Hard drive utility specialist O&O Software has released the latest edition of its flagship defrag tool, Defrag 15.

And the emphasis this time is on performance, with the company claiming improvements to the program’s algorithms have cut defrag times by anything up to 40%.

Exactly what sort of speeds you might see is difficult to say, as every situation is different. We took a lightly fragmented drive, though, typical of how a system might be after a few days of work, and tested how long it took to optimise. The built-in Windows 7 defrag tool needed almost four minutes; Defrag 15’s fastest optimisation method required only 12 seconds.

After the defrag is complete, a new “Before-And-After” view shows you just how much the process has changed your drive layout.

And a new History tab records the degree of file fragmentation every time the program runs, and plots the result in a graph, so you can see how the issue is changing over time. If some new software or system tweak means fragmentation is worsening then the History chart will let you know, and you’ll be able to tweak Defrag 15 to compensate.

Usefully, the program can now check for updates, then download and install any that might be available (no manual intervention required), so you can be sure that your system is always using the very latest technology.

And of course all these features are additions to what was already a very complete tool, offering multiple defrag methods, detailed control of how your system is optimised, full SSD support, and an optional automatic mode which can defrag files just as soon as fragmentation is detected.

O&O Defrag 15 is available for $29, with server and workstation editions to be released soon. A 30-day trial version is available now, in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavours.