktop Maestro will scan your entire registry for any invalid entries and clearly lists the registry errors found so you can choose to selectively clean each item or automatically repair all errors. It does of course make a backup before making any changes. The Privacy Guardian basically clears any trace of surfing habits and document use from your system and finally Desktop Maestro can also provide optimization and performance tweaks that can improve efficiency in system usage, processes, CPU, memory and disk space.

Desktop Maestro is a quality all in one product that removes the need to have a separate registry cleaner, privacy cleaner and optimiser in one.

Download Desktop Maestro 3.0.0.830 in Softonic

Defragging your hard drive is one of the easiest and simplest ways to make your system run faster and reduce hard drive wear and tear.

Puran Defrag is a very simple defrag utility which defrags files and optimizes your system, which means it collect all the fragments of a file and puts them back together in a more ordered and logical form. Puran Defrag also moves frequently used files and all directories to a faster disk area which theoretically should speed up your drive.

Puran Defrag can be used while you are working although it doesn't exactly make life easy on slower machines because the reorganising of files will inevitably slow down certain applications - it's highly recommended you allow Puran Defrag to work overnight or while you are not using your PC. To help you in this respect, Puran Defrag allows you to automatically schedule the defragging of your drive every boot, once a week, on a specific day of the month or even every half hour.

Puran Defrag is an extremely simple defragger which should result in some system improvements although you may find that it's painfully slow if you hard drive requires a lot of defragging.

Download Puran Defrag 5.0 in Softonic

Disk Doctors Linux Data Recovery software helps you to recover data from Ext2 & Ext3 File systems that are common to the Linux operating system.

This means that Disk Doctors Linux Data Recovery works with all the major releases of Linux including Redhat Linux, Suse Linux, Mandriva Linux, Ubuntu Linux, Caldera Linux, Slackware Linux, Gentoo Linux and Kubuntu Linux. Linux systems rarely lose data but sometimes they can due to corrupted blocks or simple accidental deletion of data by those unfamiliar with the system.

Disk Doctors Linux Data Recovery is attractively designed with an easy to use and navigate interface. All recovery procedures are carried out via an on-screen "wizard" which guides you through the process step by step. When you have finished, Disk Doctors Linux Data Recovery will be able to tell you how much of the data is genuinely recoverable and how much of it is lost for good. Disk Doctors Linux Data Recovery is extremely fast due to the "TurboScan" engine that it uses so you don't have to wait long for it to go through the motions.

For Linux users, Disk Doctors Linux Data Recovery is a rare utility that allows you to salvage whatever remains of your data when you think that all is lost.

Download Disk Doctors Linux Data Recovery in Softonic

Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery can instantly recover deleted files emptied from the Recycle Bin or that have been lost due to accidental formatting or re-partitioning of a hard drive.

Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery can also help in the case of viruses, and unexpected system or software malfunctions. Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery is designed with beginners in mind so there's some useful tips and hints to get you started although there's nothing complicated about it anyway. Simply browse to the drive or folders that have been affected and let Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery scan to see what it can recover.

Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery is a simple but effective solution for anyone that's lost data in a folder or drive and doesn't know which type of drive they are using or doesn't know where to start with file recovery.

Download Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery in Softonic

If you're working on a FAT drive and have either accidentally deleted or lost data, then Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery might be able to help.

You can use Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery software to recover data from FAT16, FAT32, drives as well as recovery from the FAT partitions created on any other OS supporting FAT file system. Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery uses a very simple wizard to take you through the recovery process so there's no danger of doing something you might regret - like format your drive accidentally or something.

Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery is therefore simple enough for beginners and those without any technical know-how to use. Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery is compatible with most major hard drive types including IDE/AT, SATA, SCSI and USB Flash Drives. It's particularly useful for those that have missing or lost data due to a failed partition or from a drive that hasn't been formatted properly.

Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery is a simple and easy solution for anyone that has had the worst happen to them while using a FAT drive.

Download Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery in Softonic

The problem with Windows is that it never properly deletes files when you think they've been deleted - it often leaves behind
traces that can be recovered by anyone in the know.

The problem is that the allocation area or the index of the file system (FAT or NTFS) marks the area used by the deleted file as
empty but the actual raw contents of the files are always present even if the file has been deleted. Disk Doctors File Shredder
ensures that anything that you've deleted definitely remains deleted no matter what Windows may have done with the files.

Disk Doctors File Shredder helps you to shred files and folders from your Windows drive, shredding the deleted data and leaving
no traces of sensitive critical data. Disk Doctors File Shredder is very easy to run and use via a hierarchical explorer which
displays which files and folders are available to shred. Those that you want to shred, simply add them to the Disk Doctors File
Shredder “shredding zone” and you have 9 options over exactly how shredded you want the files to be processed by Disk
Doctors File Shredder differing in thoroughness and time it takes. The developers claim that the shredding standards of Disk
Doctors File Shredder reach those of the US Department of Defence although this is obviously impossible to verify.

Disk Doctors File Shredder is a very secure way to make sure that anything you delete is definitely deleted and remains
so.

Download Disk Doctors File Shredder 1.0.0 in Softonic

Disk wiping or hard drive clearing can be necessary for a number of reasons such as to install a new operating system or to simply maintain your privacy.

Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer is an ultra effective solution which helps you remove every last shred of data on your hard drive. The reason is that many deletion tools only delete the file structure from your hard drive so you can't see it anymore but in effect, it still exists. Data recovery software can therefore often recover it if needed which is why it's not a particularly safe way of deleting data. Note that Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer aims to eliminate any risk of file recovery so use it with care.

Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer eliminates data files at the heart of directories and shreds data beyond recovery. Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer offers 9 types of disk wiping which include Fast Zero Overwrite (for quick deletes) and Random Overwrite (which scrubs out data repeatedly to ensure it's gone). Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer also offers a series of ultra secure deletions such as "US Navy" and "US Department of Defense" deletion methods which basically emulate those used by such organizations.

Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer is a very secure way to delete data from your drive and ensure that data recovery software doesn't discover anything.

Download Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer 1.0.0 in Softonic

HDClone copies the entire contents of hard disks and other IDE/ATA, SATA/eSATA, SCSI, USB, and Firewire media on a physical level.

This even allows for the smooth creation of backups or copies of complete operating system installations. In combination with the special 'SafeRescue' mode of HDClone, this technique is also perfect for rescuing data in case of defective hard disks.

Furthermore, HDClone works independent of a partition layout, file system and operating system (i.e. it works with FAT, FAT32, NTFS, etc.). Thus, it also works with proprietary data formats which could not be accessed otherwise. Besides copying complete drives, it is also possible to apply it to certain partitions only.

Download HDClone Free Edition 3.6.2 in Softonic

Need3Space is a comprehensive set of tools which helps you control and manage your disk space, while also gathering free space, for any drive. With Need3Space you can find duplicate files, temporary files, unneeded or junk files, old files, large files, and even empty files and folders. A vast number of options helps you customize your search.

Need3Space supports all drive types: hard disks, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, Network drives, USB storage devices, and memory disks. With the Analyze tool you can find out which folders and files are the largest on your drive with only a glance and a few clicks. One option with the Analyze tool is to group all files on selected hard drives or folders by file type, which allows you to see how much space is used by each file type (MP3, AVI, EXE, ZIP, etc.)

Need3Space has an optimized search engine, so it uses very little of your system's resources while searching for files. Also, at any time, you can send the application to background mode, or change its priority on the fly from the taskbar icon context menu.

The integrated Uninstaller will list for you the applications installed on your computer, calculate the estimated size (if possible) for those applications, and show you the total amount of space used by those installed applications.

Download Need3Space 1.5.1.20 in Softonic

VoptXP is an effective utility to defragment your disk drives with no need to use the tool incorporated in your operating system. The defragmenting of a hard disk is a slow process and VoptXP does not perform miracles but it is certainly quicker than Windows own defrag tool.

It works by re-alligning the data that is totally safe and making a new copy of it before doing so in case of any interruption during the process that could ruin it. In addition, you can program it so that it acts once a week or moves archives bigger than a certain amount or to even exclude smaller files. A smarter way to defrag your drive.

Download VoptXP 9.02 in Softonic

Xinorbis is a simple but powerful hard disk analyzer. Using a sophisticated mix of graphs, tables and tree displays, it gives the user a complete overview of the contents of a hard disk (or directory). It makes it easy to see the contents, structure and file distribution and file composition of a whole hard disk, directory, or mapped network drive. Includes full report creation.

Features include:

• Analyse a single drive / directory or merge several together in one report
• Complex report generation, with export to HTML, ASCII or XML
• Save reports and compare them to see how the contents has changed
• All information displays are completely resizable for ease of viewing
• XP style support
• Improved speed
• Shell support, scan a directory through explorer

Download Xinorbis 3.7.2 in Softonic

To keep your hard drive operating smoothly, there’s nothing more important than defragmenting it. Daily use of your PC means that your hard drive becomes disorganised, which leads to system slowdowns, PC crashes, slow start-ups and shutdowns and sometimes system failures. Auslogics Disk Defrag is basically a better looking version of Windows own defrag tool but does it do the job any better?

