Which Disk Defragmenter?

[Coolio10]

I have been trying to look for a defragger that "works" and has good features.

I really like background/automatic defragmentation but its not a must. File placement is also preferred.

I have been picking my choices by the disk defragmenter poll located here (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=166488)

The most popular picks are:

AusLogic Disk Defrag
Windows built-in defragmenter
Diskeeper Home/Pro
PerfectDisk
Power Defragmenter GUI with contig.exe
O&O Defrag Pro
DiskTrix UltimateDefrag
JKDefrag

Now i will write why or why not i don't want to use them and hopefully someone can pick one for me.

AusLogic Disk Defrag: Didn't try it but looking for one that does more than defragment.

Windows built-in defragmenter: Why pick this when there is better free ones?

Diskeeper Home/Pro: Using it right now and like the automatic defragmentation in the back ground but thats all it seems to be good at. The I-FAAST seems to be useless and the Frag Shield's ability is impossible to track. So i am looking for one that will have useful features and not features there for marketing.

PerfectDisk: Seems the best of the bunch yet when i run the smart placement defragment it gives up after 10 mins on both of my computers. Maybe a bug in the build? Or it cannot handle big files at all?.

Power Defragmenter GUI with contig.exe: Tooo simple, would rather use jkdefrag.

O&O Defrag Pro: Haven't tried but sems very good from the description because it has the automatc defrag of diskeeper and the file placement of perfectdisk. Best of both worlds. If it is able to finish a whole defrag without giving up like perfectdisk than i may use it. Obviously not just putting features for marketing because it does not call its file placement, SmartPlacement, or its automatic defrag, InvisiTasking.

DiskTrix UltimateDefrag: It actually seems really complicated with all its options and the GUI doesn't help it at all. But if it can defrag and optimize good without a ton of tweaks than who cares what it looks like.

JKDefrag: My favourite freeware choice and does the job but want something that can show and reccommend whats wrong with my disk instead of just defragmenting it and optimzing it straight away. Im not good at reading logs :(.


O&O seems to have the features i want and so does perfectdisk if it worked.
Although the stealthpatrol in perfectdisk would never run after leaving my computer inactive for hours, so an on-the-fly one would probably be better.

Your opinions or favourite defraggers are appreciated :D.

And don't redirect me back to the poll thread for opinions becuse the only opinion there is that it works with FD-ISR which doesn't exist no more :(.

[Osaban]

This is one area I don't want to spend any money as I think there are very good free wares. I go along with your analyses, and I also find JKDefrag the best (among free ware) although very slow and not showing you what's actually happening. Recently I've downloaded the free version of Ultimate Defrag v:1.72, and using it as a simple defragmenter it achieves the same results as JKDefrag, but it is incredibly fast. So I've settled with these two, Windows own defragmenter being painfully slow and not giving you any info in its gui.

[Thankful]

Smartdefrag:
http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html
Make sure you select 'Defrag & Optimize'

[virtumonde]

{QUOTE-> I have been trying to look for a defragger that "works" and has good features.

diskeeper Home/Pro: Using it right now and like the automatic defragmentation in the back ground but thats all it seems to be good at.

JKDefrag: My favourite freeware choice and does the job but want something that can show and reccommend whats wrong with my disk instead of just defragmenting it and optimzing it straight away. Im not good at reading logs :(.

. <-QUOTE}

I have a licence for diskeeper home edition but as seen in my sig i run JKDefrag now.
Why?Becouse it defragments and it's not realtime(mostly i use screensaver defrag).
Why would you need a product that has additional features if u want the product to defrag?There is nothing wrong with your hdd it's either fragmented or not.
If u want an automic tool from what i've used diskeper is the fastest and with lowest ram usage.

[emperordarius]

Diskeeper made me some strange problems, which seemed to vanish after a while...
Windows built in, PerfectDisk, O&O, SmartDefrag, JKDefrag, Auslogics and Tuneup defrag never actually improved performance noticeably. Only UltimateDefrag did. You don't actually have to change any option, just go for the Auto Defrag.

[Coolio10]

{QUOTE-> Diskeeper made me some strange problems, which seemed to vanish after a while...
Windows built in, PerfectDisk, O&O, SmartDefrag, JKDefrag, Auslogics and Tuneup defrag never actually improved performance noticeably. Only UltimateDefrag did. You don't actually have to change any option, just go for the Auto Defrag. <-QUOTE}
So dont press support layout.ini or anything? Just pick auto and start?

[Coolio10]

O&O just got stuck in 18%.

UltimateDefrag is next.

[emperordarius]

{QUOTE-> So dont press support layout.ini or anything? Just pick auto and start? <-QUOTE}

Yep, just pick auto and start. Oh, you may click "Put Directories Close to MTF" if you like, it should improve performance. For more info on the other options, you may check the documentation.

[GES/POR]

Have you tried Puran yet?

[Coolio10]

{QUOTE-> Have you tried Puran yet? <-QUOTE}
Nope, does it do a good job?

[PROROOTECT]

Listen everybody : REALLY other defragmenters is dissatisfaction guarantee ...
REALLY chose only SmartDefrag as suggested Thankful, or one-click ( this same ) Smart Defragment in Advanced SystemCare 3 (beta).
There is no better choice; and guaranteed increase performance of Windows. Really.:thumb:

[lodore]

{QUOTE-> Listen everybody : REALLY other defragmenters is dissatisfaction guarantee ...
REALLY chose only SmartDefrag as suggested Thankful, or one-click ( this same ) Smart Defragment in Advanced SystemCare 3 (beta).
There is no better choice; and guaranteed increase performance of Windows. Really.:thumb: <-QUOTE}
TBH microsoft should just create a better file system. no other file systems need to be defragged. just MS ones...

[Rico]

Hi Guys,

I can't tell the difference between a JK & Smart defrag. How are these speed improvement being measured? I will say Smart defrag & optimize, is much quicker than JK & prettier. As far as performance it's 6 in one, half a dozen in the other.

Take Care
Rico

[GES/POR]

{QUOTE-> Nope, does it do a good job? <-QUOTE}

Am liking its easy 2 use n clean gui,features, also got some good reviews: http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2008/07/puran-defrag-50-is-major-leap-forward.html

The realtime scheduled defrag works so its a keeper for me. Also its not bloated,fast, cheap n theres a anniversary discount for it right now.

My fav stays diskeeper but the non crippled version 4 vista 64 at 100 bucks is not friendly at all.

[Osaban]

{QUOTE-> Yep, just pick auto and start. Oh, you may click "Put Directories Close to MTF" if you like, it should improve performance. For more info on the other options, you may check the documentation. <-QUOTE}

When I tried these settings, my boot time went from 45 seconds to 90 seconds. I couldn't tell whether there was any change with my computer speed (fast computers remain fast no matter what).

[EASTER]

I must admit that i went thru the circle of PAID commercial Super-Defrags and none of them boosted perfomance without the overhead of running in the background for me like DiskTrix UltimateDefrag.

That doesn't mean it's best, just moderate enough performance gain that i expect and file-placement improvement is been beneficial for my disks.

I will say that the absolute quickest Super-Defrag i ever tried was PerfectDisk, but it caused some not so pleasant issues for me, but then thats long since past. DiskKeeper was relatively mediocre but it's background running unnerved me. I'm sure everyone has their own best choice that gives them that extra added performance gain and hopefully preserves the HD at the same time, but i made my choice and am 100% satisfied in my choice. It's not caused any issues whatsoever and dispenses chosen file/folder placements where i decide and keeps them there longer in comparison.

But i'm always open for alternatives, preferable free ones, if they can prove to equal or surpass what i use now.

Nice Topic, thanks

EASTER

[Coolio10]

Got another to add to the list of failures.

Ultimate Defrag just stopped randomly like perfectdisk and left with an additional 2% fragmentation. Talk about reverse engineering......???

Still better than O&O which instead of giving up got stuck at 18%.

Are my computers un-defraggable?

Should i even try the small name products if the big commercial ones can't handle it?

[GES/POR]

{QUOTE-> Should i even try the small name products if the big commercial ones can't handle it? <-QUOTE}

I used perfectdisc for a while but i had to do several defrags to get things done n it took a while.With Puran i just do a boottime defrag n afterwards a plain 1 wich is fast. Have everythingh ticked.Also i noticed that comparing this 1 with the big boys support is faster n friendlier. It doesnt hurt to try.

[norky]

jkdefrag doesnt respect layout.ini which makes it a no-go for me

[Arup]

PD and O&O are the top of the lots for me. O&D oofers the most options for strategy to defrag and has a nice background monitor as well.

[Pseudo]

Vopt. *puppy*

[Coolio10]

{QUOTE-> I used perfectdisc for a while but i had to do several defrags to get things done n it took a while.With Puran i just do a boottime defrag n afterwards a plain 1 wich is fast. Have everythingh ticked.Also i noticed that comparing this 1 with the big boys support is faster n friendlier. It doesnt hurt to try. <-QUOTE}
Its next

[SKA]

Anyone knows if Puran Defrag supports MS' layout.ini or has its own equivalent ?

SKA

[Coolio10]

{QUOTE-> Anyone knows if Puran Defrag supports MS' layout.ini or has its own equivalent ?

SKA <-QUOTE}
I don't think it does. Didn't see any option to support it.

But i am running it now and its super fast. I ticked all options including PIOZR so ill see if it does a good job.

[Coolio10]

Puran just finished and still indicates 7% fragmentation. I'll try again without PIOZR.

[Halo326]

Perfectdisk all the way. I love the offline system file defragger.

[Coolio10]

Two more to add to the list of failures.

Puran Defrag
Smart Defrag

Smart defrag lowered it from 17% to 15%.

No security software is running on the computer. So nothing should be locking those files.

[Pedro]

If JkDefrag works, and you just don't like the standard interface (or lack of it), you could try one of the GUI's available. Check the website, scroll down.

Although you should note that you can run JkDefrag in cmd, where you have more options.

[pandlouk]

{QUOTE-> Two more to add to the list of failures.

Puran Defrag
Smart Defrag

Smart defrag lowered it from 17% to 15%.

No security software is running on the computer. So nothing should be locking those files. <-QUOTE}
Hi Coolio,

have you run a checkdisk? It seams that something is wrong with your mft.

If there is a problem on the files table or there are bad clusters the defrag will fail/stop for not damaging your files.

Panagiotis

[Coolio10]

{QUOTE-> Hi Coolio,

have you run a checkdisk? It seams that something is wrong with your mft.

If there is a problem on the files table or there are bad clusters the defrag will fail/stop for not damaging your files.

Panagiotis <-QUOTE}
How to run it?

O&O did report an error before but it continued to defrag anyway.

[GES/POR]

{QUOTE-> How to run it?

O&O did report an error before but it continued to defrag anyway. <-QUOTE}

Puran's boottime defrag starts off with checkdisk first ;)

[Coolio10]

{QUOTE-> Puran's boottime defrag starts off with checkdisk first ;) <-QUOTE}
I found out how :).

[silver0066]

I made the mistake of buying PerfectDisk 2008 for VmWare. After the latest update, it crashed on all three of my systems while analyzing.

I will now try Smart Defrag and Puran.

PerfectDisk is off my system!!

Silver

[norky]

I just started trying Puran and it's pretty nice. Works quickly and I like all the boot time options. Price is pretty darn good too. Will try it for the full period, but so far, so good!

[DiskeeperRep]

{QUOTE->
Diskeeper Home/Pro: Using it right now and like the automatic defragmentation in the back ground but thats all it seems to be good at. The I-FAAST seems to be useless and the Frag Shield's ability is impossible to track.
<-QUOTE}

Hi Coolio10,
Don't mean to nitpick, but there is no I-FAAST in the Home and Pro editions of Diskeeper 2008. I-FAAST is found only in the ProPremier and Server editions. I-FAAST needs to monitor file activity for a while (~1 week) before sequencing the files. Benefits from I-FAAST depend on the specific system and can vary between (approx) 10-80%. All of this is done automatically without any user intervention.

if you are interested, here is some more information on how I-FAAST works
http://www.diskeeperblog.com/archives/2006/09/inside_ifaast.html
http://www.diskeeperblog.com/archives/2006/11/comparing_ifaas.html

Best regards:)

[n8chavez]

MST Software just recently release version 3 of Mst Defrag. I have always liked it in the past. Has anyone used it yet? I have but I cannot tell if it is effectective or not. Any opinions on it?

[trjam]

Smart Defrag all the way.:thumb:

[Iangh]

{QUOTE-> Smart Defrag all the way.:thumb: <-QUOTE}

I tried Smart Defrag moving away from Jk.

We have 2 Acer 2303's and I noticed that the PC was spiking at 15-20% every 3 secs on both even with the background defrag turned off. We have Avira suite on all PCs.

Exiting SD was the answer.

Back to Jk using JkDefragGUI to do a defrag 5mins after log-on.

Didn't notice any change in performance.

On my son's Dell 8300 3Ghz P4 I didn't notice any discernible spikes.

Anybody else seeing spikes?

Ian

[djohn]

smart defrag.:thumb:

[silver0066]

{QUOTE-> I made the mistake of buying PerfectDisk 2008 for VmWare. After the latest update, it crashed on all three of my systems while analyzing.

I will now try Smart Defrag and Puran.

PerfectDisk is off my system!!

Silver <-QUOTE}Now I am trialing O&O Defrag v11. Has almost everything that UD has, plus offline defrag. Much faster than PerfectDisk.

[Arup]

{QUOTE-> Now I am trialing O&O Defrag v11. Has almost everything that UD has, plus offline defrag. Much faster than PerfectDisk. <-QUOTE}


Best part is the flexible strategy to defrag, so for your boot drive you can set it to do a complete/name and for your data drive you can set it to complete/modified. The background monitoring feature is another plus, it automatically files as they are added on the fly leading to far less need of total defrags.

[icr]

answers clearly on my Sig

[Nick Rhodes]

I am still using Diskeeper 10 Home on my remaining XP machine.

