The only one I've used other than Window's is Diskkeeper, which can achieve a lower fragmentation rate than the default (0-1%). That said, the default works well enough that I've never been willing to fork over money for anything else and I consider the risk with 3rd-party defragementers to be not worth what little gain they may offer (speed seems to be the main one).

So is this. I find viewpoints from non-programmers to be highly misinformed. Newer is not automatically better.

NTFS has been the default file system in every single Windows NT release. So, yes, it was in Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows NT 3.1 as well. Many people still used FAT32 in XP though, because that was their first NT system, and they might have wanted backwards compatibility with their dualboot of Windows 98, or because they upgraded from 98 to XP because they didn't want to lose their data and USB sticks were too expensive to make backups (or whatever, I don't know).

IObit toolbox should have one.
Auslogic has made a free one too I think.

That thread smells ! ;-)

Since I got win7 I've not defragged. It's been many years. I do have my OS on its own partition completely, and maybe that is why I've never felt the need, but my computer runs FAST with all of its harddrives and partitions and the idea of defragging scares me, actually. I keep my files highly organized and always run CCleaner after visiting the web.

Windows does defragment SSDs and you also shouldn't worry about SSDs wearing out, because your other parts won't last 10+ years.
The built-in one runs on a scheduled time. In Windows 8.1, it is once per week for HDDs and once per month for SSDs.

Not if you have it de-activated.

You sure you know what defragging is?

Necro-thread!

But I have to agree with Defraggler. It's a great, free program for Windows OS's, but it's a shame that it has a tendency to purge System Restore points for some reason.

It was in 2k, and supported in XP but the latter defaulted to FAT32 because home users were apparently too dumb to understand NTFS. ;) I think they may have changed that in one of the later SPs though.

Hammer and chisel.

Haha, yes, I'm sure. I can see how you might question that with my mention of CCleaner, but what I intended to get across with that mention is that I'm anal with my PCs performance and take great care of it, and with doing that, I still feel no need to defrag. I also shouldn't have used the word "scared", I suppose, the phrase "wary of its necessity for myself" is more accurate.

What do you perceive the potential downside to be?

Does SSD drives need fragmenting? I don't have one but it is a valid question.

It's also a question google can answer for you in no time.