Disk Defragging

• Windows 7 performance -- defrag to get it 
• It goes to 11 -- in 11 days
• Mini-sneak peek: a few few PerfectDisk 11 videos on the PerfectDiskNews YouTUbe Channel
• Well, well -- aren't you picky -- defrag a file -- or 100
• VSS defrag -- more flexibility and control
• More than defrag -- to space and beyond
• Bipartisan support on the best defrag software -- from the defrag capital
• Enterprise defragmentation evolved -- Remote Free Space Management
• A smarter way to speed up PC performance 
• Size matters; then again, it doesn't
• Exchange defrag software -- ready for Exchange 2010
• Look beneath the surface, clean your PC, shrink your drive
• Defrag analysis -- catch me if you can
• A smarter SMARTPlacement is a smarter defrag and disk space management
• PerfectDisk 11 -- Gearing up for Beta
• PerfectDisk 11 defrag -- on the horizon
   

                                         

I've done MVP stories in this space from time to time. As a refresher, a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) is someone recognized by Microsoft for technical excellence and more. According to Microsoft, MVPs "freely share their deep knowledge, real-world experience, and impartial, objective feedback to help people enhance the way they use technology. Of more than 100 million users who participate in technology communities, around 4,000 are recognized as Microsoft MVPs. MVPs are independent experts who are offered a close connection with people at Microsoft."

That explanation is just one example of why thousands of Microsoft employees' PCs, laptops and servers are defragmented by PerfectDisk - they're often on the lookout for the top defrag software. In any event, it was nice to hear last week from Dudley Henriques, recently retired professional pilot and Microsoft MVP. 

                                     

Dudley explains his use of PerfectDisk and why he thinks it's the best disk defrag software:

"As a retired professional pilot active both as a flight safety advisor to the Warbird display flying community and to the flight simulation community on realism, fidelity, authenticity, and accuracy, my computer systems need to be in top notch condition at all times. My work in the simulation industry involves highly detailed testing of new add-on aircraft, where files and folders are being constantly worked, altered, moved about on the system, added to, and deleted. It doesn't take long in my job to turn an organized computer into a computer deeply fragmented and in serious need of a PC tune up.

"I've used most of the major computer maintenance software at one time or another, trying to find the very best to suit my needs. My choice of software that does the job for me since 2006 has been PerfectDisk from Raxco Software. To put it bluntly and in plain language, Raxco software works. Once installed, PerfectDisk has never once failed to meet my rigid expectation demanding maximum performance. It's simple to use, and it's rock solid dependable.

"I've been recommending Raxco products since the day I discovered them in 2006. In my opinion, you can't buy a better product to keep a computer clean and running properly as it should."

The best disk defrag? For Dudley Henriques, and thousands of Microsoft MVPs, it's PerfectDisk.               

                                                                      
 

                                              

When it comes to defrag programs and what they can handle, size does matter. As drives and files get bigger and bigger, the challenge for a defragmenter program is to be able to handle the increased sizes efficiently and the best disk defrag software should not fall down when drive and file sizes increase.

But a professional defragmentation program should not cost more just when the going gets tough -- or bigger. So you won't find extra fees for even the largest drives with PerfectDisk, and you can hold onto your money.

                                             

We've worked hard on the algorithms and back end work that goes on when analyzing and defragging large drives and files, so the time it takes to handle them decreases. But there's still no extra charge, no matter what the drive size is.

On a scale of 1 to 10, it's an 11. March 2010.

                                              
 
Related Posts:

• Exchange defrag software -- ready for Exchange 2010
• Look beneath the surface, clean your PC, shrink your drive
• Defrag analysis -- catch me if you can
• A smarter SMARTPlacement is a smarter defrag and disk space management
• PerfectDisk 11 -- Gearing up for Beta
• PerfectDisk 11 defrag -- on the horizon

                                                

Want to speed up your boot time? We're often asked how to make people's PCs boot quicker. There are a couple of options within PerfectDisk to do so:

Let PerfectDisk Manage:

This option is the recommended option and is selected by default . If selected, PerfectDisk optimizes the location of the files needed to start your computer. This decreases the time necessary to reboot your computer, so you boot quicker. If not managed by the Operating System or PerfectDisk, your computer could become unbootable if a file needed to boot the system is moved beyond the BIOS limit of your computer. This is a subset of the files listed in the layout.ini file (i.e. only those needed to boot the operating system).