IMHO it offers the best efficiency (measured in terms of defrag time over refragmentation and offers intelligent scheduling options and is unobtrusive.

JK Defrag, Perfectdisk and Ultimate defrag, all reduced refragmentation rates compared to Diskeeper 10 (and XP built in defrag), but all took an un-proportional rate of time to defragment (eg Perfectdisk almost halved refragmentation, but took over 3 times as long to defrag, so I could afford to run diskeeper 10 twice as often to maintain similar levels of refragmentation and still not accumulate as much defragmentation time).

After trying Diskeeper 2007 and MST defrag I was not keen on the realtime idea, as they seemed to spend ages defragging files that just refragmented again; though I did not run any tests, I suspect they were wasting too much time repeatedly defragging things like temp files that were continuously altered and/or deleted.

I will mention this again as its important:

You need to test the different defragmentation tools as some work better in different scenarios and in some cases fail to work correctly due to unique situations, there is no-one best defragmentation tool.
Ignore the hype about performance gains, test yourself, draw your own conclusions.

I left my hdd on my development machine for 1 full month after an initial defrag.
It accumulated 4000 fragmented files.
Those files had a 14% performance loss when reading end-to-end (e.g. not real world random access).
14% performance loss sounds a lot, but that's only the fragmented files.
My drive has approx 75000 files, that's only a total file fragmentation of 0.75%.
Add into the mix that you seldom read a big chunk of files end-to-end, drive access is very random (I monitored frequent access to my page file in-between normal file reads/writes), XP has the cool prefetch feature, various caching mechanisms of the OS and most drives, this fragmentation is completely insignificant, it would take many months of usage before it will every become noticeable OR even affect productivity.
But note this is a general desktop usage scenario - P2P file downloading, movie editing, some games etc. can all cause higher rates of fragmentation, but is why you need to test, so you can look at your usage and see which tool will fit in better.

[silver0066]

{QUOTE-> Best part is the flexible strategy to defrag, so for your boot drive you can set it to do a complete/name and for your data drive you can set it to complete/modified. The background monitoring feature is another plus, it automatically files as they are added on the fly leading to far less need of total defrags. <-QUOTE}I noticed a difference between O&O Defrag 11 and Ultimate Defrag on both of these methods.

It appears that O&O puts the modified files on the inner part of the disk, the slowest part, rather than at the of the outer parts. UD puts them on the outer parts, the fastest part of the disk.

Can anyone explain why O&O would do it this way?

Many thanks,

Silver

[Paranoid2000]

I've trialled PerfectDisk 2008 and would give it a definite thumbs down for the following reasons: Speed - it was significantly slower than Windows' own defrag, even after having run it a few times. I suspect this was due to its "Smart" placement which seemed to keep defragmenting the same files (possibly moving them to different places on disk). UI - highly wasteful of screen space, due in large part to the ribbon interface - running this on a small screen would be a nightmare. Just because Microsoft does something doesn't make it a good idea! Bloat - 43MB is a lot for a utility (though when installed, it took up a more modest 30MB) but it also adds two services, one of which (PD91Agent) is totally unnecessary, as it just handles scheduling. Windows' own Task Scheduler can (and should) be used for this job. The 3 background processes (PD91Agent, PD91Scanner, PD91Engine took up 15-95MB on my system, whether PerfectDisk itself (another 25MB) was running or not. "SMARTplacement" - for all the brouhaha I'd expect something fairly significant. Locating large files on the outer tracks of a disk can certainly triple transfer rates in theory, yet PerfectDisk never did this. It would move some data to the centre of the drive but never to the edge (which corresponds to the end sections of the drive map) and its own performance indicators showed virtually no change over previous use of Windows' own disk defragmentation.On the whole, plenty of blow but little to show in my experience. :(

[Zero3K]

I use Puran Defrag (http://www.puransoftware.com). It can defrag at boot or in the background at an interval of your choosing.

[sasa843]

I would say Perfect Disk is my choice for now...

[norky]

I'm torn between Puran and Smart Defrag. For some reason, Puran always opens way in the top left of my screen no matter where I close it. I still think its a great defragmenter, the window thing is just a bit annoying.


Anyone know how to get it to save its window location?

[Zero3K]

{QUOTE-> I'm torn between Puran and Smart Defrag. For some reason, Puran always opens way in the top left of my screen no matter where I close it. I still think its a great defragmenter, the window thing is just a bit annoying.


Anyone know how to get it to save its window location? <-QUOTE}

Nope. I'll send them an e-mail about the problem.

[EASTER]

I wish i knew why Smart Defrag is so different because after trying it i notice a perf0rmance difference, maybe not earth-shattering, but surely enough to open my eyes to it and because of this i'm running dangerously torn since UD by DiskTrix is been it for me for awhile now, but i must admit i am impressed!

[lodore]

{QUOTE-> I've trialled PerfectDisk 2008 and would give it a definite thumbs down for the following reasons: Speed - it was significantly slower than Windows' own defrag, even after having run it a few times. I suspect this was due to its "Smart" placement which seemed to keep defragmenting the same files (possibly moving them to different places on disk). UI - highly wasteful of screen space, due in large part to the ribbon interface - running this on a small screen would be a nightmare. Just because Microsoft does something doesn't make it a good idea! Bloat - 43MB is a lot for a utility (though when installed, it took up a more modest 30MB) but it also adds two services, one of which (PD91Agent) is totally unnecessary, as it just handles scheduling. Windows' own Task Scheduler can (and should) be used for this job. The 3 background processes (PD91Agent, PD91Scanner, PD91Engine took up 15-95MB on my system, whether PerfectDisk itself (another 25MB) was running or not. "SMARTplacement" - for all the brouhaha I'd expect something fairly significant. Locating large files on the outer tracks of a disk can certainly triple transfer rates in theory, yet PerfectDisk never did this. It would move some data to the centre of the drive but never to the edge (which corresponds to the end sections of the drive map) and its own performance indicators showed virtually no change over previous use of Windows' own disk defragmentation.On the whole, plenty of blow but little to show in my experience. :( <-QUOTE}
Hey Paranoid2000,
thats pretty much my experience as well.
plus the boot time defrag didnt work. due to driver not loading.
have you tryed any other defrag programs?

[Huupi]

To have a good organised file layout on disk is without question so defrag is sometimes necessary,but to have a long thread on ''which is best'' is a waste of time,IMO there,s no essential differences between them in terms of refragment times and perf. gain,so take whatever you fit,even windows default defragger is great.Afterall they all use the windows API.

[Arup]

Well after being a long time die hard PD user I have to admit I am very impressed with O&O Defrag Pro version 11 and am keeping it for now over PD 2008 till PD gets its act together.

[SandyD]

I read this thread with interest and just wonder is it really important to even use a defragger? I find it funny when people notice a 2 second gain in opening a program by using this program over that one. Does it really matter?
What about the risk that this intentional moving about of files may corrupt the drive - anyone having had a bad experience?

[Seer]

{QUOTE-> is it really important to even use a defragger? <-QUOTE}
Not IMO.
Defraggers are nice little toys with little colorful squares dancing around your screen and all that eye-candy stuff, but here is what I find really interesting about them. Resource hogging and runnung unnecessary services aside, I had a little test of my own recently with a couple of these beasts and I will just give an example - I have 3 partitions, system C, data D & E on a single HDD on this PC. Uncompressed, unshadowed, just the plain old NTFS. The partitions were never defragged in a life of HD (1,5 years). Here's the "Fragmentation Analysis" results from a couple of popular defraggers (latest versions of course) - C, D and E respectively -
SmartDefrag - 55%, 42%, 44%
PerfectDisk - 4%, 5.5%, 7%
Diskeeper - 32%, 14%, 78%Now, WTF was that? I would very much like to rationalize the use of defraggers on my systems, but with such results it is very hard to find a reason. As it is (and always was) no defragger for me, thank you...

[Ed_H]

I have been using PD for several years. I used to get a definite improvement in system responsiveness, especially with off-line defrags. With the latest version, I don't notice any improvement at all over not defragging and sometimes my laptop actually seems slower after a defrag with PD.

So, I am trying Ultimate Defrag right now and I would say there is a small improvement in performance but for some reason it always shows the fragmentation level at 27%. I also seem to need to defrag at least daily to maintain the increased performance.

[silver0066]

I was also using PD for years but the new update is too slow and even though I got it working with FolderLock (Raxco said this is impossible). Because of their poor support policies, this gave me a chance to experiment and I have switched to Ultimate Defrag for two reasons.

1. More options for optimizing placement of files than any of the others I have tested. (Puran, PD, Smart, O&O, JKDefrag). It does not have boot time defrag, but it will work fine with Puran, which has a very small footprint, to do this function every once in awhile.

I have two (1 is external) 750 gb disks for program storage and backup. I am now doing a Folder/Name defrag with the strictly sorted option and putting the backup files at the beginning of the disk. I am also using the 20% HP/80% archive for recent files in addition to respecting high performance and archiving. This defrag is on the two 750 GB drives that I use for storage and backup. It is a long process since these several year old drives have never been defragged. If you use Consolidate with archiving with fast placement and on the next defrags, it should run very quickly and also speed up my backups.

It runs very quickly on my System and Data partitions also.

2. Perfect Disk was going to take over 3 days to defrag a 750 Gb Sata drive using SmartPlacement. Way too long.

Silver

[Coolio10]

Lowered my choices down. Mainly only ones that optimize.

Puran Defrag - I like it, simple, yet effective and getting more popular here.
UltimateDefrag - Did a good job according to perfectdisk and i like the detailed disk view/image (fun to watch) :) Its time left is useless, sometimes hours off.
Smart Defrag - Not sure how good of a job but its getting a lot of publicity here.
PerfectDisk - Some people seem to think its overhyped, and im starting to think so too.

Maybe: O&O and JKDEFRAG

Now please give me your reasons for/for not using each of the above.

I did chkdsk on both my computers and now UD got the fragmentation below 2%.

[Coolio10]

UltimateDefrag did an amazing job. But has to be one of the slowest defragmenters i have ever used. Having a useless time left doesn't help.

See results below. I think its best to run puran just before to make it easier on UD.

I think best combination is puran+ultimate.

Not sure how much puran contributed but i did run it just before UD and the perfectdisk analysis is perfect.

[Paranoid2000]

{QUOTE-> plus the boot time defrag didnt work. due to driver not loading.
have you tryed any other defrag programs? <-QUOTE}Boot time failed once for me due to a driver conflict but worked when I repeated it.

I've downloaded a copy of Puran - at 2.3MB it should show a lot less bloat though I don't expect much improvement performance-wise from it either. The main benefits a third party utility could offer would be a more informative UI plus some control over file placement.

The reason I think performance gains would be minimal is that while defragmenting files is straightforward, locating them on disk for best performance is really hard. Moving files to the end (where transfer rates should be best) is only likely to work for large files - with small ones what you gain on transfer speeds would be lost on seek times.

But many users run utilities (AV scanners, desktop theming software, mouse drivers) that require frequent file access and this can typically occur when a new program is started (the AV scanner will intercept the file request which will trigger another further disk access to its program/database, a mouse driver hook may need to be loaded for each new window opened, etc). It is this that can throw the spanner in any file placement algorithm since multiple files in different locations will need to be accessed and this can't be done without incurring seek time penalties (unless you switch to SSD or ramdisk).

The best option would seem to involve using a tool like FileMon to identify those files accessed regularly and then relocating them to a new partition on a separate disk (or creating a ramdisk if plenty of RAM is available). This would mean uninstall/reinstalling the application since creating a link/shortcut from the old to the new partition would still incur a seek penalty. Once this is done, they should no longer interfere with placement strategy on the main disk.

A disk optimisation tool that took all those steps automatically should provide a more noticeable benefit than current third party defragmentation tools. Anyone up for writing one?

[Arup]

{QUOTE-> Lowered my choices down. Mainly only ones that optimize. O&O excluded since it doesn't say which setting to use or any advice.

Puran Defrag - I like it, simple, yet effective and getting more popular here.
UltimateDefrag - Did a good job according to perfectdisk and i like the detailed disk view/image (fun to watch) :) Its time left is useless, sometimes hours off.
Smart Defrag - Not sure how good of a job but its getting a lot of publicity here.
PerfectDisk - Some people seem to think its overhyped, and im starting to think so too.

Now please give me your reasons for/for not using each of the above.

I did chkdsk on both my computers and now UD got the fragmentation below 2%. <-QUOTE}

If you looked at the help file of O&O it gives detailed advice on what strategy to adapt, it this particular aspect that impresses me the most. The choices are far more than what other defraggers offer and when done right, O&O excels in terms of performance.

[Bunkhouse Buck]

{QUOTE-> Not IMO.
Defraggers are nice little toys with little colorful squares dancing around your screen and all that eye-candy stuff, but here is what I find really interesting about them. Resource hogging and runnung unnecessary services aside, I had a little test of my own recently with a couple of these beasts and I will just give an example - I have 3 partitions, system C, data D & E on a single HDD on this PC. Uncompressed, unshadowed, just the plain old NTFS. The partitions were never defragged in a life of HD (1,5 years). Here's the "Fragmentation Analysis" results from a couple of popular defraggers (latest versions of course) - C, D and E respectively -
SmartDefrag - 55%, 42%, 44%
PerfectDisk - 4%, 5.5%, 7%
Diskeeper - 32%, 14%, 78%Now, WTF was that? I would very much like to rationalize the use of defraggers on my systems, but with such results it is very hard to find a reason. As it is (and always was) no defragger for me, thank you... <-QUOTE}

The reality is, they do little (if any) good at all. They are a "feel good" thing- not something that actually achieves something.

[lodore]

{QUOTE-> The reality is, they do little (if any) good at all. They are a "feel good" thing- not something that actually achieves something. <-QUOTE}
so you think companies spend thousands of pounds on defrag programs just for a good feel?

[Ocky]

Maybe pedestrian, but is there anything 'wrong' with my way ?

I use Contig (couple KB's) together with the Power Defragmenter GUI
for Contig. Plus Pagedefrag when necessary. Also wipe free space
with Blowfish Advanced. I find these tools used fairly regularly are
a small improvement on the Windows defragmenter.

