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O&O Defrag 20 (Updated Review)
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Background and overview:

Do you ever ask yourself why the computer is very slow? The answer is a process in your computer called fragmentation. Fragmentation is a process where saved files are splitted or fragmented into smaller non contagious parts which can be easily modified. It can affect your hard disk drive, or external storage devices (USB or external hard disk). The reader / writer head of your computer will need more time in seeking of all the fragments required to open a file. Gradually your computer will get slow. To solve this problem, you need a category of programs with defragmentation function. The main value of these programs is to optimize and speed up your computer through defragmenting your files. This defragmentation will relocate the file parts to become contagious again and easy to find. Sometimes the increase in speed is 100%. You need to regularly defragment your computer if you want to keep it fast
We will discuss a very powerful defragmentation program from a well-known German company O&O; this is the popular application Defrag with a recent updated version 20 which has a lot of improvements

Homepage:

https://www.oo-software.com/en/products/oodefrag

Release date: September 14, 2016

Size20 Mb

Current version:   20

System Requirements:

 The application supports all Windows versions from Vista to Windows 10 both 32 and 64 bit. Other requirements include administrator permissions, Microsoft windows installer and 50 Mb free disk space.

Download and Installation:

The program can be easily downloaded from the official website or you can more easily use these direct download links:
32-bit: https://dl5.oo-software.com/files/oodefrag20/200/OODefrag20ProfessionalEnu.exe
64-bit: https://dl5.oo-software.com/files/oodefrag20/200/OODefrag20Professional64Enu.exe

After your download is complete, you are ready to start installation.  Simply double click on the installer and follow simple on screen instructions till installation is complete and the program is working on your computer. You will have 30 days fully functional trial version which gives you enough time to test all the features of the program before doing purchase of an original license key.  There will be a simple reminder about time remaining for the trial period and defragmentation data each time you launch the program. After the trial period expires, you have to purchase a license to continue using the Full version of the program.

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Purchase and activation: 

Original License can be purchased from the official website of the program. It is available at a reasonable Price of 29.95$/ License for 1PC and 49.95$/3PC. This lets you enjoy the Full version with No time-limits. After your purchase is complete, the license details will be immediately emailed to you. You will need to submit your data and the license key in the registration dialogue which will be displayed after installation or later on using registration option while connected to the internet. Your software will be activated and you will enjoy lifetime use of Defrag 20. You can also register your program to enjoy the benefits of registered users such as customer support. The process is very simple, just input your email address and click next while connected online. That’s all!

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User Interface:

The program has a new design with brand new user interface which is very friendly and easy to use. The program in the current new release showed many improvements in the user interface to make it easy and fast. The upper part of the program includes the menu bar and the Ribbon bar. The menu bar includes defrag, DiskCleaner, DiskStat, Schedular, Extras, Options and info. The ribbon bar includes; optimize all, analyze, start, pause, stop, zone filling and settings
The middle part of the program window shows the drive list and the progress of defragmentation or other processes selected by the user. The drive list lets you have detailed information about the drives such as drive letter, status, progress of an action in percent, number of fragmented files, size of drive, amount of free space, file system, and the current file/folder and remaining time.
The lower part shows 7 buttons which will help you to easily select the view you want; Cluster View, Time view, History, Drive status and File status. In addition, there is a tray icon which helps you to easily check the status of the running defragmentation process.
The right-click menu of the tray icon helps you to start and stop defragmentation, exit hibernation mode, and open the user interface. In addition, if you just run your mouse over the tray icon, you can see the current activity of the program, for example; ready or analyzing, stealth, and so on.

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Features:

Speed increases of up to 100%
Automatic background defragmentation
Prevents new fragmentation from ever occurring
In-built O&O DiskCleaner
New: In-built O&O DiskStat
New: Fragment Filter to identify the most fragmented files on a drive
Improved optimization of SSDs
Easy-to-Use: Ideal for beginners and professionals
Extends the life of your hardware
Defrags multiple drives simultaneously
Increases chances of recovering lost files and speeds up your backups
Power Management for Notebooks
Assistant for to schedule the disk defragmenter
Supports Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7 and Vista

If you want to revise the amazing new features in O&O Defrag 20, please visit this page:
https://blog.oo-software.com/en/new-oo-defrag-20-out-now-brand-new-in-every-way

Screen Saver:

The program has a built in screen saver. You can select to install or not according to your wish. The O&O screen saver is selected from the control panel and the program starts defragmentation in the background while screen saver is running. You can fully customize the screen saver. For example, the rotation speed, frames per second limits and position. The cluster view of the defragmented drive is seen live with the screen saver. The status text will also be seen. Once you move the mouse or use the keyboard, the screen saver will stop.

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Hibernation mode:

You can set the program in the hibernation mode using the right-click menu of the Tray icon. This is useful if you need the full capacity of your computer for your applications, and want to stop the application during this time. It is advised to close the user interface to save memory.