                                                

Let PerfectDisk Manage all layout.ini files:

The file stores every file that is accessed from the moment you power up your computer to one minute after the desktop appears. By placing files on the disk in the exact order recorded in the layout.ini file, your machine boots faster. With all Windows versions starting with Windows XP through Windows 7, Microsoft includes a prefetch routine, which reads this file and loads the files in memory prior to them being needed. In this way, the operating system can access the files faster during boot up. If selected, PerfectDisk defragments and places all the files listed in the layout.ini file in order, starting at the beginning of your disk. This list contains all files loaded by Windows from the second you turn on your computer until about 1 minute after the desktop appears. This list not only contains the files needed to boot, but also the applications you routinely start after the system has booted.

Boot quicker and get to work...or play.

                                                  
 

Behind all the noise, real benefits. 

                                                     
 

                                                

You may have read recently about our favorite competitor's (Diskeeper's) latest release and its introduction of a file system filter for defragmentation called IntelliWrite.

As a major developer of enterprise and consumer software for defragmenting computers, many inquiring minds in the industry have begun to ask us what our opinion of IntelliWrite is. It's the kind of inquiry we expect, and eagerly answer. Erwin Solis, PerfectDisk product manager, went about directing our lab tests on the issue. Rather than give you just opinion, we attempt to provide solid numbers and easily reproducible proof.

So what is IntelliWrite and why does it create free space fragmentation?

The good folks at Diskeeper questioned the importance of total free space consolidation -- getting the biggest possible piece of free space -- in a recent blog post. The argument Diskeeper appears to be making is that free space consolidation can be ignored in favor of using a file system filter to eliminate file fragmentation on the fly. There are three key issues with this theory. First, if you intentionally (or unintentionally) cause free space fragmentation to build up, you'll quickly leave a volume in state where files will be forced to fragment. Secondly, in order to prevent such an issue from happening, you'll have to consolidate free space anyway and therefore consume even more resources. Lastly, by using a file system filter, if not done properly, additional overhead is introduced to accomplish something that NTFS already does on its own.

At the heart of this issue is the apparent insistence that the NTFS file system is incapable of preventing file system fragmentation on its own. Actually, NTFS does an excellent job all on its own, and does an even better job when free space is effectively consolidated.

So - how about a reproducable demonstration?

For the following test, feel free to use any sized volume, large or small. The key is to have plenty of consolidated free space. In order to be completely fair, we've used a freshly formatted 100GB volume so that neither NTFS nor Diskeeper's IntelliWrite will have an excuse for their behavior.

This is what we did:

1) Turned IntelliWrite off
2) Completed a Full Install of Office 2007 on a freshly formatted 100GB volume.
3) Analyzed the volume with Diskeeper and noted the statistics provided.

As you can imagine, we then ran the same test over again, this time with IntelliWrite turned on. Here are the results:

The data shows that, for the area of the disk where data was written, the average free space gap dropped from 49GB to just 25MB. Instead of free space being broken into just 2 fragments, Intelliwrite splits it into nearly 4,000 pieces. Notice how in this example that NTFS managed to prevent all file fragmentation on its own, without the additional resource impact associated with a 3rd-party file system filter. In this case, IntelliWrite provides ZERO benefit and instead proves to be the exact opposite of what you would consider a "green" technology. Try adding the I/O Other Bytes column to the Processes tab under Task Manager to see just how much I/O activity Diskeeper generates over time; we believe you'll find Diskeeper's resource usage to be a real eye opener. These are the results that IntelliWrite provides during the installation of a common office application; the impact for servers is even greater. Recently, a Diskeeper customer contacted us about a problem that IntelliWrite caused for them on one of their file servers; we saved a snapshot of the summary statistics provided by PerfectDisk Server:

 


As you can see, IntelliWrite was effectively addressing the file fragmentation on the volume - but at the cost of creating other performance issues. By eliminating the resource overhead associated with IntelliWrite and applying SMARTPlacement with PerfectDisk Server, performance was restored just 24 minutes later. Here's an analysis of the results:



As many users know, the PerfectDisk solution to this problem is to combine the intelligent placement of files, with the best possible consolidation of free space - so that NTFS can do the best job possible without additional resource overhead. After all, it's not just whether or not files are fragmented, but how and where they are written that also matters.