Contig 1.54 (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-za/sysinternals/bb897428(en-us).aspx)

Power Defragmenter GUI for Contig (http://my.opera.com/rejzor/blog/index.dml/tag/defragment)

Pagedefrag (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-za/sysinternals/bb897426(en-us).aspx)

[Bunkhouse Buck]

{QUOTE-> so you think companies spend thousands of pounds on defrag programs just for a good feel? <-QUOTE}

You got it- just as financial companies spent millions on software and programming to trade mortgage backed derivative securities and now have trillions of dollars of losses worldwide. The number of dollars spent by companies and consumers for defraggers, does not validate the efficacy of them.

I have not seen any definitive evidence that defragmenters do anything to speed up a modern hard drive. I have seen evidence they actually slow them up in some cases.

[Arup]

Why would MS give the base DK with its OS then? Unlike Linux FS, NTFS gets fragmented over time and use.

[lodore]

{QUOTE-> Why would MS give the base DK with its OS then? Unlike Linux FS, NTFS gets fragmented over time and use. <-QUOTE}
then it is microsoft's fault for creating a bad file system.

[Arup]

{QUOTE-> then it is microsoft's fault for creating a bad file system. <-QUOTE}


It is but MS and Windows is a necessary evil........so there you go.

[Bunkhouse Buck]

{QUOTE-> Why would MS give the base DK with its OS then? Unlike Linux FS, NTFS gets fragmented over time and use. <-QUOTE}

You are not suggesting that Microsoft including DK base makes them the expert of last resort about this? If you grant that premise, than you cannot fault them for creating an OS that is prone to malware invasions since they know it all- right?

The fragmenting does not entail slower access times with NTFS on a modern hard drive. I have seen data from others (and in our own tests), that there is no significant difference between fragmented files and their defragmented state.

[Arup]

{QUOTE-> You are not suggesting that Microsoft including DK base makes them the expert of last resort about this? If you grant that premise, than you cannot fault them for creating an OS that is prone to malware invasions since they know it all- right?

The fragmenting does not entail slower access times with NTFS on a modern hard drive. I have seen data from others (and in our own tests), that there is no significant difference between fragmented files and their defragmented state. <-QUOTE}


My experience tells me otherwise, I have tried not to defragment and have seen significant time increase in boot, program access as well as data access so I bet to differ here.

[lodore]

{QUOTE-> You are not suggesting that Microsoft including DK base makes them the expert of last resort about this? If you grant that premise, than you cannot fault them for creating an OS that is prone to malware invasions since they know it all- right?

The fragmenting does not entail slower access times with NTFS on a modern hard drive. I have seen data from others (and in our own tests), that there is no significant difference between fragmented files and their defragmented state. <-QUOTE}
malware isnt completely microsoft's fault. yes internet explorer does allow infected by just visiting a website due to activeX but its mainly targeted due to the amount of people who use it. mac's are starting to get malware.

creating a decent file system that doesnt need defragging is something that should definatly be sorted out. its definatly microsoft's fault no doubt.

[Arup]

Yes and so is registry as well, Linux file structure is far superior but sadly we do have to live with MS as well and therefore deal with its vagaries.

[GlobalForce]

I doubt the contribution's that went beyond speculation were even noticed, let alone acknowledged. Hat's off gentlemen!

{QUOTE-> Larger and faster drives have minimized the impact of fragmentation. The Windows file system tends to fragment files all on its own to a small degree, but fragmentation starts for real when the drive starts to get full—as in over 70%. As the drive fills up, the larger areas of free space become scarce and the file system has no choice but to splatter large files around the disk. As the drive gets really full (over 90%), the file system then starts to fragment the MFT and the Pagefile. Now you've got a full drive, with lots of fragmented files, making the job of the defragmenter nearly impossible because it also needs space to do its job. It is my opinion that a drive more than 80% full is not defragmentable. You can see that effect with huge hard disk drives, since they generally use smaller percentages of the drive's total free space. A side-effect is that the overall fragmentation is reduced, and the fact that these drives have faster seek times makes the effect even less noticeable. <-QUOTE}-- Mark Patton (http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1216336,00.html)

[lodore]

{QUOTE-> I doubt the contribution's that went beyond speculation were even noticed, let alone acknowledged. Hat's off gentlemen!

-- Mark Patton (http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1216336,00.html) <-QUOTE}
thanks for giving me an excuse to get that 1tb samsung spinpoint £80:D
acually ill probaly just get 4gb of ram.

[Long View]

{QUOTE-> UltimateDefrag did an amazing job. But has to be one of the slowest defragmenters i have ever used. <-QUOTE}

Perhaps you have a bit too much on your drive ?

[osip]

Well, time to mention Vopt...The fastest I've used so far (after 1st run).

[Long View]

{QUOTE->
The fragmenting does not entail slower access times with NTFS on a modern hard drive. I have seen data from others (and in our own tests), that there is no significant difference between fragmented files and their defragmented state. <-QUOTE}

How about file placement - see post #75 ? The files in green just never get used once the OS has been installed. Reducing the number of files in play and locating them near to each other sounds like a good idea to me. As to the fragmentation aspects of different programs I see little practical difference.
As it never takes me more than a few seconds to run UD for system or data drives I can see no reason not to - but the main benefit comes fromfile placement in my view.

[Coolio10]

Well, is everyone done arguing about defragmenting? Will you anwer my question instead :).

[Peter2150]

Okay on two points. First I'd agree with Longboard your disks are pretty full and that makes it tougher on any of them.

I've been a PD user for a long time, but frankly the new version I just found a waste. I've switched to Ultimate Defrag, and like it. What I do like is the ability to specify where files go.

Is it worth it. I found with one specific application, a game, MS Train Simulator, it made a big difference when I kept all the files on the same area of the disk. Much smoother.

One caution with any of them that use the recently accessed method, which I do like. Guess what an AV scan does to that. Poof.

Pete

[GlobalForce]

In all likelihood your greatest benefit would come at the expense of a fresh partitioning outlook.

[silver0066]

{QUOTE-> UltimateDefrag did an amazing job. But has to be one of the slowest defragmenters i have ever used. Having a useless time left doesn't help.

See results below. I think its best to run puran just before to make it easier on UD.

I think best combination is puran+ultimate.

Not sure how much puran contributed but i did run it just before UD and the perfectdisk analysis is perfect. <-QUOTE}Coolio10,

That was a great idea about running Puran before UD on a large badly fragmented drive, mine is 750gb. It took about 1.5 hours to defragment only with Puran, leaving gaps. Now, when running Folder/Name method on UD, with placement of FD-ISR archives and StorageProtect backup files at the beginning of the disk, it uses much less of the CPU, keeping the system cooler and optimizes the file placement with no gaps about 30 times faster than without the pre Puran step.

Before using the pre Puran step, UD was very slow and using 100% of the CPU.

Thanks for the good tip,

Silver

[Long View]

I wonder if those who have found UD slow have been using it long enough ?
I set mine using "past days data was used". with the OS set at 30 days it is at least 30 weeks from a clean install before things settle down. Then if data is messed with when using a backup program the dates can be reset so the clock starts again. Then there is the question of optimal partition size with smaller sometimes being better in my experience. If there is a weakness with UD it is that it does take time to understand and any one time only analysis will miss the possibilities. Just defragged C: in 34 seconds which is about as long as it takes following a days work.

[Nick Rhodes]

{QUOTE-> I've trialled PerfectDisk 2008 and would give it a definite thumbs down for the following reasons:[list] Speed - it was significantly slower than Windows' own defrag, even after having run it a few times. I suspect this was due to its "Smart" placement which seemed to keep defragmenting the same files (possibly moving them to different places on disk). <-QUOTE}

I noted that perfectdisk seems to take about 3 times as long as WDD/diskeeper 10 - I think this is simply because more files are shuffles into as perfect a position as possible.
Flip side is rudeced refragmentation rates.

{QUOTE->
UI - highly wasteful of screen space, due in large part to the ribbon interface - running this on a small screen would be a nightmare.
Just because Microsoft does something doesn't make it a good idea! <-QUOTE}

I think the GUI was originally designed for 1024x786 and actually would not shrink below this. One of the updates fixes this.
Does not bother me personally as I look at defrag GUI about once a month.

{QUOTE->
Bloat - 43MB is a lot for a utility (though when installed, it took up a more modest 30MB) but it also adds two services, one of which (PD91Agent) is totally unnecessary, as it just handles scheduling. Windows' own Task Scheduler can (and should) be used for this job. The 3 background processes (PD91Agent, PD91Scanner, PD91Engine took up 15-95MB on my system, whether PerfectDisk itself (another 25MB) was running or not. <-QUOTE}

Reason why PD and DK use their own services is not just for the time scheduling but also the monitoring of disk activity counters, so that the defragging is not obtrusive.
Memory use, I don't think its particularly bad.

{QUOTE->
"SMARTplacement" - for all the brouhaha I'd expect something fairly significant. Locating large files on the outer tracks of a disk can certainly triple transfer rates in theory, yet PerfectDisk never did this. It would move some data to the centre of the drive but never to the edge (which corresponds to the end sections of the drive map) and its own performance indicators showed virtually no change over previous use of Windows' own disk defragmentation.On the whole, plenty of blow but little to show in my experience. :( <-QUOTE}

You have missed the point of smartplacement.
Its purpose is to position files to reduce refragmentation rather than performance.
Not only does it help to reduce refragmentation, but should in theory reduce time of future defragmentation runs (relative to no specific placement using the same defrag tool).

Cheers Nick.

[Nick Rhodes]

{QUOTE-> To have a good organised file layout on disk is without question so defrag is sometimes necessary,but to have a long thread on ''which is best'' is a waste of time,IMO there,s no essential differences between them in terms of refragment times and perf. gain,so take whatever you fit,even windows default defragger is great.Afterall they all use the windows API. <-QUOTE}

My tests show that tools that put effort into placement (eg PerfectDisk and JKdefrag) reduce refragmentation rates by approx half, over those that do not (Windows defrag, Diskeeper or perfectdisk on non-smartplacement mode).
Flip side is the defragmentation takes far longer with specific placement.

[Nick Rhodes]

{QUOTE-> so you think companies spend thousands of pounds on defrag programs just for a good feel? <-QUOTE}

My tests confirm there is a LOT of hype over performance losses from fragmentation on windows/NTFS, for the majority.

Question to ask is if your drive is only running at half speed due to fragmentation, will it half your daily productivity, if you look at your normal usage pattern - average desktop user, performance loss will be in the realms of error, only when you look at people doing things like video editing will productivity loss be significant enough to warrant defragmenting.

[Nick Rhodes]

{QUOTE-> Why would MS give the base DK with its OS then? Unlike Linux FS, NTFS gets fragmented over time and use. <-QUOTE}

From what I understand, Diskeeper were heavily involved in the writing of the first defrag API on the first version of Windows NT, so I suspect some kind of reciprocal agreement was made, at the time MS had no expertise in defragmentation tools, so probably more economic to use Diskeepers defragmentation tool than develop their own.

[Nick Rhodes]

{QUOTE-> Yes and so is registry as well, Linux file structure is far superior but sadly we do have to live with MS as well and therefore deal with its vagaries. <-QUOTE}

Its not just the file system that is the problem, its the file allocation strategy used by the NTFS drivers, but I think NTFS is burdened by legacy support.

NTFS was a good file system when it first came out, one of the first mainstream filesystems with journalling (and therefore good reliability).
I Just think that its been neglected as newer, more advanced file systems have come along (XFS, ZFS) and others have evolved to be better file systems (ext2 to ext3)).

[Arup]

{QUOTE-> From what I understand, Diskeeper were heavily involved in the writing of the first defrag API on the first version of Windows NT, so I suspect some kind of reciprocal agreement was made, at the time MS had no expertise in defragmentation tools, so probably more economic to use Diskeepers defragmentation tool than develop their own. <-QUOTE}


When NTFS initially came out and I was using it with NT, MS's claim was that defrag was never needed. The fact that starting from 2K defragger started being incorporated default with the OS meant MS finally acknowledged the fact that NTFS files fragment.

MS did give a home made defragger with Win 98 but it was quite basic.

[lodore]

{QUOTE-> My tests confirm there is a LOT of hype over performance losses from fragmentation on windows/NTFS, for the majority.

Question to ask is if your drive is only running at half speed due to fragmentation, will it half your daily productivity, if you look at your normal usage pattern - average desktop user, performance loss will be in the realms of error, only when you look at people doing things like video editing will productivity loss be significant enough to warrant defragmenting. <-QUOTE}
Hey,
that is true.
surely that could be solved by microsoft creating a better file system?
linux doesnt have that problem.

[silver0066]

{QUOTE-> Okay on two points. First I'd agree with Longboard your disks are pretty full and that makes it tougher on any of them.

I've been a PD user for a long time, but frankly the new version I just found a waste. I've switched to Ultimate Defrag, and like it. What I do like is the ability to specify where files go.

Is it worth it. I found with one specific application, a game, MS Train Simulator, it made a big difference when I kept all the files on the same area of the disk. Much smoother.

One caution with any of them that use the recently accessed method, which I do like. Guess what an AV scan does to that. Poof.

Pete <-QUOTE}Hi Peter,

Do you or does anyone else know of any AV scanning programs that will not change the access date?

Is there a switch in Windows XP to turn that function on and off? If so, maybe a batch file before and after doing a malware scan might be available.

Silver

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> Hi Peter,

Do you or does anyone else know of any AV scanning programs that will not change the access date?

Is there a switch in Windows XP to turn that function on and off? If so, maybe a batch file before and after doing a malware scan might be available.

Silver <-QUOTE}


I don't Silver. Assuming I keep the AV I am playing with on the system, I just will leave it real time and not bother scanning.

Pete

[silver0066]

{QUOTE-> I don't Silver. Assuming I keep the AV I am playing with on the system, I just will leave it real time and not bother scanning.

