With every new release of PerfectDisk, we're always working on performance improvements for a fast defrag, regardless of whatever other features we add. As files and drives get larger and larger, it's always a challenge. But we've always been able to point to some performance gains between versions. Some of these improvements have been more noticeable in particular environments (e.g. large drives, drives with limited free space) than othersbut they're always there to help with fast defragmentation.
This go around, we've made some fundamental changes to the analysis operation in PerfectDisk - it goes beyond a tweak here and a tweak there. I can throw out numbers of several hundred percent, but the truth is, when you defrag a computer, data like this always varies depending on the environment -- number of files, drive size, file size, etc. But I am very confident that just about everyone, if not everyone, will notice a significant change for the good in analyze time of PerfectDisk. Whether you'd doing a Windows 7 defrag or any other Windows environment.
In test after test, it's faster....no doubt.
On a scale of 1 to 10, it's an 11. Coming March 2010.
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In the continuing story of what is missing from the Windows 7 defrag tool, today I’ll touch on drive optimization. PerfectDisk’s patented file placement strategy (SMARTPlacement) is based on file modification activity. This strategy groups files with similar modification patterns together, in a single pass. Since the rarely modified files are typically unchanged and grouped together, PerfectDisk is not required to use resources to process them during a subsequent defrag. This saves system resources and improves speed, as the drive is in essence “shrunk,” and you get a fast defrag on subsequent passes.
The recently modified files are adjacent to the contiguous free space. If one of these files grows, the fragment will be created in one piece from the contiguous free space. As a result, fewer defrag passes are actually needed, saving more system resources.
The Windows 7 defragmenter has no file placement strategy whatsoever. Files are defragmented haphazardly with no regard to type and usage pattern. No consideration is made to slow the rate of fragmentation build up. No attempt is made to improve the speed of subsequent defragmentation passes in order to reduce resource impact, and no attempt at free space consolidation for the best possible write performance is made. As a result, the Windows 7 defrag will never provide the same level of performance and resource optimization that PerfectDisk does.
Lucky 7? Not if you're going to defrag Windows.
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In a press release from StorageNewsletter.com today, the University of California, San Diego has released a report that states U.S. households consumed approximately 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008, with the bulk coming from computer games and TV. Some of the numbers are truly mind boggling. For example, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day.
Wow - no wonder Grandma and Grandpa say life was a lot simpler back in the day!
And while the tried and true, "traditional" methods of consumption (radio and tv) dominate our consumption of information (60%), the UCSD report states that "computers have had major effects on some aspects of information consumption. In the past, information consumption was overwhelmingly passive, with telephone being the only interactive medium. Thanks to computers, a full third of words and more than half of bytes are now received interactively. Reading, which was in decline due to the growth of television, tripled from 1980 to 2008, because it is the overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet."
With all this information overload, everything can become easily fragmented -- your brain, your paper files...and of course your computer files. Just another reason it makes sense to schedule defragmentation on your computers today. Even better, set up an automatic fast defrag.
So much data and information to absorb, so little time.
You can see the entire press release here.
When IT consultant, Fred Flye, of Kake, Alaska, moved to Windows 7, he knew that with his 650GB hard drives, he would need something beyond the standard, built-in Windows 7 defrag. As many of his clients were also in the process of moving to Windows 7, he looked at most of the defrag downloads that were out there. The biggest things Flye was looking for were the ability to handle large drives in the Windows 7 environment, significant performance improvements, and a fast defrag.
He found PerfectDisk delivered. He did notice that PerfectDisk's initial defrag took longer than subsequent passes, but after that, it was fast, "efficient, performed very well, and the performance of my PC is noticeably improved. I recommend it to everyone I know."
Bypassing the built-in Windows 7 defrag isn't going rogue, it's just smarter.
UPDATE: It goes to 11 -- in 11 daysOur development staff has been making some final improvements to Version 11, including the incorporation of some new enhancements, all with an eye toward making what we believe to be the best defrag software even better.
We've expanded our Alpha test and incorporated feedback from additional testers. Additional tweaks have been made to the new analysis phase of PerfectDisk, allowing for some really good results which lead to a much faster analyze and fast defrag. Some of the performance improvements will be particularly noticeable on large drives. In some cases we're seeing improvements of several hundred percent. We're now also incorporating new graphics into the product and will begin the beta test in just a few weeks.
With PerfectDisk 11, we plan to release all the client versions together with the Enterprise Console. This will be particularly beneficial to our corporate customers, especially with all the new virtualization functionality.
Our latest disk defragmenter program -- the PerfectDisk 11 beta test comes soon.
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PerfectDisk 11 defrag -- on the horizon
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