Auslogics Disk Defrag supports FAT 16, FAT 32 and NTFS volumes, which basically means it will work on almost any PC hard drive. What you instantly notice with this program is its simplicity. The big difference between Auslogics Disk Defrag and the built-in Windows equivalent is speed. Most users report that Auslogics Disk Defrag can defragment a hard drive in around half the time that Windows can. This is really important because one of the reasons Windows users give up on the inbuilt defrag tool is the increasing amount of time it takes to defrag the PC as it gets older. As a rough guide Auslogics Disk Defrag can defrag a full 75GB drive in around 2 hours, which is pretty impressive.

Another plus is that it’s pretty light on system resources - you can have it running in the background and it won’t hog your CPU although for best results, we don’t advise trying to use your computer whilst running a defrag tool. We found the program to be very stable too, with no major crashes or freezes during the defrag process. However, some users report that it has crashed programs that are running at the same time while using vb6 runtime files or .net framework.

On the downside, the program does not offer much in the way of advanced features. For example, you can’t set it to automatically shut-down your PC when it’s finished (useful if you leave it on overnight) and you can’t instruct it to exclude or ignore certain files or folders.

Our overall impression of Auslogics Disk Defrag is that it offers significant speed advantages over Windows defrag tool with a slightly nicer interface. If you’re tired of hanging around waiting for your drive to defrag, give this a go and you might be impressed by the results.

Download Auslogics Disk Defrag 1.4.16.308 in Softonic

Even though external hard drive sizes are increasing at a rapid rate, you can always find more space on your drive if you just look hard enough.

SpaceObServer is a sophisticated and effective hard disk space manager which scans directory trees using a background service, and stores their structure, sizes and properties in an SQL database. Why would you want to do this? Well, for one, it automatically allows you to see - in pie chart form - what's taking up most space on your hard drive at any one time. In addition, if you're interested in tracking your hard disk usage across several months or a long time period, then it allows you to do so instantly. For Windows users, it's very effective because it presents the data in a very easy Explorer style format - in 3D bar, pie charts and tree maps. The good thing is you can see at a glance which files are obsolete and which files are essential so that when it comes to cleaning up your drive, you don't get rid of anything important. It's surprising, using this program, how many files you'll find that are simply taking up space and are absolutely useless.

Easy to use and very effective, SapceObserver is an excellent app that will have your hard drive gleaming again in no time.

Download SpaceObServer 3.3.2 in Softonic

If you have a lot of external disk drives attached to your PC via USB, then it can be easy to lose track of how much space you've got available on each.

One way round this is to use DiskSizes which shows at a glance, status information about your computer's drives and most importantly, how much space is left on them. The additional information it provides includes cluster sizes and the total size of each drive.

However, the utility goes beyond that also measuring a folder's disk use and displaying the number of folders, files and sum of the file sizes. This is very useful if you're trying to count how many folders are on a drive which is something that Windows doesn't normally tell you in Explorer. This is also useful if you are performing backups and are not sure when you did your last one - more folders than on your backup drive will indicate that you've definitely got remaining folders to backup.

It's a shame it doesn't display information in graphical form but as a simple hard disk space monitor, DiskSizes does a solid job.

Download DiskSizes 1.0 in Softonic

Image for Windows is an affordable, reliable drive image backup and restore utility that creates and restores snapshot images of entire partitions or volumes. The backups can be saved to a set of files on a local or network drive, or directly to most CD or DVD drives (which will create a bootable restore disc). When needed, you can simply restore the snapshot image and the partition or volume will be back as it was before.

Using the free PHYLock add-on utility, you can continue to use your computer while the backup is locked to a point-in-time. This eliminates the inconsistencies typically experienced while backing up a partition that is in use.

Download Image for Windows 2.13 in Softonic

JKDefrag GUI goes beyond the standard defragmenter included in Windows and offers you a very complete tool that makes disk defragmenting easier and more convenient.

The program features a bunch of configuration options divided into several tabs. You can thus adjust the defrag process to your needs very easily, for example choosing the kind of analysis you want to perform using filters to include or exclude certain file types or scheduling an automatic shutdown after the whole process is complete.

We also liked the possibility to schedule periodic defrags, so that you can keep your disk in good shape without any worries. On the downside, the graphic used during the analysis and optimization processes is very confusing and not attractive at all.

Download JKDefrag GUI 1.02 in Softonic