Pete <-QUOTE}Peter,

That is sort of the way I do it, except for realtime protection I use DefenseWall to protect all of my programs that connect to the Internet and Threatfire with Outbound protection.

Any files that I download are scanned from the explorer right click menu with Avira, MBAM and SAS before they are executed. These programs are not real time but on demand so they never scan.

Silver

[Coolio10]

Is there a reason why perfectdisk can take almost 5 minutes to analyze?

When all the other can do it under 1 minute?

Puran can probably do a whole defrag in that time.

I just did an analyze on my other computer after ultimatedefrag finished and puran did make a small difference.

Mostly to do with free space. The free space fragmentation was higher and the largest free space chunk was also higher.

[fred22]

atm using Puran Defrag, really love it, the "Fill Gaps" in the Automatic Boot Time Defragmentation" can take awhile sometimes, although one can easely press ESC to skip if your in a hurry

great stuff :)

[Coolio10]

Does anyone know when the ultimatedefrag boottime defrag is suppose to be released. The last announced release date was mid-late august and its already late september......Hopefully ultimatedefrag development hasn't frozen.

I'll just use purans instead for now.

[prius04]

{QUOTE-> Is there a reason why perfectdisk can take almost 5 minutes to analyze?... <-QUOTE}
Something's just not right there. Either your disk is too full (as a few other members here alluded to already) or it's some kind of configuration issue/conflict.

My most recent complete defrag (PD w/SMARTPlacement) took less than 8 minutes; it took well under a minute to analyze. This was a 640GB HDD with over 90% free space that hadn't been defragged in over a week.

The other day, on a 160GB HDD with ~85% free space, the entire defrag with PD only took a couple of minutes. I did have StealthPatrol enabled, however.

[pandlouk]

{QUOTE-> Is there a switch in Windows XP to turn that function on and off? If so, maybe a batch file before and after doing a malware scan might be available. <-QUOTE}
Silver, you can trun on/off the last access with the command prompt or through the registry.

-Command prompt:
for turning off the last access modification run
FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 1
for truning it on again
FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 0

-Registry
for turning off the last access modification
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\FileSystem]
"NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"=dword:00000001
for turning it on again
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\FileSystem]
"NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"=dword:00000000

ps. pay attention that the modification takes effect after you reboot your system.

Panagiotis

[Long View]

I'm missing the point here. I use UD2008 with "past days data was used" turned on and have last access turned on. Running an on demand av or as causes no problem. Some backup programs do cause a problem because they emply incremental methods. The solution here is to image rather than use traditional backup programs.

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> I'm missing the point here. I use UD2008 with "past days data was used" turned on and have last access turned on. Running an on demand av or as causes no problem. Some backup programs do cause a problem because they emply incremental methods. The solution here is to image rather than use traditional backup programs. <-QUOTE}

Point is this. I use same options, so I want those files not accessed in 30 days treated as archive. But running a scan on the means all those files were again accessed so they no longer fit the haven't been accessed in 30 days model.

Pete

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE->

-Command prompt:
for turning off the last access modification run
FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 1
for truning it on again
FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 0


ps. pay attention that the modification takes effect after you reboot your system.

Panagiotis <-QUOTE}

Hi Panagiotis

Question. Say last access is on and I have a file whose last access date is Jan 1 2008. Obviously if I scan it today it gets todays date.

So I turn it off and reboot. Then scanning wouldn't change the date. But what date is there when I turn it back on and reboot.

Pete

[whitedragon551]

I started out with O&O. It was good, but not the best. Then I moved to Diskeeper. I liked Diskeeper and it did its job better than O&O. Eventually my liscence ran out and I wanted something new. I moved to PerfectDisk. Its by far the best defrag tool I have ever used. It allows smart placement of your files, you can compress the unused space and defrag what you have. It works excellent. It also has boot time defragging which helps alot with the MFT.

[pandlouk]

{QUOTE-> Hi Panagiotis

Question. Say last access is on and I have a file whose last access date is Jan 1 2008. Obviously if I scan it today it gets todays date.

So I turn it off and reboot. Then scanning wouldn't change the date. But what date is there when I turn it back on and reboot.

Pete <-QUOTE}
Hi Pete,

it will have as last access date Jan 1 2008. It will not be modified unless you open that file.

-Here are 2 great freewares for modifying the attributes of files/directories. I was in a research about something like this on June, because I do not like the way PD2008 handles the files on the non system partitions, specially the huge ones (>1gb).
Attribute Changer 6.0a (http://www.petges.lu/download/download.html)
SetFileDate 2.0 (http://no-nonsense-software.com/freeware/)


Panagiotis

[norky]

{QUOTE-> I started out with O&O. It was good, but not the best. Then I moved to Diskeeper. I liked Diskeeper and it did its job better than O&O. Eventually my liscence ran out and I wanted something new. I moved to PerfectDisk. Its by far the best defrag tool I have ever used. It allows smart placement of your files, you can compress the unused space and defrag what you have. It works excellent. It also has boot time defragging which helps alot with the MFT. <-QUOTE}


"Smart Placement" is just a Raxco buzzword.

[whitedragon551]

Right? So they took the time to incorporate a smart placement button into their program that does nothing?

Smart placement is putting the files in order according to their last access time. The longer ago you used a file the further in the back of the cluster it will go since it doesnt get used much. The more commonly used files go up front for quick access.

Most paid for defragers do that.

[pandlouk]

{QUOTE-> Smart placement is putting the files in order according to their last access time. The longer ago you used a file the further in the back of the cluster it will go since it doesnt get used much. The more commonly used files go up front for quick access. <-QUOTE}
You are mistaken about this one. Smart Placement orders the files from the oldest created/modified to the newest. It does not take in account the last access date.
This means that on the faster tracks will be placed those files that are almost never modified and in the slower tracks will be placed your newly created files and those that are modified more frequently.
With PD you do not gain speed at your most often tasks on the contrary you loose it.
PD defragmentation method is great for servers but is almost useless on a common use modern system.
On the other hand Puran Defrag and Smart Defrag will speed your drive, since they place 1st the directories, 2nd the last accessed files, 3rd a small free space (1-2gb) which will be used for the temp files and the more frequently modified files, 4th every other file and 5th a large free space chunk.

ps. I have a PD 2008 and RX suite license with support for the next 2 years but if Raxco does not listen to their customers I'm going to change. What the heck I had requested to have the ability to defrag a folder with all the files and to exclude files by size from last year (version 8 ) and still nothing on the horizon. >:(
Puran Defrag here I come....:P

Panagiotis
{QUOTE-> SMARTPlacement Defragmentation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SMARTPlacement is a patented algorithm of Raxco Software and is used for the best placement of files on your disk to minimize refragmentation. Files are organized by their creation and modified dates. The theory is that files that have not changed recently are less likely to change in the future. These older files are grouped together so that once PerfectDisk have SMARTPlaced them, future defragmentation passes are less likely to move them again. This shortens the amount of time needed to keep the drive at peak performance. Also the free space is consolidated next to the newer files since these are more likely to change or be deleted. Consolidating the free space makes the creation of new files contiguous and therefore minimizes refragmentation of your drive.

SMARTPlacement:

defragments all your files, consolidates free space, and optimizes the drive according to file usage.

provides the most complete defragmentation possible, and slows down refragmentation of your drive.

may still leave small blocks of free space between files if the PerfectDisk engine determines this would take too much time for a minimal performance gain. <-QUOTE}

[Long View]

{QUOTE-> Point is this. I use same options, so I want those files not accessed in 30 days treated as archive. But running a scan on the means all those files were again accessed so they no longer fit the haven't been accessed in 30 days model.

Pete <-QUOTE}


Pete what scanner doesw this ? The only programs I have found that mess up the archive are backup programs. If I run Prevx for example then nothing changes. Of course I only run them on demand. If you have scanners installed is this why they mess things up ? changing dates etc

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> Pete what scanner doesw this ? The only programs I have found that mess up the archive are backup programs. If I run Prevx for example then nothing changes. Of course I only run them on demand. If you have scanners installed is this why they mess things up ? changing dates etc <-QUOTE}

Ran a scan with Avira and of course it accesses the files.

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> Hi Pete,

it will have as last access date Jan 1 2008. It will not be modified unless you open that file.

-Here are 2 great freewares for modifying the attributes of files/directories. I was in a research about something like this on June, because I do not like the way PD2008 handles the files on the non system partitions, specially the huge ones (>1gb).
Attribute Changer 6.0a (http://www.petges.lu/download/download.html)
SetFileDate 2.0 (http://no-nonsense-software.com/freeware/)


Panagiotis <-QUOTE}

Many Thanks.

Pete

[Long View]

{QUOTE-> Ran a scan with Avira and of course it accesses the files. <-QUOTE}

Thanks

Just downloaded Avira. Fired up Shadow Defender. Installed and ran avira. Found nothing. checked with UD and yes a whole bunch of dlls had been cahnged. Rebooted and back to normal. another reason to avoid av ;D

[norky]

{QUOTE-> Right? So they took the time to incorporate a smart placement button into their program that does nothing?

Smart placement is putting the files in order according to their last access time. The longer ago you used a file the further in the back of the cluster it will go since it doesnt get used much. The more commonly used files go up front for quick access.

Most paid for defragers do that. <-QUOTE}


What I mean is, Smart Placement is just Raxco's word for the optimization feature that a lot of defrag programs have.

[Coolio10]

{QUOTE-> What I mean is, Smart Placement is just Raxco's word for the optimization feature that a lot of defrag programs have. <-QUOTE}
Exactly. Most defraggers just call it what it is. Sorting by name,size,recency etc.

Its just a name that gets the product sold. Lile ultimatedefrag has an auto mode which they don't give a fancy name but it is smarter than perfectdisks smartplacement.

[Someone]

{QUOTE->
PD defragmentation method is great for servers but is almost useless on a common use modern system.
<-QUOTE}
How is it good for servers?

{QUOTE-> On the other hand Puran Defrag and Smart Defrag will speed your drive, since they place 1st the directories, 2nd the last accessed files, 3rd a small free space (1-2gb) which will be used for the temp files and the more frequently modified files, 4th every other file and 5th a large free space chunk. <-QUOTE}
Is there any other defragger which does this (e.g. JkDefrag)?

Thanks

[pandlouk]

{QUOTE-> Many Thanks.

Pete <-QUOTE}
You 're welcome. :)

Panagiotis

[pandlouk]

{QUOTE-> How is it good for servers? <-QUOTE}
For the following reasons:

a) pd2008 offers the most thorough defragmentation. It consolidates the free space better than the other defraggers; and from some tests I made I found that when you have hundreds of thousands of directories and small files it really improoves the seek and loading times.

b) the files on a server do not get modified as often as on a home pc. And PD2008 SMARTPlacement is focused on reducing the future fragmentation. This means that you update your server, you defrag and it will not become heavily fragmented again until your new major update of the files.
{QUOTE-> Is there any other defragger which does this (e.g. JkDefrag)? <-QUOTE}
None that I know.

Ontrack used a similar techinc on it's fixit-utilities/systemsuite but abbandoned it when XP SP1 came out and then sold those products at V-COM. (ontrack's method was even more advanced since it monitored the execution of the applications and put the exes and their related dlls closer together)

ps. If I am not mistaken, I think that Smart Defrag beta was the product that used first this method and Puran defrag adopted it under the name PIOZR (maybe optimized it further?).

Panagiotis

[silver0066]

Does anyone know if Copernic Desktop Search or any of the other Desktop Search programs modify the last access time when they index the files?

Many thanks,

Silver

[Someone]

{QUOTE-> For the following reasons:

a) pd2008 offers the most thorough defragmentation. It consolidates the free space better than the other defraggers; and from some tests I made I found that when you have hundreds of thousands of directories and small files it really improoves the seek and loading times.

b) the files on a server do not get modified as often as on a home pc. And PD2008 SMARTPlacement is focused on reducing the future fragmentation. This means that you update your server, you defrag and it will not become heavily fragmented again until your new major update of the files.

None that I know.

Ontrack used a similar techinc on it's fixit-utilities/systemsuite but abbandoned it when XP SP1 came out and then sold those products at V-COM. (ontrack's method was even more advanced since it monitored the execution of the applications and put the exes and their related dlls closer together)

ps. If I am not mistaken, I think that Smart Defrag beta was the product that used first this method and Puran defrag adopted it under the name PIOZR (maybe optimized it further?).

Panagiotis <-QUOTE}
Thanks for the explanation!

[Kargeras]

{QUOTE-> Now I am trialing O&O Defrag v11. Has almost everything that UD has, plus offline defrag. Much faster than PerfectDisk. <-QUOTE}

Does that "offline defrag", logically useful for C drive, actually work in O&O Defrag v11 ? I'm not saying that it used to work in previous versions for I've tried none but it's certainly not working for me.

Creating a job for Complete / NAME (as they suggest you do it for C drive --- offline defragmentation so it can access locked files) does nothing on reboot (some STEALTH defrag is being done sometimes on reboot but that's regardless of a job being present).

If I choose not to reboot, the Complete / NAME job doesn't really do anything .. it analyses the C drive, it comes to the conclusion that's 9.xx % fragmented, "defragments" it up to a 8.yy % .I can clearly see that it's not defragmenting anything since the cluster look almost identical before/after and the process ends at approx 60%, it never reaches 100% as it does with the other partitions (not via a job but manually).

Can anyone shed light onto this matter ? Should task scheduler be enabled ? If it should why doesn't the program let you know that ?

It's odd to say the least, the job/offline thingie.The non-functionality of it certainly made me waste alot of time trying to properly deframent C drive.

[Arup]

Offline defrag on O&O is always in stealth mode as far as I know and it works out fine.

[silver0066]

{QUOTE-> Does anyone know if Copernic Desktop Search or any of the other Desktop Search programs modify the last access time when they index the files?

Many thanks,

Silver <-QUOTE}If anyone is interested, I just got a reply from Copernic Support that stated that Copernic does not modify the last access time when indexing.

Silver

[Long View]

Thanks silver. I was considering using Copernic but would not if it modified the last accessed time. The other methods used by UD2008 are not bad but last accessed with folder/file name is the best for me.