Our impression is clear. We suggest that users simply ignore the currently available file system filter - just turn it off. Even if Diskeeper is your preferred disk defrag utility, don't create free space fragmentation to the detriment of your system performance. 

Finally, regarding the issue of IntelliWrite being a "green" solution...because it creates a situation where resources are consumed in order to prevent file fragmentation - but which results in the need to consume yet more resources to clean up the free space fragmentation issues it leaves behind...there might be another color I'd use to describe it.

The bigger point here -- make sure you do your own testing and verification. As with just about all software, results may vary. But do your own checking -- just because someone says something is so, doesn't necessarily mean that something is so, right? I think we learned that lesson time after time in 2009.

                                                      
 
Note: Diskeeper is a registered trademark and IntelliWrite is a trademark of Diskeeper Corporation.

There have been a number of blogs and articles written in recent months on the topic of best defrag software. I think that just begs the question, what would you want in your best defrag software?

At a minimum, you would want any defrag software to defragment all of your data files. The Windows 7 defragmenter and the free defrag utilities do a decent job in this regard, but the disks still re-fragment quickly. File defragmentation is just half the job, to truly hinder file fragmentation you need a defrag tool that also consolidates the maximum amount of free space. If the file system can find contiguous free space it will write files in one piece.

So, if you start to really look at what constitutes the best defrag software you want something that defragments all your files and consolidates the maximum amount of free space. But is there more to look for in a disk defrag program?

The location of the files can also make a difference. Files that don't change often can be defragged and placed together. The next time the defragger runs these files don't have to be moved. The same goes for frequently changing files, they can be located near the free space so they can grow in the fewest number of pieces. Boot files can be placed next to the Master Boot Record for faster system boot ups, and you can defrag system files, the ones Windows 7 doesn't touch, to get them out of the way so your on line defrag is faster.

Combine all of this with flexible scheduling, automatic defragmentation, a duplicate file finder, virtual system support and ease of use and you have something that really qualifies as the best defragmentation software. This is why PerfectDisk 10 is the choice of thousands. These users know that the best defragmentation software does the whole job.

                                                        

Defragmenting computer or your Windows Home Server on a Friday night? Seems like a great idea!

Tim Daleo did just that on Friday night. Tim is a Project Resource Analyst and Oracle Applications Trainer for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Tim currently runs a Dell Power Edge server running Windows Home Server and a HP MSS at an off-site location. On Friday nights, Tim posts in the Using Windows Home Server blog - which classifies itself as "your number one stop for all things Microsoft Windows Home Server, Windows Media Center and anything in the Connected Home."

                              

Tim provides a good overview of PerfectDisk 10 Windows Home Server, although he is still looking for the definitive answer as to whether disk defrag software is needed, especially since there is not a Microsoft defrag for Windows Home Server.

Here is how Tim concludes his review:

Overall I like the functionality and interface of PerfectDisk 10. If you are looking for a Disk Defragmenter for your WHS then this is a great choice. In addition, like I said earlier, their manual has 325 pages so there is a lot more to it then what I covered here.

Only time will tell whether PerfectDisk10, and disk defragmentation in general, is worth the effort and money. For now I will give PerfectDisk 10 the benefit of the doubt.

That said…does WHS really need a Disk Defragmenter? Microsoft would have included it if it needed it, right?"

                                                             

Well, PerfectDisk 10 Windows Home Server lets you not only defrag the server but also defrag PC or multiple PCs in your environment. One of the reasons HP partnered with PerfectDisk for its MediaSmart Servers is that its testing showed PerfectDisk would eliminate hard drive fragmentation, consolidate free space to speed backups, and allow HP users to stream media faster.

HP recognizes the need to defrag Windows Home Servers, and it has partnered with the leading disk defrag utility as part of its validation. This review provides some more insight. And thousands of users around the world provide more evidence.

Your entire connected home defragmented is a better-connected home. You can read the entire review here.

                                      
 
One of the many things missing from the built-in Windows 7 defrag is the ability to exclude files or folders. PerfectDisk does provide this ability, and depending on your environment, this could range from a “nice-to-have” to critical.

