UltimateDefrag - is this the best defragger ever?

Not sure which version of Perfect Disk you are talking about ? I assume version 7 or earlier ? In Jan 2006 I bought a copy of 7 but gave up because like you I found the "slow" modes just too slow. I tried O&O and was not impressed and went back to executive software - Diskeeper 10. Still I wanted placement as well as defragmentation and wanted to remove yet another "always" active program so I tried Perfect Disk 8. It took a while to run at first but I have just manually defraged C: in 33 seconds and my data partition in 29 Seconds. Now I just leave it to run once a day when I'm not working.

Could I expect UltimateDefrag to be quicker ? or provide some other benefit ?

 

I have stayed with version 6 of PerfectDisk, since I couldn't find any real improvement in the next versions, which I also tried, not to mention the high upgrade price from V6 to V7 and V7 to V8.

You're right to mention subsequent defrag with PD can be very quick. But I have an extra requirement, that make me stop using it too often : I do a lot of partition imaging, using drive snapshot (I also used Acronis True Image). These partition imaging softwares have a feature where they can save incremental changes or differential changes. To keep these extras backup files small, I have to defrag my disk as little as possible, except when I perform a full backup. In that case only I use smartplacement. Now I am using "stealth" defrag to keep the backup small yet having a low fragmentation. After some time, PD smartplacement takes some time !

 

Use NTFS, not FAT 32, to lessen the need for offline defragging.

 

Already the case, even on all my external HDD ! Everything is under NTFS. Thanks anyway !

 

Hi again,

I have been performing some tests on UltraDefragmenter, here is some feedback :

1/ rather complex to parameter, and since many option lead to radical changes of layout, switching from one option to another is quite time consuming.
2/ sometimes, unchecking the options "Respect Archive" and the other "Respect ..." doesn't seem to yield any effect, the defragmenter still starts by optimizing these files. Maybe it's due to the fact that "Use Layout.ini" was also checked.
3/ quite fast and seems to do what it is supposed to do in terms of very configurable file placement
4/ I have observed an annoying behaviour, which seems to be a feature of this defragmenter :
My C: partition (15 GB) had a lot of small and medium size files, and a set of very big pst files (over 1GB each).

At the end of the "Consolidate" process, the defragmenter started to try to defragment one of these .pst files. Since my HDD (from my laptop) is quite slow, I decided to cancel the defrag at that moment.

I was able to exit the Defrag GUI after a few tens of seconds, but I realized there was still a big HDD IO activity. Looking at the running processes, I saw the defrag process was still active and probably trying to finish moving this .pst file. It stoppped after a few minutes but I can help pondering at what would have happened if I had launched outlook while the file was still moving...
5/ I definitely don't like commercial software that require activation...

There many more things I'd like to say, but time is fleeing away... So if you have specific questions, I'd be most happy to answer them, if I can.

 

Hi again,

Here is some new info regarding Ultimate Defrag : while in the evaluation period, I got up to 5 e-mail from the publisher (DiskTrix) giving me hints on how to set up efficiently the program according to various situations. I was very pleased to observe that the fifth emailed provided very efficient and rather quick setting. It has really improved the speed at which apps are loading, which I didn't believe was still possible on my system, already quick.

The setting is the following (applied to the system partition) :

Select "Layout.ini" on the partition option setting (C
Check Fast Archive (files with more than 90 days since last access are in the archive category. 50 days by default, but I tuned this a bit)
Chose "Consolidate" mode with "Respect Archive" ticked and "place dir close to MFT"

That's it !

That also answers the question I had in my former message, where "High Performance" seemed to be on while being off. It's simply the "Layout.ini" option that does this, even when the "Respect High Performance" setting is off.

 

Version 1.38 Released
11 January 2007
Updates and fixes in this release

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a bug which was incorrectly handling the folders with similar beginning, i.e. if you have "C:\folder" and "C:\folder1", and put C:\folder as archive, then C:\folder1 would go into archive too.
• Fixed MFT defragmentation bug, which wasn't defragging MFT properly under all modes except Consolidate
• Fixed a bug in Consolidate mode which was causing stalling on some systems
• Fixed GUI bug, which wasn't updating Start/Stop button properly

 

How PD put the rarely used files in the inner tracks?

 

Well I tried the previous version when it was a 30 day trial, it is now been cut to a 7 day trial. I usually use PerfectDisk and various free softwares one being contig from Sysinternals, I have also trialed Diskeeper and usually use DK when first setting up a PC to set the MFT. O&O balks on my paused downloads.
Anyway UltimateDefrag seems by the graphic to of increased my MFT by 10 fold! I'm just about to look at the new version but maybe the trial has ended.

 

Looks to me that this software has some major bugs. I am not ready to trust something that does things like this.

 

I agree with you, but this is the first version...

And until now it does a great job and never had a problem with it...

 

Because the Smart Replacement of PD put the recently used files after of the rarely used! So the access time to them will be slower...

That is why I prefer the flexibility of UD to avoid this kind of things...

 

Surely in the real world, it's more important to have the recently modified files closer to the MFT Zone rather than near the Boot Sector. Placing the recently modified files after the rarely modified files ensures that this is the case.

Regards

 

Your correct, it would reduce performance of accessing any file [placed away from the MFT] and especially files that are to be modified. The MFT is involved with every write transaction (file size, location, holding some of the file meta data itself), caching by the HDD and OS can help.

 

Hi Nick,

I think you probably meant to say that it would "improve" performance not "reduce" it.

Regards

 

Yes

 

I had a application error with the new version while defragmenting an external HDD, and the start/stop button problem seems even worse now. I have chosen to reinstall the 1.36 version.

Has anyone had similar problems with the new release ?

 

Merle, thanks for passing on that tip to us. I tried it (v1.36) and it really did result in a noticeable performance improvement.

 

Thanks for the heads-up on v1.38. I'm using v1.36 and have not had any problems whatsoever, so I think I'll leave well enough alone and stick with it for the time being.

 

Menorcaman and Peter2150,

I agree with both...

Both UD and PD have their pros and cons for each kind of use...

 

Fwiw, UD v1.39 now released.

 

Version 1.39 Released
17 January 2007
Updates and fixes in this release

NEW FEATURES

• SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED FILE SELECTION CAPABILITIES
  Added ability to concurrently select files/folders as well as access dates and extensions in High Performance and Archive selection screen. This vastly increases flexibility of file selection for Archive and High Performance. For Example: for Archive, you can select all files not accessed in the past 30 days, AND files with extension zip AND all files in System Volume Information and Windows Updates folders (or any folder or file). This serves as a perfect way to, on a daily basis, place files created by daily System Restore Point updates out of the way to the inner tracks of your drives.

BUG FIXES

• While stalling was reduced on some systems with V1.38, stalling may have been introduced on others. This has been corrected.

 

Ha, I finally hear voice of someone from DiskTrix!
I hope I get an answer/reply right here in this forum.

I have sent several emails to support@disktrix.com and feedback@disktrix.com aksing whether I can buy license of the product in a more secured way, but I have been waiting for days without getting any reply...

Am I right that the payment is not collected through a billing company, can I pay by Paypal? Please, if the answer is NO, just kindly say so!

Have you not received any of my few emails sent to you via diff mailbox?

t.s.lim