[Kargeras]

{QUOTE-> Offline defrag on O&O is always in stealth mode as far as I know and it works out fine. <-QUOTE}

That's a logical inconsistency there ... how does it work fine in "STEALTH" mode if I "program" the job to be COMPLETE / Name ?

The two (according to their documentation) are totally diffferent algorithms.

Not to mention that the drive is identically fragmented after the "working fine" STEALTH mode, which takes about 10 to 15 seconds at most, hardly the necessary time for a thorough defragmentation of 9.75% .

[Arup]

{QUOTE-> That's a logical inconsistency there ... how does it work fine in "STEALTH" mode if I "program" the job to be COMPLETE / Name ?

The two (according to their documentation) are totally diffferent algorithms.

Not to mention that the drive is identically fragmented after the "working fine" STEALTH mode, which takes about 10 to 15 seconds at most, hardly the necessary time for a thorough defragmentation of 9.75% . <-QUOTE}


Offline defrag for O&O only follows stealth strategy and nothing else. You can only program for online.

[Espresso]

Ultimate Defrag 2008 almost mangled my drive yesterday. I was trying to consolidate my C: drive by modification date, but it left a couple huge spaces, so I tried it again and this time it left a huge space at the front of the drive. After two more tries with the same alternating result, I noticed that my MFT was in 3800 pieces :o , which slowed down file access to a crawl, so I did an MFT defrag with Paragon defrag. After rebooting, I loaded up the freeware version of Ultimate Defrag which worked perfectly. :thumb:

[Long View]

Have you tried UD2008 since ? my guess is that it would now work perfectly and give better results than the free version. Sounds like you needed to do an offline defrag fist.

[silver0066]

{QUOTE-> Thanks silver. I was considering using Copernic but would not if it modified the last accessed time. The other methods used by UD2008 are not bad but last accessed with folder/file name is the best for me. <-QUOTE}Longview,

I use the same defrag setup. You will like Copernic. I have tried them all and Copernic is the best for me.

Silver

[Espresso]

{QUOTE-> Sounds like you needed to do an offline defrag fist. <-QUOTE}

Why? The MFT was in one piece before. The disk was defragged with MSTDefrag. I see no reason why UD2008 was moving stuff around, leaving giant holes without consolidating as it should have done.

[Long View]

Thanks - Have downloaded - pretty impressive

[Long View]

{QUOTE-> Why? The MFT was in one piece before. The disk was defragged with MSTDefrag. I see no reason why UD2008 was moving stuff around, leaving giant holes without consolidating as it should have done. <-QUOTE}


All the same it would be interesting to see what would happen now if you ran UD 2008. The fact that the free version works suggests that there is no fundamental problem with UD. anyway if this had happened to me I would be just to curious to know why and would re-try UD 2008 to see if the same problems occured again.

[Kargeras]

{QUOTE-> Offline defrag for O&O only follows stealth strategy and nothing else. You can only program for online. <-QUOTE}

Well I find that quite sad, for a software in 2008 to be unable to properly deframent C:\ partition, when it explicitly states that its Complete / NAME algorithm has been designed for just that purpose.

The online alternative doens't really work on C:\ because of the locked files, the clusters are a total mess before & after, namely 9.75% vs 8.90% fragmented.(screenshots if needed)

1.Has anyone here managed to defragment C:\ via O&O ? (no matter the method used).

2.Is there a program capable of doing so offline/online ?

Thank you,

[Arup]

{QUOTE-> Well I find that quite sad, for a software in 2008 to be unable to properly deframent C:\ partition, when it explicitly states that its Complete / NAME algorithm has been designed for just that purpose.

The online alternative doens't really work on C:\ because of the locked files, the clusters are a total mess before & after, namely 9.75% vs 8.90% fragmented.(screenshots if needed)

1.Has anyone here managed to defragment C:\ via O&O ? (no matter the method used).

2.Is there a program capable of doing so offline/online ?

Thank you, <-QUOTE}


As a ex PD2008 user, I have no such issues here using O&O, in fact I leave monitoring and auto defrag setting on and it does a swell job of defragmenting files on the background when and where its needed eliminating the need for scheduled defrag passes. My disk performance is far better with my dual 500gb SATA and now I will check it on my newly acquired 1TB 10K drive. After format and install of OS, I do a offline defrag and then for my system partition I do a complete/name and for the data partitions I do a compete/modified. After that I leave it on auto defrag and this works out fantastic.

If you wish to do a different strategy for offline defrag, suggest you check out PD2008 or DK11.

[RobertSA01]

PerfectDisk has worked very well for me... when I was using Diskeeper, I would be having to defrag more often.

[silver0066]

{QUOTE-> As a ex PD2008 user, I have no such issues here using O&O, in fact I leave monitoring and auto defrag setting on and it does a swell job of defragmenting files on the background when and where its needed eliminating the need for scheduled defrag passes. My disk performance is far better with my dual 500gb SATA and now I will check it on my newly acquired 1TB 10K drive. After format and install of OS, I do a offline defrag and then for my system partition I do a complete/name and for the data partitions I do a compete/modified. After that I leave it on auto defrag and this works out fantastic.

If you wish to do a different strategy for offline defrag, suggest you check out PD2008 or DK11. <-QUOTE}Where did you find a 1TB 10K drive? Who makes it?

[ruinebabine]

{QUOTE-> Where did you find a 1TB 10K drive? Who makes it? <-QUOTE}
...and don't forget to ask the price!

[Pedro]

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/desktops/barracuda_hard_drives/barracuda_7200.11/

[ruinebabine]

{QUOTE-> http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/desktops/barracuda_hard_drives/barracuda_7200.11/ <-QUOTE}
Lovely drive series, but no big capacity 10K that I can see there...

[norky]

{QUOTE-> http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/desktops/barracuda_hard_drives/barracuda_7200.11/ <-QUOTE}


it's called the Barracuda 7200.11 for a reason ;)

[Pedro]

I get it, i didn't notice 10k the first time..
Oh, i forgot ;)

[DasFox]

{QUOTE-> Smartdefrag:
http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html
Make sure you select 'Defrag & Optimize' <-QUOTE}


Well their screenshot is a load of total crap (600% improvement) Yeah right, LOL

http://img90.imageshack.us/my.php?image=83169278da0.jpg

Oh and --> Designed for Windows Vista, XP, 2000. and Windows 7

Windows 7 isn't even out yet, you can't design something for it, more propaganda here...

[Arup]

{QUOTE-> it's called the Barracuda 7200.11 for a reason ;) <-QUOTE}



I stand corrected, my 320GB WD Velocitiraptors are 10K, the 1TB Samsung are 7200rpm http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/productmodel.do?type=61&subtype=63&model_cd=249#

[DasFox]

With UD2008 is it best to Respect the layout.ini, or not? I thought if you're going to start picking what you want placed at the outer edges then I don't see the point in this, but I guess if you weren't selecting files for High performance then I guess I understand the point of respecting it...

Any thoughts here?

THANKS

P.S. Sorry if I'm going off topic here... :(

[freakish]

I prefer PerfectDisk. PerfectDisk has the abiltiy to run an automatic defrag everytime your computer is either in screen saver mode or idle.

The screensaver/idle mode defrag is very convenient. I rarely do manual defrags anymore.

It's defragging method is also very efficient (More info here (http://www.raxco.com/products/perfectdisk2k/perfectdisk2k_features_consumer.cfm)).

If what you want is a free, open source defragger, you might want to try JkDefrag (http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/)

[Arup]

{QUOTE-> I prefer PerfectDisk. PerfectDisk has the abiltiy to run an automatic defrag everytime your computer is either in screen saver mode or idle.

The screensaver/idle mode defrag is very convenient. I rarely do manual defrags anymore.

It's defragging method is also very efficient (More info here (http://www.raxco.com/products/perfectdisk2k/perfectdisk2k_features_consumer.cfm)).

If what you want is a free, open source defragger, you might want to try JkDefrag (http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/) <-QUOTE}


If you like that, check out O&O, it not only does screensaver mode but has a auto monitoring and defrag, its totally set it and forget, when you add new large fragmented file it automatically defragments in the background. Its set it and forget and you never need to defrag again.

[DasFox]

{QUOTE-> atm using Puran Defrag, really love it, the "Fill Gaps" in the Automatic Boot Time Defragmentation" can take awhile sometimes, although one can easely press ESC to skip if your in a hurry

great stuff :) <-QUOTE}

Those Puran options for doing a Defrag are pure foolishness.

Defragging a drive is HARD on it and it's completely and utterly foolish, and certainly not needed every 24 hours, on every startup, or every week. :thumbd:

Possbily someone doing something like HEAVY MEDIA work might need to defrag a drive once a week, but the average computer user isn't going to need to defrag a drive for MONTHS!

Also I have said this before, and it's a FACT so PLEASE go out and do some RESEARCH the info is out there. Performance gains on defraggers is minimal at best, we are only talking milliseconds to a very small few seconds if best, and small percentages, not major leaps and bounds.

I said this before on an earlier post, as a working PC Tech I have worked on consumer PCs that never had a DEFRAG in the life of the PC, that is 3-5 years without one, and the performance of the PC was just fine, and after doing a defrag the differences were slight, if at all noticeable.

Windows DK is just fine, there is nothing wrong with it. All the hoopla about Defraggers is just that, nice eye candy and nothing more. I don't know why, but Defraggers seemed to have placed the emphasis on the WORD "PERFORMANCE" and everyone who doesn't know better is sucking it up, thinking this is where to gain performance from, and it's not, it's just one very small place to gain some is all.

People who are going on all about this type of a discussion need to go out and STUDY and learn about hard drives and file systems and how things work in the computer along with other hardware components to learn some FACTS and TRUTHS here, because people who fall into this type of trap are just computer newbies who don't really know facts.

Sure it helps to keep files defragged, regularly used files out on the outer edge of the platter, etc... BUT to think this is the END all to performance and to even think that you're really going to get better performance over another, well that's the POINT I'm trying to make. You are seeing better performance, mainly because one app is more crap then the other is all.

You want to gain real performance? Do you know HOW to use NTFS without having it fragment much in the first place, and how to get things arranged onto the drive properly from the get go on a fresh install? If not then this is what you should be learning, not putting the cart before the horse trying to fix problems with apps that are really useless...

Oh and if I can boast a little, I have used 8 Generations of Maxtor drives for the past 10 years on all my boxes and I have never had a problem once, ever in 10 years. Now I don't know about you, but 10 years with a PERFECT record of performance, that is what I call one hell of a record just to PROVE to you the BS about all the defrag apps out there, because I've never used them or needed them, or even seen much of any improvements with them when I did try them.

Don't take this wrong what I'm saying here, I'm just telling you from a professional perspective, and I do know what I'm doing as computer tech, learn how to properly use a drive, partion, install and give the occassional defrag with DK in Windows and you'll be just fine for years to come... :)

You know the analogy of defraggers and Registry cleaners floating all over the internet that everyone seems to be falling for that is not computer experienced? That both of these programs are needed, and improve system performance.

In laymen's terms, HOGWASH, Snake Oil salesmen...

PEACE

[Arup]

8 year old IBM SCSI, one 10K and one 15K still running here. HDD life is also dependant on internal case temp and power supply.

System file offline defrag makes a difference in load time of OS as well as program load times which depend on system files.

[Phant0m]

While I agree that frequently defragging the hard drive is hard on it, .. I surely wouldn't go as far as to saying it's utterly pointless. Once a month(- to 2 months) for on-demand de-fragmenting does help and seen first hand the noticeable performance boots. And since you so eagerly wanting to point out that you an PC tech, I also have something to share ... I'm an PC tech also and I've been faced with large number of computers in my line of work, and running the on-demand de-fragmenter does normally show noticeable performance boosts. Why I say normally because a customer could have de-fragmented the hard-drive (manually or by scheduled Windows defragmentation) short time before bringing it in, or they have third-party defragmenter running and doing it's thing in the background automatically.

I suggest you take your own advise and research 'Defragmenting' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmenting.


.. Windows DK is fine but certainly not the best, there's better.


Knocking Registry cleaners now? if you truly believe registry cleaners don't boost system performance under many conditions, then you certainly aren't as knowledgeable as let on to be...

[Nick Rhodes]

I've gotta say my experiences under NORMAL OFFICE USE match that of DasFox, as I outlined before I measured the performance loss and it was unmeasurable as it was below the variance of the results in one months use.

Conversely I have also had usage patterns that cause massive fragmentation that causes noticable drop in file access performance (P2P downloading and creating large files slowly), so I am aware that there are less common cases where defragmentation is needed.

Phant0m, how/why do you think cleaning the registry (note not fixing) will boost performance ?

[Phant0m]

Yea I can see it being the case under normal office use, but it doesn't really seem DasFox was in reference specifically to 'normal office use' computers.

As for registry cleaners, the average home user installs and uninstalls software, and as time passes it can lead to some terrible performance degrades. Removing, repairing and optimizing unnecessary or corrupt registry entries recovers system performance, but I'm sure you already aware of this. ;)

[Long View]

Defrag - using UD2008 - once the archive/performance has been set up there is relatively little movement - we are talking seconds to one or two minutes - so defraging need not be hard on the drives

Reg cleaners/optimisers. On all the newly set up pcs I have noticed that reboot times are 8 to 10 seconds quicker after running windows care v2 and that one or two of my programs open a second or two more quickly. Nothing earth shattering but measurable all the same.

[SKA]

{QUOTE->
You want to gain real performance? Do you know HOW to use NTFS without having it fragment much in the first place, and how to get things arranged onto the drive properly from the get go on a fresh install? If not then this is what you should be learning...
<-QUOTE}
--
Dasfox

Please do post links/reference sites on NTFS/disk optimising tips which you refer to above ?

I really appreciate your guidance/links - thanks !

SKA

[Phant0m]

Start here - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc767961.aspx

{QUOTE-> --
Dasfox

Please do post links/reference sites on NTFS/disk optimising tips which you refer to above ?