Let’s Discuss the program functions in more details:

Defragmentation:

Analyze your drives:

This can be done easily by selecting the drive then use the analyze button in the Ribbon bar or the Right click menu. This feature is very important as it gives you information about file arrangement and fragmentation on a specific drive. After drive analysis is completed, a detailed status report will be created by the program. This report will give you the level of fragmentation of your disk drive. This level can lie between 0% and 100%. Of course lower values indicate that your data is not fragmented. Values above 20% indicates that your system is heavily fragmented and suffering from severe performance loss. Levels close to 100% is the worst one

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Defragmentation:

O&O Defrag allows you to defragment individual drives or entire computers with just a few mouse clicks. If this is the first time you do defragmentation of your computer, the process takes a long time because the program will need time to first check your entire system then move all files into their optimal position. The next defragments will take less time to complete. You can select a single drive to defragment or the entire computer. The process is very easy. Simply select any drive you need then click start button in the ribbon bar (or right context menu), the drive will be defragmented. If you want to defragment the entire computer, click optimize all in the ribbon bar or select multiple drives using CTRL button and mouse clicks then use start. Defragmentation by default is done using the “Optimize” method. Of course you can select any method from the drop down menu of the start button.  The whole process may take hours depending on the database, during this period you can check the progress on the main program window. At the end a detailed report appears.
 If you want to defragment individual files and folders, simply right click on the file or the folder and select defragment. This process will take a short time even a few seconds due to the small amounts of data.

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Before we discuss the different types of defragmentation and the use of each type, we need to understand an important built in feature called “Zone filing”. This feature helps to divide your HDD into three zones based on the files whether critical or non-critical, the access rate and intended use. Zone 1 includes windows system files and installed applications (sorted by file name), Zone 2 includes user data (for example office documents, sorted by date of last access) and zone 3 includes seldom used data and very large files (for example recycle bin, these files are consolidated to get the most contiguous free space). This arrangement helps to optimize your drive and improve performance. You can enable this feature using the button in the ribbon bar.

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Now let’s discuss the defragmentation methods. There are two types; the old or standard methods and the new methods. All methods can be easily accesses using the drop down menu from the start button (located in the ribbon bar).

The new methods include 3 options; optimize, quick optimize and complete optimize.

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The optimize method is the default one and applied space defragmentation in all zones of the selected drive. The quick optimize method is used in heavily fragmented drives to provide a quick defragmentation of all drive zones with very little hard disk usage. The complete optimize method is very slow and is especially required after installation of many programs. It will apply thorough defragmentation of all zones of the selected drive. The user can decide which method will be used for each zone.

The standard (old) defragmentation methods:

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Stealth method is faster than other methods and uses much less main memory for the defragmentation. It helps to defragment and consolidate files to optimize available free disk space. It is ideal for defragmentation on regular basis

Space method is ideal for the first defragmentation run on a system that has never been defragmented. It is very quick, efficient and consolidate files to optimize available free disk space

Complete/Access: Files are sorted according to when they were last accessed. This method is very slow, however it guarantees maximum system performance

Complete/Modified (Files are sorted according to when they were last modified). This method is very slow and requires quite a lot of main memory due to file reorganization but it guarantees maximum system performance

Complete/Name: Files are sorted alphabetically from the beginning to the end of the partition. It is also slow with maximum system performance  

Defragmentation summary

This is a summary that appears after each defragmentation and clearly shows the difference a defragmentation makes.

The program Views:

 Cluster View:

This view will show a specific number of clusters arranged graphically as a block. The number of clusters per block is indicated in the title line of the Cluster View. You can change the size of the blocks and the way they appear on screen. To access this view, simply select a drive and click the cluster view button. If you select more than one drive, they will appear as split clusters. You can right click after complete analysis and select fragment filter. This will allow the displays those areas in red (according to the settings), which contain files that have more than X fragments.

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Time view:

This view allows you to see the defragmentation processes performed by the user before on a selected drive.

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History:

This feature shows the degree of fragmentation percent and the files accelerated. This is very useful as it helps you to evaluate the successful effect of regular defragmentation on your system over weeks and months.

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Drive status: 

This view will show full information about the status of the selected drives before and after defragmentation. For example; the drive size, free space available, moved files, fragmented files before and after defragment process, analyzed files and folders.

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 File status:

This view lets you have detailed information of the large and heavily fragmented files on your drive. You can easily know the file name, location, size, fragments, degree of fragmentation. To use this feature, you will need to analyze the file statistics of a drive.

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O&O DiskCleaner :

The program has a built in tool that searches for and removes temporary and unnecessary files that consume space and increase fragmentation. In this way it will sure improve your PC performance. The use of this tool is very easy. First, you have to analyze the drive to be cleaned. All you have to do is to select the drive and click analyze button located in ribbon toolbar, the program will do everything for you. Just wait till the process is complete and the report is displayed.
 The cleaning process can now be started using either the start button or the cleanup now button in the analysis report. In addition, you can simply right click a drive and select cleaner.
The current settings will be utilized by the program. For example, which files to be deleted. The settings are usually set to “Default” by most users to keep you safe. You can pause or stop the process at any time. The files which will be erased are displayed in red and the deleted files in yellow in the Cluster View. After complete cleanup, a detailed report appears including list of deleted and locked files.

