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Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko —  — Software — defragmentation, drive, jkdefrag, mydefrag, optimize, portable

MyDefrag – new (still single click) version of JkDefrag

mydefrag_icon I had covered excellent file defragmentation app JkDefrag last year (time flies) and bit after that things went quiet with its development.

This year it had re-emerged as MyDefrag utility that offers quite a few interesting functions while keeping core principles of JkDefrag intact.

What it does

Aside from slight color scheme change MyDefrag is still same utility at first glance.

mydefrag_interface

On simply launching executable performs defragmentation of drives using default routine.

New script system

Purely command line approach to setting in JkDefrag was quite flexible. MyDefrag takes it much further with implementing whole scripting language to describe desired defragmentation process.

Scripts are plain text files. Few generic are included in distribution, as well as extensive documentation to make your own. They allow to:

  • target specific volumes;
  • target or exclude specific groups of files;
  • perform very precise sorting and optimization;
  • control log file output;
  • many more things I am yet to discover.

Features gone

And again while preserving core function some things went poof. Most obvious is license change – MyDefrag is no longer open source and now is simply freeware.

While MyDefrag remains completely portable it only comes as setup package. I also see no option to add it in screensavers without going through install.

JkDefrag was popular enough for many third party utilities to emerge and provide graphical interface for fine-tuning settings. While not impossible for MyDefrag, script system is much more extensive and appearance of GUI tweakers for it is under question at moment.

Overall

For simple and efficient defragmentation this is no-brainer upgrade. For power users with own JkDefrag configs new version may come quite demanding with considerable learning curve of new script approach.

Home http://www.mydefrag.com/

Download http://www.mydefrag.com/Manual-DownloadAndInstall.html

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8 Comments

  • Alek Davis #

    One thing I did not like about JkDefrag is that once you launch it there seems to be way to stop/cancel the process (at least, I did not see an obvious Cancel button). Windows Defragmenter sucks, but at least it can be stopped in case you realize that it will take 2 more hours to go and you need to shut down your computer.

  • Rarst #

    @Alek It can be safely stopped by simply closing windows/console. Will stay in background to finish current operation (if needed) and then exit. btw MyDefrag has nice setting MaxRunTime for use in scripts that determines how long it is allowed to run.

  • Matin #

    While I really like the new flexibility of the scripts, MyDefrag really needs, at a minimum, a basic GUI to allow selection of a particular script to run on which drives, and to at least launch Notepad to edit a script. It's ridiculous to have to customize command lines to run a particular shortcut, and manually find and edit the scripts.

  • Rarst #

    @Matin Maybe... But frankly not much had changed. Bulk of users will just run it on default settings as they did with JkDefrag and techies will figure out new stuff after some time.

  • JeeMan #

    Well, this is good news, another excellent project getting an update. You guys might want to check out JkDefragGUI. This GUI offers a whole bunch of options, and I find it very customizable. When you press "Run", it will start JkDefrag with the options you specified. I find it is an easy way to start JkDefrag with the options you want, without going the command line way. http://www.emro.nl/freeware/

  • Rarst #

    @JeeMan I use some GUI for JkDefrag (forgot name)... But since JkDefrag itself is discontinued not much sense in clinging to it.

  • JeeMan #

    @Rarst Hehe, you are right on that point. But it is still working and worth a look, so that is why I mentioned it. It is hard to let go of the things I love! :-) I will give MyDefrag a spin to test it out.

  • Kingston SSDNow V+ SNV225-S2 solid state disk | Rarst.net #

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