I really appreciate your guidance/links - thanks !

SKA <-QUOTE}

[DasFox]

{QUOTE-> While I agree that frequently defragging the hard drive is hard on it, .. I surely wouldn't go as far as to saying it's utterly pointless. Once a month(- to 2 months) for on-demand de-fragmenting does help and seen first hand the noticeable performance boots. And since you so eagerly wanting to point out that you an PC tech, I also have something to share ... I'm an PC tech also and I've been faced with large number of computers in my line of work, and running the on-demand de-fragmenter does normally show noticeable performance boosts. Why I say normally because a customer could have de-fragmented the hard-drive (manually or by scheduled Windows defragmentation) short time before bringing it in, or they have third-party defragmenter running and doing it's thing in the background automatically.

I suggest you take your own advise and research 'Defragmenting' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmenting.


.. Windows DK is fine but certainly not the best, there's better.


Knocking Registry cleaners now? if you truly believe registry cleaners don't boost system performance under many conditions, then you certainly aren't as knowledgeable as let on to be... <-QUOTE}

Go back and read what I said, because you are twisting my words. No one said anything about utterly pointless in the context you are suggesting. Read what I meant first before commenting so you get the facts straight about what I was saying, then come back and talk, not rant...

On a side note for reg cleaners I've used JV16 since the day JV16 was born. In that period of time with every version they ever put out I have never, ever seen any performance gains with it, so please don't call me not knowledgeable, because I've used reg tools for 10 years in the past on a daily basis to know better, along with a view others that never did anything too.

Go to Microsoft and ask them why they didn't put a registry cleaner in Windows by default if it's so important?

Consider what you are saying here, Microsoft makes a Registry that can drag a system down, but doesn't put in a tool to deal with this?

Here's the garbage that reg cleaners tout to people:


After a long period, after installing and uninstalling a lot number of applications, your Windows registry will contain a large number of obsolete entries. These will significantly increase the registry size and thus will slowdown your computer, because Windows will need more time to load, search, and read data from registry.


This information is false advertisement, a huge registry no matter if they are legitimate or illlegitimate entries will not slow down the computer.

Now you said Reg Cleaners, if you mean Reg Defrag, well that's a bit of a different scenario, and compacting a regsitry can improve performance a little.

[DasFox]

{QUOTE-> --
Dasfox

Please do post links/reference sites on NTFS/disk optimising tips which you refer to above ?

I really appreciate your guidance/links - thanks !

SKA <-QUOTE}

If I come across some...

[Pedro]

Read it again. He's asking for the links.

[DasFox]

{QUOTE-> Read it again. He's asking for the links. <-QUOTE}

Sorry I don't keep bookmarks for everything I deal with...

If I come across something I can think of I'll pass it this way...

[Pedro]

Don't look at me, i'm not asking anything. But implying he's drunk while misinterpreting him, well..

[DasFox]

{QUOTE-> Don't look at me, i'm not asking anything. But implying he's drunk while misinterpreting him, well.. <-QUOTE}

Yep my bad, LOL... I saw 'Please do' thinking in my mind, 'Please don't' :blink:

Ok got it all straight, if I find something, but no guarantees...

[Kargeras]

{QUOTE-> As a ex PD2008 user, I have no such issues here using O&O, in fact I leave monitoring and auto defrag setting on and it does a swell job of defragmenting files on the background when and where its needed eliminating the need for scheduled defrag passes. My disk performance is far better with my dual 500gb SATA and now I will check it on my newly acquired 1TB 10K drive. After format and install of OS, I do a offline defrag and then for my system partition I do a complete/name and for the data partitions I do a compete/modified. After that I leave it on auto defrag and this works out fantastic.

If you wish to do a different strategy for offline defrag, suggest you check out PD2008 or DK11. <-QUOTE}

As far as I understand your C:\ defrag works just fine since you choose to install O&O immediately after your OS installation, and then keep monitoring , offline defraging and so on..

Makes sense to me but what happens if one chooses to install O&O one year after the OS installation, does the Complete/Name(offline) work just as fine ? I reckon not ...

Would you be so kind to tell me what's your C:\ fragmentation now (%) and make a screenshot of the program with Cluster tab on focus ?

Thank you,

K

[Arup]

{QUOTE-> As far as I understand your C:\ defrag works just fine since you choose to install O&O immediately after your OS installation, and then keep monitoring , offline defraging and so on..

Makes sense to me but what happens if one chooses to install O&O one year after the OS installation, does the Complete/Name(offline) work just as fine ? I reckon not ...

Would you be so kind to tell me what's your C:\ fragmentation now (%) and make a screenshot of the program with Cluster tab on focus ?

Thank you,

K <-QUOTE}

I initially tried O&O after removing PD 2008 and complete/name and complete/modified worked fine as well.

Here is a print screen of my O&O.

[DasFox]

{QUOTE-> Not IMO.
Defraggers are nice little toys with little colorful squares dancing around your screen and all that eye-candy stuff, but here is what I find really interesting about them. Resource hogging and runnung unnecessary services aside, I had a little test of my own recently with a couple of these beasts and I will just give an example - I have 3 partitions, system C, data D & E on a single HDD on this PC. Uncompressed, unshadowed, just the plain old NTFS. The partitions were never defragged in a life of HD (1,5 years). Here's the "Fragmentation Analysis" results from a couple of popular defraggers (latest versions of course) - C, D and E respectively -
SmartDefrag - 55%, 42%, 44%
PerfectDisk - 4%, 5.5%, 7%
Diskeeper - 32%, 14%, 78%Now, WTF was that? I would very much like to rationalize the use of defraggers on my systems, but with such results it is very hard to find a reason. As it is (and always was) no defragger for me, thank you... <-QUOTE}


I'm seeing an analysis difference quite large with UD2008 compared against 4 other apps:

O&O says I'm 1.64% fragmented
Puran says I'm 2.0% fragmented
SmartDefrag says I'm 0.72% fragmented
UD2008 says I'm 14.91% fragmented
Windows DK says I'm 1% file fragmented

UD2008 always shows a 13%-15% range even after running it, clearly something looks wrong here with it's results.

Here's some screenshots:

http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=47406275xq8.jpg
http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=99468625rc6.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=29023101dd3.jpg
http://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?image=90852531ll2.jpg
http://img225.imageshack.us/my.php?image=29280326xu4.jpg

I sent disktrix an email, I'd like to hear what they have to say. The program seems to be in question over it's accuracy with it's analysis.

[Arup]

Anything over 10% should make some impact on the disk I/O so I would doubt its accuracy as well.

[jdd58]

After playing around with the free version of UD, I assumed the difference in the defrag reports is that UD reports on all the files. That is, even the locked files that are not able to be defragmented while the other programs do not.

[DasFox]

{QUOTE-> After playing around with the free version of UD, I assumed the difference in the defrag reports is that UD reports on all the files. That is, even the locked files that are not able to be defragmented while the other programs do not. <-QUOTE}

There you go, possibly a reason...

Well SmartDefrag is garbage, here is what it did on a defrag and optimize:

http://img90.imageshack.us/my.php?image=98968068uh7.jpg

What is wrong with that picture?

If you know, then you know not to use this product, and all I can say is these people don't even understand hard drive A+ basic computing... :thumbd:

[freakish]

{QUOTE->
PerfectDisk: Seems the best of the bunch yet when i run the smart placement defragment it gives up after 10 mins on both of my computers. Maybe a bug in the build? Or it cannot handle big files at all?.
<-QUOTE}

Try updating to the latest build/version first. If the problem still persists, I recommend you contact Raxco technical support: http://www.raxco.com/support/ .

I use PerfectDisk 2008 and I have never encountered this problem. I regularly download files >2GB thru torrent and PerfectDisk could handle them just fine.

{QUOTE->
the stealthpatrol in perfectdisk would never run after leaving my computer inactive for hours
<-QUOTE}
This could be because of another running background program. StealthPatrol will run only if the computer is "idle", meaning no other background program is running and using up processor resources. If you could not find and/or disable this background program, then I recommend you use PerfectDisk's screensaver mode instead (you could configure PerfectDisk 2008 to use both).

[Espresso]

{QUOTE-> All the same it would be interesting to see what would happen now if you ran UD 2008. The fact that the free version works suggests that there is no fundamental problem with UD. anyway if this had happened to me I would be just to curious to know why and would re-try UD 2008 to see if the same problems occured again. <-QUOTE}

I just ran it again tonight and the same thing happened. I only ran it twice this time so my MFT didn't get fragmented like the last time. The free version worked again, as it should. Has anyone else ever had a problem with Recency (Last Modified) defrags? ???

[Long View]

Looking at your original post you say you had big gaps. Do you have both respect high performance and respect archive checked ?

[silver0066]

{QUOTE-> I'm seeing an analysis difference quite large with UD2008 compared against 4 other apps:

O&O says I'm 1.64% fragmented
Puran says I'm 2.0% fragmented
SmartDefrag says I'm 0.72% fragmented
UD2008 says I'm 14.91% fragmented
Windows DK says I'm 1% file fragmented

UD2008 always shows a 13%-15% range even after running it, clearly something looks wrong here with it's results.

Here's some screenshots:

http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=47406275xq8.jpg
http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=99468625rc6.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=29023101dd3.jpg
http://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?image=90852531ll2.jpg
http://img225.imageshack.us/my.php?image=29280326xu4.jpg

I sent disktrix an email, I'd like to hear what they have to say. The program seems to be in question over it's accuracy with it's analysis. <-QUOTE}DasFox,

Please let us know if you hear anything back from DiskTrix. They have been very silent for the last several months. They were supposed to have released an update with a boot time defrag feature months ago.

Many thanks,

Silver

[DasFox]

{QUOTE-> DasFox,

Please let us know if you hear anything back from DiskTrix. They have been very silent for the last several months. They were supposed to have released an update with a boot time defrag feature months ago.

Many thanks,

Silver <-QUOTE}

Ok no problem, people also need to be aware of that SmartDefrag and take note of that screenshot I posted above for it, total junk software...

Actually slowed my system down on bootup 10 seconds. Well I must admit, it's the first time I've seen a defrag app make a change, a change for the worst and slowing a system down.

Total rubbish there 600% claim of speedup....

As they say in the UK, UTTER BOLLOCKS!

[Espresso]

{QUOTE-> Looking at your original post you say you had big gaps. Do you have both respect high performance and respect archive checked ? <-QUOTE}

In the previous incident I had archive checked (only a few hundred MB of files) but no high performance. This time I had both unchecked.

[Long View]

{QUOTE-> In the previous incident I had archive checked (only a few hundred MB of files) but no high performance. This time I had both unchecked. <-QUOTE}


My understaning is that both should be checked - that is if you want the important stuff to go to the outer edge and the unimportant to go to the centre to be archived. Then you set performance at say 30 days and archive at 31 days and pick an option like file /folder.

[Espresso]

You can check both if you need both. It's irrelevant in this case since I just want to consolidate by modifed date - something UD2008 does poorly, UDFree does adequately, and O&O Defrag does perfectly.

[Long View]

Interesting. I did it your way and it worked just fine. Sorry have no idea why modified date is not working for you as it does for me.

[MerleOne]

{QUOTE-> Puran just finished and still indicates 7% fragmentation. I'll try again without PIOZR. <-QUOTE}
Also try boot time defrag, in some cases it helps defrag even more, including metafiles such as $MFT (AFAIK).

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> Ok no problem, people also need to be aware of that SmartDefrag and take note of that screenshot I posted above for it, total junk software...

Actually slowed my system down on bootup 10 seconds. Well I must admit, it's the first time I've seen a defrag app make a change, a change for the worst and slowing a system down.

Total rubbish there 600% claim of speedup....

As they say in the UK, UTTER BOLLOCKS! <-QUOTE}

Hi Dasfox

I am confused. Smartdefrag is a tradename of Perfect Disk, and the screen shot you posted is that of UD. If you are saying that is a shot of UD after defrag then it would be bad, but my experience is if you set UD up properly it works fine. Now admittedly I haven't tried all the scenario's but consolidate with or without archive works well for me.

Pete

[rpsgc]

{QUOTE-> Hi Dasfox

I am confused. Smartdefrag is a tradename of Perfect Disk, and the screen shot you posted is that of UD. If you are saying that is a shot of UD after defrag then it would be bad, but my experience is if you set UD up properly it works fine. Now admittedly I haven't tried all the scenario's but consolidate with or without archive works well for me.

Pete <-QUOTE}

Smartdefrag... as in IObit SmartDefrag, the free defrag software. And that is a screenshot of his C partition analyzed by UD after being defragmented by SmartDefrag.

[silver0066]

{QUOTE-> You can check both if you need both. It's irrelevant in this case since I just want to consolidate by modifed date - something UD2008 does poorly, UDFree does adequately, and O&O Defrag does perfectly. <-QUOTE}Yes, but it puts it at the slowest part of the disk instead of the outer edges.

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> Smartdefrag... as in IObit SmartDefrag, the free defrag software. And that is a screenshot of his C partition analyzed by UD after being defragmented by SmartDefrag. <-QUOTE}

So he's saying SmartDefrag is the bad software? That makes sense, but that's not the way I read it. Thanks for clarification.

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> Smartdefrag... as in IObit SmartDefrag, the free defrag software. And that is a screenshot of his C partition analyzed by UD after being defragmented by SmartDefrag. <-QUOTE}The Legend HERE (http://img90.imageshack.us/my.php?image=98968068uh7.jpg) shows "Fragmented" as being in red, whereas I see NO red blocks. Therefore, why does UD say it is 13.38% fragmented when it appears to be zero fragmented? ???

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> The Legend HERE (http://img90.imageshack.us/my.php?image=98968068uh7.jpg) shows "Fragmented" as being in red, whereas I see NO red blocks. Therefore, why does UD say it is 13.38% fragmented when it appears to be zero fragmented? ??? <-QUOTE}

That may relate to the coloring scheme. If a given block is 10% occupied by a fragmented file, and the rest of the block has contiguous files it will probably have the color of the contiguous files. Probably is a function of how many files are in a given block.

