jkessels

The fact that you can use Dirms without paying doesn't mean Dirms is free software. If you want to use Dirms legally (including the commanline version) then you have to pay. The Dirms website is quite clear about that. Secondly, according to a posting by the Dirms programmer on the Dirms forum, if you don't register then "it doesn't defragment all the directories". It's a small thing and perhaps you haven't noticed. So I maintain what I said, Dirms is not free software, you have to pay to use it legally and to unlock all the functionality.

I haven't tried Dirms but it sounds nice. The main differences with Defrag v2.27 seem to be that Dirms does not order the directories to the beginning of the disk, does not maintain a scratch area, does not reclaim MFT space, and does not come with sources. Also, according to their website it's not free software (the commandline version), you have to pay $10 if you want to use it legally past the free trial and to unlock all the functionality. Yes, the commandline version of Defrag uses less system resources, but the main reason for using the commandline version is that you can automate it. GUI programs can usually only be controlled through the GUI (clicking with the mouse), which is useless if you want to start the program from another program, such as a script, or a webserver administrator panel. According to messages on their forum Buzzsaw uses a lot of memory.

I've never used Contig, but looking at the website I would say Contig only does defragmentation. Defrag v2.27 (new version just out today) does a lot more. It optimizes the harddisk (move all files to the beginning, especially directories), reclaims MFT reserved space after disk-full, and maintains a scratch area. The website doesn't say if Contig can defrag very full harddisks and very large files, but it looks like a rather primitive little utility so I doubt it. And finally, the sources of Defrag are available so you can customize it. Oh and by the way, Defrag can be used to defrag/optimize a single file or directory, just like Contig. The default for Defrag is a very small logfile. Maybe you are using the "-d 5" option that was mentioned earlier. That's full debugging mode and yes, then the logfile will be big.