Drive fragmentation – most PC users are familiar with the term but seldom understand what it means. Over a period of time, as data is written and deleted form a hard drive, the file system finds it increasingly difficult to keep related data together. To a user it may seem that all related files are stored in one folder, but to the file system, the picture is a bit different. As a result, the hard drive has to perform a lot of seek operations to find data whenever required. The result? Slow performance. Drive defragmentation tools are thus put into place to reorganize the related bits of data together so that the hard drive can function normally.
While most Windows users who’re aware of Drive fragmentation are in the practice of defragmenting their PC hard drive every couple of months, Mac users don’t benefit from such an in-built utility. It is in such a scenario that the need for a reliable drive fragmentation tool arises and Stellar Drive Defrag rises up to this occasion. We tried out the tool on our test Mac and found some interesting results. Let’s examine the product closely from all aspects and see if it can prove to be a good option for Mac users.
Product Features
Stellar Drive Defrag proves to be yet another feather in the cap for Stellar who excel in the art of making the life of Windows, Mac and Linux users easier with their data recovery and system optimization tools. This software is equipped with state-of-the-art techniques that enable it to improve data access speed and system performance by defragging Mac files on hard drive. Stellar Drive Defrag has dedicated algorithms to logically group all scattered pieces of large data files present on your Mac hard drive and store them in contiguous segments on the drive.
Here is a brief description of some of its features:
- Through efficient algorithms it examines free space on the hard drive and arranges it together to avoid disk fragmentation.
- To help you plan the fragmentation of your drive better, it enables color scheme application to memory blocks under similar categories.
- During the defragmentation process the temperature of the hard drive may rise. The software thus has a temperature indicator that allows you to take necessary steps if you see the temperature reaching the threshold level.
- Allows selective defragmentation of single or multiple files
- Enables defragmentation of files, metadata, and unused space on the hard drive and categorize the disk space into various attributes, such as Allocation, Overflow, Catalog, Attribute, Fragmented, Data, and Unused Space
- Has a Quick defragmentation feature that eliminates the need for full defragmentation if you’re running short of time
- Encrypted Volume support feature allows you to fully defrag and optimize password-protected Mac drives. It mounts the encrypted hard drive once user unlocks it with the password and then offers a choice among Quick, Full, Metadata defrag and Optimize options in order to improve the drive’s performance
- It even allows sending email notifications after the process completes. Just select ‘Preferences’ on the ‘StellarDriveDefrag’ menu and specify the email ids to receive task completion notifications.
- In a unique bid, the software smartly displays the path of a file when you place the mouse cursor over a specific memory block thus helping you to quickly identify and trace all fragmented files on your hard drive.
- Enables you to create a bootable Mac DVD that can be used to boot Mac machine and perform defragmentation of the boot volume
This utility if used every couple of months on a Mac can ensure your machine doesn’t have to suffer from sluggish performance.
Well, does it really work?
On our test machine that showed signs of extensive fragmentation, the software worked fabulously. All we had to do was install it and launch and it took care of the rest. The performance of the machine boosted right up. Just to be sure, we also tested it on a Mac that had comparatively lesser fragmentation and the results were different with only a slight increase in performance.
So we deduced that how much you gain from it really depends upon how fragmented your Mac hard drive is and how much of a performance boost you’re expecting from it.
System Requirements & Compatibility
To download, install and successfully launch Stellar Drive Defrag, you’ll need at least 1 GB RAM and at least 50 MB of free hard drive space. In addition to Yosemite 10.10, the software is fully compatible with previous OS X versions including 10.9, 10.8, 10.7 and 10.6.
Product Strengths VS Product Weaknesses
The plus points of this software are many:
- Effectively defragments Mac hard drive to significantly boost performance
- Interactive GUI makes it easy to install and work-with
- Has minimum system requirements and wide compatibility
- Defrags even the Mac boot volume
- Has additional features like encrypted drive defragmentation supports, email notification support etc
As far as the minus point is concerned, it all boils down to the price. For as low as $39, you’re getting to optimize your Mac and get good performance and the software doesn’t need much baby-sitting to do; what more could you ask for. But then, that’s just one way to look at it. The other way says that it is a defragmentation application and the results vary from case to case. So it really depends upon how badly your Mac needs a defragmentation job.
Final Verdict
Is your Mac is working sluggishly and disk fragmentation is the cause? Are you looking for a reliable solution to the problem at an affordable price that’s easy to work with? If the answer to both those questions is yes, then Stellar Drive Defrag is the tool for you.
Editors note: Please do not defrag SSD drives. Defragging is for mechanical hard drives.