Pete

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> That may relate to the coloring scheme. If a given block is 10% occupied by a fragmented file, and the rest of the block has contiguous files it will probably have the color of the contiguous files. Probably is a function of how many files are in a given block.

Pete <-QUOTE}Yes, but DasFox's post HERE (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1332830&postcount=159) seems to indicate he places no credence in UD's recurrently high fragmentation data. So why is DasFox using a UD image to try & prove whatever point it is that he is trying to make? Reductio ad absurdem, IMO :dry:

[rpsgc]

{QUOTE-> The Legend HERE (http://img90.imageshack.us/my.php?image=98968068uh7.jpg) shows "Fragmented" as being in red, whereas I see NO red blocks. Therefore, why does UD say it is 13.38% fragmented when it appears to be zero fragmented? ??? <-QUOTE}

He's probably speaking of the multiple data blocks on the outer most part of the disk. They were not moved to the centre as the rest?

[davidlynch]

Any conclusions on this topic?

Wouldn't it be better with a pool on the first post?

I'm between UD or Defraggler. App should have the smallest possible footprint (system resources usage), no services/autostarts, do the best possible job with minimum or no risk at all.

DK and PD are out of question: software is too big for what it does. Just use them and run Sysinternals Process Monitor. It's incredible how much cpu time PD takes, reading registry values frequently.

[SourMilk]

I use Ultimate Defrag for program placement and Perfect Disk v8 for defrag. This combination seems to work for me.
SourMilk out

[layman]

{QUOTE-> I have been trying to look for a defragger that "works" and has good features. <-QUOTE}

Don't see a single mention of Vopt [vee-opt] here. Perhaps that's because it's been around a long time and people presume it hasn't kept pace with the times. If I had to choose just one defragger, it'd be Vopt.

[RAD]

I am a happy PD2008 owner, but I have used Paragon Total Defrag in the past, and had very good luck with it.

I downloaded Paragon's new free version of Partition Manager Express, and they sent me a discount code after registration.

I need another defragger fo another computer, so I think I will give Total Defrag 2009 a try again with the 20% off discount code they sent me.

Total Defrag has the offline defrag of pagefile, MFT, etc. It always worked flawlessly for me under Vista when it was Total Defrag 2007.

[bellgamin]

Based on comments in this thread, I am now trialing Puran. So far I am VERY favorably impressed! Fast. Stable. Easy to use & understand. Nice & compact. :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

[Long View]

As a happy UD2008 user I think that anyone wanting to try the program should give it time to work. For C: I have performance set to 30 days and archive set to 31 days with various file types always in performance or always in archive.
D: is set to 90 days performance and 91 days archive again with some file types set to performance or archive.

All this means that a minimum of 30 days is required to really see the full benefits. I wonder if some who haven't gotten on with this program have given it enough time, tried all the options etc ? For my money file placement is far more important than the actual defrag method. A program which doesn't have file placement is not good enough as far as I'm concerned.

[GES/POR]

{QUOTE-> Based on comments in this thread, I am now trialing Puran. So far I am VERY favorably impressed! Fast. Stable. Easy to use & understand. Nice & compact. :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: <-QUOTE}

Same here, am glad your enjoying it :thumb:

[RAD]

Well, I downloaded Paragon Total Defrag 2009.
Even though I had good luck with TD2007 I was thoroughly disappointed with TD2009. For one thing, the "demo" doesn't actually defrag your drive....it just goes through the motions as if it were going to defrag...but doesn't do anything. Previously I know that the demo of TD2007 actually defragged the drive. I used it for a solid month.
So I even tried it twice because I thought I must have done something wrong!!! TWO WASTED HOURS !

The interface was buggy, and the paragon website was also buggy....I was actually rying to BUY it and the website wouldn't let me unless I downloaded the "trial" first. So, they just lost a customer.
Back to PD2008.

[bellgamin]

I sent a support request to Puran last Friday, asking them if it is safe to defragment an image file of my system disk. Thus far I have received no reply or acknowledgement from the Puran folks.

Has anyone had experience in getting tech support from Puran?

[Osaban]

{QUOTE-> Based on comments in this thread, I am now trialing Puran. So far I am VERY favorably impressed! Fast. Stable. Easy to use & understand. Nice & compact. :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: <-QUOTE}

Based on your post I've just downloaded the trial, I agree there is a definite improvement from the others i tested. Specifically I'm still trialling ShadowDefender which normally starts with a virtual volume of 1.40 GB (it seems to be considered normal by other users). After defragmenting with Puran, ShadowDefender starts with a virtual volume of 62 MB! Now this, I find remarkable in terms of efficiency. I believe Peter2150 got the same results using Ultimate Defrag (Although it didn't work for me).

[Zamboni]

{QUOTE-> I sent a support request to Puran last Friday, asking them if it is safe to defragment an image file of my system disk. Thus far I have received no reply or acknowledgement from the Puran folks.

Has anyone had experience in getting tech support from Puran? <-QUOTE}

Bellgamin,

I have contacted them 3 times regarding license and installation questions. Each time they replied in less than an hour. The initial contact was through the support form on their website. Subsequent communications were sent directly to the "support@puransoftware.com" address. I have been pleasantly surprised with the support that they have provided.

Each contact with them has occurred between 08:00 hours and 16:00 hours in the central time zone of the United States.

Zamboni

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> I sent a support request to Puran last Friday, asking them if it is safe to defragment an image file of my system disk. Thus far I have received no reply or acknowledgement from the Puran folks.

Has anyone had experience in getting tech support from Puran? <-QUOTE}

I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be safe. Just not sure it's worth the effort. Takes a lot of time, and if I am not mistaken if they are compressed you will still end up with what looks like a fragmented file.(Not positive about this)

Pete

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be safe. Just not sure it's worth the effort. Takes a lot of time, and if I am not mistaken if they are compressed you will still end up with what looks like a fragmented file.(Not positive about this)

Pete <-QUOTE}Hola Pete-sensei -- I only asked that question so as to test their responsiveness to a request for support. So far I have sent them two requests plus one follow-up, but they have not responded to any of them. Not even a bot reply. Nothing.

I find it inexplicable that they don't even have an automated response bot, muchless not giving a live answer to a pre-sales request for info. Something wrong there. Very disappointing since their program seems quite good.

I will wait a couple more days and then I will begin warning folks away from them at the various 20+ forums I visit regularly.

[Peter2150]

Well I wanted to see if Ultimate Defrag's folks were alive, so I did the same thing. Got a bot response, but that's it. Doesn't bode all that well all the current version of UD is working fine for me.

Pete

[Osaban]

{QUOTE-> I only asked that question so as to test their responsiveness to a request for support. So far I have sent them two requests plus one follow-up, but they have not responded to any of them. Not even a bot reply. Nothing.

I find it inexplicable that they don't even have an automated response bot, muchless not giving a live answer to a pre-sales request for info. Something wrong there. Very disappointing since their program seems quite good.

I will wait a couple more days and then I will begin warning folks away from them at the various 20+ forums I visit regularly. <-QUOTE}

It is strange they haven't answered your queries, they are quite young (August 2007, India), and their website is actually asking for suggestions towards improving their product.

It looks like a 2 men company, and they might not know the answer to your question which in all fairness could be addressed to any company. It seems to me a bit harsh from your part to dismiss them solely on an e-mail issue, and being happy with their product.

Storagecraft will often ignore your e-mails if they are not related to registered products, that doesn't make them a company to avoid.

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> It is strange they haven't answered your queries, they are quite young (August 2007, India) <-QUOTE}How did you look them up? I tried doing so, using Domain Dossier (http://centralops.net/co/DomainDossier.aspx) but got no info.

{QUOTE-> It seems to me a bit harsh from your part to dismiss them solely on an e-mail issue, and being happy with their product. <-QUOTE} Yes... I might be shooting myself in the foot, because I really like their defragger. But still, you would think they would have at least an auto-answer bot.

Would someone else try contacting them? Maybe they just don't like the way I spell my name. :doubt:

[Osaban]

{QUOTE-> How did you look them up? <-QUOTE}

http://www.puransoftware.com/aboutus.html

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> http://www.puransoftware.com/aboutus.html <-QUOTE}Such a logical method that it never occurred to me. Thanks.

Good news! I heard from the Puran folks. Their reply was very informative & quite clear. I shall become a paying customer soon.

[Osaban]

{QUOTE-> I sent a support request to Puran last Friday, asking them if it is safe to defragment an image file of my system disk. <-QUOTE}

How about sharing their informative reply? I've also never done it as a precaution.

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> How about sharing their informative reply? I've also never done it as a precaution. <-QUOTE}Wilders doesn't permit direct quotation of personal messages. Very briefly, the *substance* of their reply was that it is safe to use Puran to defrag ANY file whose sector-by-sector physical location on the hard drive is not important.

[Osaban]

{QUOTE-> Wilders doesn't permit direct quotation of personal messages. Very briefly, the *substance* of their reply was that it is safe to use Puran to defrag ANY file whose sector-by-sector physical location on the hard drive is not important. <-QUOTE}

Thanks, I'm aware that direct quotations aren't allowed, as I was sure that your interpretation would probably be more than adequate.

[Paranoid2000]

I did give Puran a try recently too. Compared to PerfectDisk 2008, it was a breath of fresh air in terms of installation size and resource usage (4.64MB disk/2.93KB registry space compared to PD's 30.28MB disk/95.55KB registry usage) and memory usage was far lower (can't remember exact details now, but it did have only one process compared to PD's 3 or 4). It was significantly faster at completing a defrag also.

However, just like PerfectDisk, it didn't make any noticeable difference compared to Windows' own defragger, its optimisation feature (PIOZR) seems utterly useless - no files were moved away from the first (slower) section of disk and, like too many other developers, Puran seems to think that a shiny, licky, non-standard user interface is the way to go.

One particular failing of Puran is its ability to move large files - when I used it on a partition containing just a couple of 50+GB files (image backups) it took over 2 hours to move one file. To judge from the disk noise (and low memory usage) it was moving it one sector at a time which would have been highly inefficient. When gigabytes of RAM are available, it should use them to read large files in bigger chunks.

On UI grounds alone, I'd fail Puran. I despise non-standard interfaces since they invariably result in the program not working with theming software like WindowBlinds (which, in its pre-DRM days, was a perfectly good choice for providing all the UI candy most people could want). However the lack of noticeable performance benefits is probably a greater issue for most users.

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> I did give Puran a try recently too . . . <-QUOTE}Good comments, even though you have given me a quesy feeling about Puran -- which I was thinking of buying. Also, I rather liked Puran's UI -- non-standard stuff helps me to feel "unique" (just like everybody else).

So... do you have an alternative to Puran which posses Puran's positives (at least most of them) and which lacks Puran's negatives (at least most of them)?

[Paranoid2000]

{QUOTE-> So... do you have an alternative to Puran which posses Puran's positives (at least most of them) and which lacks Puran's negatives (at least most of them)? <-QUOTE}At the moment I can't see any reason to use anything other than Windows' own defrag utility. The only ways third-party software can improve on this is by (a) defragging data it can't (which either tends to be one-off tasks like the page/hibernation files or readily-cached data like MFTs) or (b) improving file placement.

Now the more I think about (b), the harder it seems to achieve in practice. Moving files to the fastest (outer) section of disk isn't hard but selecting files that benefit most (larger files to minimise seek time overheads, frequently accessed files to maximise read time savings) is trickier. Some tactics like Puran's gap filling may actually increase fragmentation for files regularly written to (log files being the best example) as such files would benefit more from having empty sections left after them. NTFS did initially do this, by providing "guard space" after every file in order to reduce subsequent fragmentation, but when disks reached 80-90% capacity, the only free space left was guard space causing fragmentation to skyrocket.

On top of this, you have the impact of security software (anti-virus scanners in particular) which complicate matters by scanning (and hence needing to read) their database every time a file is accessed and hard disks themselves which can dynamically re-assign sectors if one turns faulty - meaning that what a defragmentation utility thinks is adjacent data may well be at a different location on disk.

So third party defragmentation utilities are going to have a hard time justifying themselves and the increasing use of flash drives (where data location is of almost no consequence and highly variable due to such drives' write-levelling algorithms) is likely to be their death knell.

Now I don't think Puran is bad as such (certainly it performs better than PerfectDisk and most of the other high-profile utilities) but I could not, from my trial, see any great justification for continuing to use it. That doesn't mean that others can't draw a different conclusion.

I did rather like its block display though - if Puran turned that into a Breakout style game they'd be onto a winner. :D

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> ...cheap n theres a anniversary discount for it right now. <-QUOTE}Where can I find the discount info?

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> On the other hand Puran Defrag... will speed your drive, since they place 1st the directories, 2nd the last accessed files, 3rd a small free space (1-2gb) which will be used for the temp files and the more frequently modified files, 4th every other file and 5th a large free space chunk. <-QUOTE}How do you know this? (Just curious)

More to the point, however -- On Puran's website I cannot find any statement whereat they say that they place "last accessed files" 2nd.

Instead. on their web page HERE (http://www.puransoftware.com/Puran-Defrag.html), under the blurb for PIOZR, they say...

{QUOTE-> This is what PIOZR do, it places frequently used files in order at faster disk areas and hence boost the overall system speed. <-QUOTE}"Frequently used files" (Puran's statement) is NOT the same as "last accessed files" (your statement), is it?

Further, I am puzzled as to HOW Puran would determine frequency of file use unless it monitors usage, as you said that Ontrack used to do. I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

[GES/POR]

{QUOTE-> Where can I find the discount info? <-QUOTE}

Here: http://www.puransoftware.com/Puran-Defrag-Order.html

Normal price = 25
Current price = 20

[Peter2150]

I gave Puran a whirl to compare it's file placement scheme compared to UD, and couldn't tell it did anything whereas with UD I do. Only concern with UD is the same as with all other small shops.

Can I see any difference. Only one and that is with a game that has many many small files it goes thru. It is less jerky having them all near the edge.