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O&O DiskStat:

This is a unique new feature built in the program. Using this tool, you will easily have an overview of how your hard disk is being used. You can track down any files and folders that are taking up too much space on your hard disk, and causing your computer to slow down. You can sort by category, file type, view them in Explorer and export them as a table. When using this tool on a specific drive a chart will be displayed on the left side showing different files and folders with its size, On the right side you can see the location of each file (for example; windows, program files, system profiles…) and its size. In this way, this tool will help a lot to speed up your systems.

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Schedule:

You can easily schedule defragmentation to be done at regular intervals. Everything is now automated by the program. You don’t need to worry about the performance of your computer. Defragmentation jobs allow you to define the time, the activity and the additional parameters for defragmentation. All job settings may be specified. You can create, edit, delete or just disable jobs. You will not suffer slowdown of your PC anymore.
This process is easily done using add job button under Schedule menu. A dialogue window will appear and helps you to create the job you need in a wizards’ fashion. First, you need to specify some general options of the new job as the name, description, post-job task (for example PC shutdown), next you specify the scheduled date, time and frequency, next you will specify the drive and the optimization method you will use in this job. File inclusion and exclusion during the defragmentation will be offered in the fourth step. Next will be the built in activity monitor which determine your system load and whether the time is suitable to start the job at this time. You can cancel or stop the job if some applications are running or the laptop is on battery power. Finally, you will have the option to adjust the settings (for example handling of storage media, report generation and influence on user control areas), pre job and post job batch commands execution.

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Creating Status Reports:

Status reports contain all important information regarding your hard disk drives, file system, previous defragmentations, and the files causing slowdown of your system, and their fragmentation level. By default, these reports are automatically created after each analysis and defragmentation supposed that the option “Create reports” [under general settings] is enabled. At any time, if you want to manually create a report, simply select the drive and click create button located in the ribbon bar under the schedule menu. The report will be saved and displayed. The program lets you delete any report or even all reports if you don’t need them anymore

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Extras:

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This menu includes many options that will help you. These include:

 Check drive:  To detect any errors.  This function is similar to chkdsk function in windows but cannot correct errors as it runs only in the read mode.  The detected errors will need you to use “chkdsk command” manually. The corresponding reports can be found under the tab Reports [located under schedule menu].

O&O ClusterInspector: This tool lets you see the files located in the block.  You can check how the hard disk is being used.

Determine file position: lets you easily find out where and how a certain file is located. Simply, click Determine file position in the Ribbon then select a file you search for in the next dialogue window. All areas containing this file will be displayed in the ClusterView.

Wipe free space: the program can also be used to securely and permanently delete free space on your hard disks. This will protect your privacy and prevents theft of your identity and confidential files and documents Simply delete confidential files automatically after a disk defragmentation run!

TRIM Command is used to optimize your SSD

Settings:

The program is customizable with many settings that are set to the default situation suitable for most users. You can adjust any options according to your needs and experience. We can summarize the program settings here

General settings: These options specify how to handle different storage media types, create reports and task tray options

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Boot Time Defragmentation: This option is intended to defragment locked files or files being used exclusively by the operating system. It helps to defrag these files before start of windows.

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Automatic optimization: this option keeps your system performance in the best condition through automated defragmentation.

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Free space optimizations: This option optimizes the free space available on your system, helping you to have a good performance.

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Files for defragmentation: You can include some files or exclude files or even folders from being defragmented.

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Activity Monitor: This program tool constantly monitors the system load to determine the best time to start optimization and the maximum CPU usage. You can use this option to stop a job or task if some applications are running or your system is running on battery power.

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Pros:

Speed up computers
Automated scheduled job
Fast and easy to use
DiskCleaner
Hard disk statistics (DiskStat)
Support windows 10
Support use in SSD
And many more

Cons:

None

Conclusion:

Defragmentation software become very important to keep your system optimized with good performance. O&O Defrag 20 offers you a lot of useful features which together with the reasonable price and easy to use make it the best choice to defragment your system. In addition, the scheduled jobs can automate the whole process for you in a few mouse clicks. The program will also help you to have a full report about your hard drive. It is an ultimate maintenance utility. I recommend it for all users
 
Reply
#2
Good review.  Thumb
Reply
#3
Thanks for this detiled and interesting review!
Reply
#4
Thanks for the review, Tarek. This is a good defragmenter. Smile
Reply
#5
Good indepth analysis.
Thank you.
Reply
#6
Another great review done by Tarek. Thanks for the info.
Reply
#7
as always good review
Reply
#8
Thanks, good one.
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