If you have whole drive encryption (WDE) software installed, there may be certain files that should not be defragmented. But you can’t do this with the built-in Windows 7 defrag. In addition, PerfectDisk supports the following top encryption vendors to ensure seamless compatibility:
 

• PC Guardian
• PGR Whole Disk Encryption
• BestCrypt
• PointSec
• SafeBoot / McAfee Total Endpoint Protection
• SafeNet Protect Drive
• Safeguard Easy
• DESLock+
• WinMagic
   

                                          

And because PerfectDisk allows file and folder exclusion, it can be made to support any encryption solution. With the built-in Windows 7 defrag lack of ability to exclude files and folders, it could end up being directly responsible for the entire loss of an encrypted disk. That's reason enough to consider an alternative disk defrag program.

Winodws 7 defrag — not smart enough.

                                         

Related posts:

• Windows 7 defrag in a corporate environment
• Windows 7 defrag -- real world, real guy
• Defrag for Windows  7 -- "Raxco Software has outdone itself again"

Here’s a little something on defragmenting with Windows 7 from a single user perspective. Greg Smith, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana,  is a full-time software engineer, and also is a part time audio engineer. He wrote the following to me:

“I mainly use my PC for software development and productivity, but occasionally I use it for live recordings of small concerts around the area.

"The computer is a self-built Intel Q9400 system with 4 GB RAM.  There are two hard drives installed – a Western Digital 320 GB drive as my system drive, and a Western Digital 640 GB drive for storage.  The system drive is partitioned for dual-booting.  The outermost partition (200 GB) is my software development partition, which is running Windows 7.  The innermost partition (100 GB) is my recording partition, which is running a stripped-down version of Vista x64.  The 640 GB storage drive is partitioned as one large partition.

"Since I use my Windows 7 installation 99% of the time, that’s the Windows installation on which PerfectDisk is installed.  It is configured for StealthPatrol on the Windows 7 partition and the Storage partition (I have the Vista partition set to manual).  All my programs are installed on the 200 GB Windows 7 partition, but my data is entirely on the 640 GB storage partition.  PerfectDisk keeps my program files and data perfectly optimized.  I don’t even have to think about defragmenting my drives anymore – I just always have outstanding disk performance.  This is especially important when recording, as the large audio files (sometimes several GB per track) can quickly become extremely fragmented.  I simply kick off a SmartPlacement defrag on the storage partition before AND after a recording session, and everything is perfectly optimized.”

                                                   

Greg also had a little to say about PerfectDisk support:

“Your support is simply amazing. If you have a problem, you are contacted within 24 hours, and often times within a few hours of your submission. The support staff are an absolute pleasure to work with - friendly, knowledgeable, competent, and above all — HELPFUL. Raxco has provided some of the best product support experiences I’ve ever had.”

                       
My favorite video magazine, Videomaker, has its annual Camcorder Buyer's Guide out in the just-released December edition. And as the guide's author Randy Hansen states, "in video, if there's one constant, it's change." Like so much of electronics, do you buy today or wait a few months for the price to drop and/or for extra storage and capabilities to be added.

It's a very comprehensive guide, covering a wide range of camcorders, including those that start as low as $50 and skyrocket to the "if you have to ask" range. For me - I'm asking...and I have to! And there are lots of choices in the various categories - not like the choices for defragmenting a computer, of which I find very few if any (insert grin).

But unlike a disk defrag utility, where you'll receive regular updates to the software, a camcorder is typically an investment that you will hold onto for quite a long time, as is - barring add-on accessories.

We get emails from people every week who are video editors and videographers of all types - just starting out and professionals. The more anyone performs video editing on their computer, the more they realize the importance of a disk defragmenter program like PerfectDisk. The video editing gets them better videos; disk defragmentation makes it all easier, from a faster PC to better use of their PC's space through free space consolidation and things like duplicate file removal. It really acts as a disk cleanup program as well.

                                        

If this upcoming holiday shopping season includes shopping for a camcorder, I'd recommend taking a look at this guide before you spend your money. And of course, once you start taking those videos and editing and storing them, I'd recommend maximizing your investment with the necessary software to keep your computer performing like new.

You can see the entire roundup here.