Pete

[GES/POR]

Here's what Puran support had to say:

{QUOTE-> However, just like PerfectDisk, it didn't make any noticeable difference compared to Windows' own defragger, its optimisation feature (PIOZR) seems utterly useless - no files were moved away from the first (slower) section of disk and, like too many other developers, Puran seems to think that a shiny, licky, non-standard user interface is the way to go. <-QUOTE}

{QUOTE-> Puran Defrag does move frequently used files to faster area. Please try it for yourself before believing anyone even Puran Software. <-QUOTE}

{QUOTE-> One particular failing of Puran is its ability to move large files - when I used it on a partition containing just a couple of 50+GB files (image backups) it took over 2 hours to move one file. To judge from the disk noise (and low memory usage) it was moving it one sector at a time which would have been highly inefficient. When gigabytes of RAM are available, it should use them to read large files in bigger chunks. <-QUOTE}

{QUOTE-> I think moving 50+ GB files in 2 hours is quite justified and it is more dependent on one's hard disk speed. Here's a simple calculation -

Try copying 1 GB file, calculate the time, it should be around 2 min on average computer. Now simply calculate 50 * 2 = 100 min = 1 hr 40 min.

It is not a bug at all. <-QUOTE}

{QUOTE-> On UI grounds alone, I'd fail Puran. I despise non-standard interfaces since they invariably result in the program not working with theming software like WindowBlinds (which, in its pre-DRM days, was a perfectly good choice for providing all the UI candy most people could want). However the lack of noticeable performance benefits is probably a greater issue for most users. <-QUOTE}

{QUOTE-> Again UI is something personel, many people have congratulated Puran Defrag for providing such a simple GUI and many only bought because GUI was the simplest so not much comments on this. For performance gains, again check it for yourself before believing anyone else even Puran Software :) <-QUOTE}

[Paranoid2000]

{QUOTE-> Here's what Puran support had to say: <-QUOTE}As a small point of courtesy, if Puran wish to respond to issues raised here they should do so themselves - not via a third party. Copying replies on their behalf will always raise the issue of authenticity, regardless of intention and it is clear from those replies that they have not read my comments in full (i.e. I most certainly did trial Puran for 30 days). As such, please advise them to post directly if they wish to participate further.

To sum up the responses quickly though: Disk space is allocated from the centre outwards - this means that the last section of disk is the fastest, not the first. Defragmentation utilities that move data to the beginning of the disk therefore slow things down rather than speed them up (or they would, if Windows itself didn't default to using the starting tracks). So for Puran (or any other utility) to use the fastest areas of the disk, it would have to move files to the end, not the beginning. Raxco did move some files to the middle, Puran moved everything to the beginning (and it was run several times during that 30-day period). (Edit: ) Puran's statement "Puran Defrag does move frequently used files" begs the question, how does it know which are frequently used? It does not install a driver to monitor file system access (Raxco does install a driver but whether it does any such monitoring, I can't tell) so all it can go on are file attributes (like Last Accessed Time, which isn't an especially good guide) or the contents of XP's PreFetch cache (which covers programs only). It does add a .dll to Windows' System32 folder but this is not injected into other processes so it can't be using that for monitoring either. Taking 2 hours to move 50GB+ is most certainly not reasonable when the volume in question is a 4-drive RAID-0 array capable of 280MB/s sequential read and 250MB/s sequential write speeds (benchmarked using Sandra). A 50GB file should take about 6 minutes (380 seconds, 180 to read, 200 to write) to move at best speed. It was clear from the disk activity that Puran was moving this file by single sectors, crippling performance as a result. UI - I said it looked non-standard and it does. Simplicity isn't hard to achieve with a defragmenter so having a simple interface isn't anything special. It does however stick out like a sore thumb when compared with "standard applications" and I personally resent having to deal with such software. Not least, when you have several applications open all "doing their own thing" interface-wise you end up with a dog's breakfast for a desktop. This however is just a personal opinion and applies to most other defragmenters also.

[Long View]

{QUOTE->

Now the more I think about (b), the harder it seems to achieve in practice. Moving files to the fastest (outer) section of disk isn't hard but selecting files that benefit most (larger files to minimise seek time overheads, frequently accessed files to maximise read time savings) is trickier.

On top of this, you have the impact of security software (anti-virus scanners in particular) which complicate matters

<-QUOTE}

Using UD for C: Windows Xp and programs set to 45 days past data was used for performance and 46 days for achive works perfectly for me. I does help that I don't have AV scanners messing up dates and I use Imaging to back up rather than traditional backup programs which often play hell with "days past data used". Very few files in the acrhive ever move with almost all activity ocurring at the outer edge of the drive.

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> As a small point of courtesy, if Puran wish to respond to issues raised here they should do so themselves - not via a third party. <-QUOTE}I heartily agree. Evidently Puran disdains personal participation in this forum. Further, I would have expected their rejoinder to place greater emphasis on technical details, rather than being primarily anecdotal.

In any event it would be valuable to see *before & after* screenies of a major defrag done by Puran.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Having somewhat lost kokua for Puran, I am now considering UltimateDefrag, which has a paid version & a free version. Does anyone know the comparative differences between the 2 versions?

[bellgamin]

MST Defrag 3.0 (http://www.mstsoftware.com/) is another defragger that has just now drawn my interest because of: (1) some favorable comments I have heard, (2) a price of only $15.90 for home users, & (3) their prompt reply to email.

Speaking of email, I sent them one with 3 questions. My questions, & the substance of their answers, are given below...

1- Will MST defrag at boot-up? Yes, MST Defrag includes a Boot time defragmentation component.

2- Does it defrag MFT? Yes

3- Does it use any optimization algorithm to improve file placement & speed up HD access times? Yes, it supports 3 different defragmentation algorithms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update- I downloaded MST for trial. Trial is limited to 15 days, which is okay. However, unless I did something wrong, the trial version is crippleware to the extreme.

Therefore I cannot really tell very much about it except that it has a boring GUI & 90% of everything it supposedly does is grayed out. >:( :thumbd:

[Long View]

Tried MST Defrag and could see no way to control file location. any defrag program can defrag what is needed is the ability to move unused and rarely used files out of the way. small active file defraging then makes more sense.

[norky]

{QUOTE-> MST Defrag 3.0 (http://www.mstsoftware.com/) is another defragger that has just now drawn my interest because of: (1) some favorable comments I have heard, (2) a price of only $15.90 for home users, & (3) their prompt reply to email.

Speaking of email, I sent them one with 3 questions. My questions, & the substance of their answers, are given below...

1- Will MST defrag at boot-up? Yes, MST Defrag includes a Boot time defragmentation component.

2- Does it defrag MFT? Yes

3- Does it use any optimization algorithm to improve file placement & speed up HD access times? Yes, it supports 3 different defragmentation algorithms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update- I downloaded MST for trial. Trial is limited to 15 days, which is okay. However, unless I did something wrong, the trial version is crippleware to the extreme.

Therefore I cannot really tell very much about it except that it has a boring GUI & 90% of everything it supposedly does is grayed out. >:( :thumbd: <-QUOTE}


What features are you not able to access? When I demoed it, everything worked. Did you dl the home version?

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> What features are you not able to access? <-QUOTE}Basically everything was grayed out except simple defrag.

{QUOTE-> When I demoed it, everything worked. Did you dl the home version? <-QUOTE}Yes -- the home version. And I put "x" in the "trial" box during install. If it worked for you then I undoubtedly did something wrong during install. I shall give it another trial one of these days.

In the meantime, I am very impressed by the free version of UD. Once I studied the beautifully written Help pdf, I was able to configure it to really speed things up.

[EASTER]

Would someone help straighten this out please?

OK, any circle, and this case the metallic hard drive platter has an "outer" rim and an "inner" rim. It's logical to me that anything within the inner rim travels at the highest velocity compared to the outer rim which is farther from central core. I been told that both rim areas travel at the same rate because of the principle of binding together from being a single object/ molecular entity.
OK i suppose, but for the sake of this device known as a PC's Hard Drive, it would seem to me that the best performance of data acquisition (seek/read) due to the separate structure known as the "heads" accessing data on this platter, would be the inner orbit not the outer orbit as many suggest.

Or maybe my physics isn't matching my Logic when it comes to this particular device :blink:

ANYONE?

THANKS

[yeow]

Hi EASTER
1. Outer rim is "longer" than inner rim
2. So outer rim can have "longer row" of 1's & 0's
3. When the disc turns one full circle:
- the head when placed at inner rim will read 1 full "row" of 1's & 0's
- the head when placed at outer rim will also read 1 full "row" of 1's & 0's
- but since there's a "longer row" of 1's & 0's at outer rim, more data is read/written in 1 full turn -> higher rate of read/write, better performance at outer rim

Hope my very crude explanation makes sense to you.

[Huupi]

Yeow very good at least i get it,but there's more then only outer versus innerrim,files has to be contiguous and really most used files at the first outer tracks(frequent used app. and system),anything else behind this,i believe that there is no need to place least used files on the inner tracks because of the system search algorithm(everything in one place at the outside of disk)prevent wear and tear on platter and read/write heads.The benefit of dividing to place files on outer and inner tracks is minimal rather then placing everything on the outer rims which is best performance IMO.I must say though that with modern Sata and sure the new raptors and for really sure the coming SSD drives benefits of manually editing the fileplacement are diminishing to a point that its not needed anymore.

[Long View]

For SSD defrag is not only not necessary but actually reduces the life of the drive. At the moment I think that the best non raid solution is a small SSD (30 gb) and a larger and fast data drive. UD2008 is still the best solution for the data drive

[Peter2150]

Easter it's simple. Given a constant rotational velocity the further from the center you are the farther you have to go to complete one full turn. Since a point in the inner part of the disk and outer part of the disk complete the turn in the same time, but the outer point has further to go, it's velocity is faster.

Pete

[Nick Rhodes]

{QUOTE-> Yeow very good at least i get it,but there's more then only outer versus innerrim,files has to be contiguous
<-QUOTE}

How often do you read a file end to end on the OS in a non-streaming (streaming implies nowhere near performance limited) manner, my tests shows this is very rare case.

{QUOTE->
and really most used files at the first outer tracks(frequent used app. and system),anything else behind this,i believe that there is no need to place least used files on the inner tracks because of the system search algorithm(everything in one place at the outside of disk)prevent wear and tear on platter and read/write heads. <-QUOTE}

Where do you suggest placing a file that WAS in the way of a file that was to be placed on outer track ? Its gotta go somewhere.
Its accepted by most people that creating big contiguous areas of freespace is good for reducing future fragmentation, so placing files at the opposite end of the drive is the most logical place for increasing contiguous freespace.

What system search algorithm are you referring to?

Wear and tear ?
Magnets do not wear out, the heads do not touch the platter, if they do, they cause great damage and drive requires repair (usually).

{QUOTE->
The benefit of dividing to place files on outer and inner tracks is minimal rather then placing everything on the outer rims which is best performance IMO. <-QUOTE}

If a file is less frequently used, where-ever it is placed will not impact performance in a significant manner compared to the placement of the most frequently uses files


{QUOTE->
I must say though that with modern Sata and sure the new raptors and for really sure the coming SSD drives benefits of manually editing the fileplacement are diminishing to a point that its not needed anymore. <-QUOTE}

I agree. Been a long time since the OS even knows about underlying physical drive structure, therefore any representation of the physical structure is guesswork.

In the case of Zoned Bit Recording, the OS has no clue about which logical tracks are more dense than the others, is it the first 1, 2 or 50 ??? Does it increase gradually ?

Here's a useful snippet:


{QUOTE-> Today's drives do not have simple geometries; they use zoned bit recording and therefore do not have the same number of sectors for each track, and they use defect mapping to remove bad sectors from use. As a result, their geometry can no longer be described using simple "CHS" terms. These drives must be accessed using logical geometry figures, with the physical geometry hidden behind routines inside the drive controller. For a comparison of physical and logical geometry, see this page on logical geometry.
. <-QUOTE}

http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/geom/geomPhysical.html

[bellgamin]

{QUOTE-> Yeow very good at least i get it,but there's more then only outer versus innerrim,files has to be contiguous and really most used files at the first outer tracks(frequent used app. and system),anything else behind this,i believe that there is no need to place least used files on the inner tracks because of the system search algorithm(everything in one place at the outside of disk)prevent wear and tear on platter and read/write heads.The benefit of dividing to place files on outer and inner tracks is minimal rather then placing everything on the outer rims which is best performance IMO.I must say though that with modern Sata and sure the new raptors and for really sure the coming SSD drives benefits of manually editing the fileplacement are diminishing to a point that its not needed anymore. <-QUOTE}I get what you're saying, but it's hard to read. For slow thinkers like me, it would help if you typed a little slower so that you don't run words & sentences together. :wacko:

[Espresso]

I still haven't heard a good explanation of how Disktrix (or any other defragger for that matter) correlates its disk map to the actual geometry of a multi-platter drive. I don't even know if the defrag API allows you to read/write on which actual platter a piece of data resides.

[Nick Rhodes]

{QUOTE-> I still haven't heard a good explanation of how Disktrix (or any other defragger for that matter) correlates its disk map to the actual geometry of a multi-platter drive. I don't even know if the defrag API allows you to read/write on which actual platter a piece of data resides. <-QUOTE}

Even the BIOS only reports a representation of geometry to the OS, so the OS does not know the exact geometry.

One safe assumption that you can make though is that whatever numbering scheme is used, is that it is usually/mostly sequential though the drive, so the lowest figures (whatever is reported, LBA address, fake block/track/sector figure etc) is on the outer part of the disk and the higher figures are on the inner part of this disk.
Diskeeper is the only defragger I know of that does take figures across the drive so it can work out what is the fastest and slowest parts of the drive.

Heres a couple of hd tach outputs I googled:

http://www.ihaveacrazywife.com/images/HDTach320.jpg

http://images.anandtech.com/iblog/raptor150sb600hdtach301S.jpg

As you can see these figures for the Raptor and Barracuda, 2 popular drives show that to drives do sequentially slow according the the logical disk access.