UltimateDefrag - is this the best defragger ever?

I guess they don't care to respond to emails or potential customers t.s.lim. I was prepared to buy after trialing UD for 7 days, but had one issue I needed resolved first, so I emailed them, but never had the courtesy of a reply...only the automated initial acknowledgement that they received my email.

These people have spent almost 2 years of time & money developing UD...then they ignore potential customers (like you & me) who are ready to give them money...unbelievable !!

Personally, I won't deal with rude programmers who don't have the common courtesy to respond to email queries (no matter how good their product may or may not be). If they can't take the time to respond to me, I won't take the time to send them money. If more people took this attitude, this rude behavior on the part of many developers would stop.

The only thing I can say with certainty is that someone from UD would step out from their hiding place to take my money, if I was offering it to them...but that isn't going to happen. My money will be going to one their worthy competitors.

 

After reformatting my computer I decided to give this app another try. Maybe someone woould be kind enough to anwser a question or two. After reading the PDF file it has been suggested that the options below may yeild the best results for a "typical" workstation. My question is what other "archieve" extensions should be included besides .zip for best results? Also, should I enable the "respect Layout.ini"? Any other advice would be greatly apperciated.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v219/NAMOR/disktrix.png

 

I have found out that on my system, a simple consolidate defrag of C: with "place dir near MFT" on and enable "respect layout.ini" was already giving significant improvement, even better than Perfectdisk.

 

NAMOR,

On my system partition (Windows and Programs only), I use the same as the picture that you put, and more by this order:
- High Performance: exe, dll
- Archive: avi, cab, zip and msi.
And use "Respect Layout.ini". You can see what it does on PDF also...

 

Thanks for the feedback MerleOne and VaMPiRiC_CRoW.

 

UD offers so many defrag options that I'm sure the optimum choice depends on the way you use your PC.

In my case, I select 'Respect Layout.ini' in Tools>Options, then within Consolidate>Options I select 'Respect archive' and 'Place directories close to MFT'. Then obviously, I use the Consolidate defrag method...

This seems to provide the 'snapiest' system for me!

 

Wondering about UD's Boot-time defrag (it doesn't appear to do anything), I sent an inquiry to their support email address. It took 10-days to get a response, but here it is...

~Private email removed - not allowed without permission of sender~

 

Now there's yet another new feature!
This app just keeps getting better and better ...

"Version 1.46 Released
7 March 2007
Updates and fixes in this release

NEW FEATURES

* ADDED NEW FILE HIGHLIGHTER FEATURE
By Selecting Tools=>Options=>Highlight a File - you can select any file and highlight its position on the disk display. This feature is useful for power users wishing to see where on the drive a particular file is located."

 

Yep, their support is very bad...

 

But getting their permission would probably take another 10-days! LOL

In any case, let me just say that UD's boot-time defrag does work, but at a "rudimentary level". Imho, Diskeeper has the best boot-time defrag, which among its functions allows you to resize the MFT if it finds it's 'cramped' and therefore gets fragmented too easily.

 

Version 1.47 Released
24 March 2007
Updates and fixes in this release

NEW FEATURES

• SIGNIFICANTLY ENHANCED DEFRAG SCHEDULING
  UltimateDefrag scheduling interface and functionality has been significantly enhanced to directly use Windows Task Scheduler interface. This adds more flexibility for scheduling defrags - including idle periods.
  
• Minimize To System Tray (Hide When Minimized) Function Added
  You can select an option to Hide When Minimized and UltimateDefrag will move to the SystemTray. A right click on the SystemTray Icon provides some control including pause, resume and stop functions.
  
• Detect and Disable (upon user's consent) Windows BootOptimize state in Windows Registry.
  It is recommended that you answer "Yes" and disable BootOptimize since Windows attempts to optimize boot file layout every 3 days. This undoes UltimateDefrag's file layout optimization by rearranging files.
  
• When you go into Tools=>Options menu to select optimization options, the Options dialogue box remembers the drive that you have selected in the main user interface. This avoids inadvertently selecting options for the wrong drive.
  
• Changes made to the configuration are now automatically saved immediately and on exit. Previously this would only be saved on exit resulting in possible loss of last changes made to UltimateDefrag configuration in the event of abnormal termination of the program.
  
• Confirm Before Exit. If you attempt to exit the program when file operations are in progress you will be warned that file operations are currently in progress.

BUG FIXES

• A bug in the Recency Method where data was placed on inner tracks was archiving even if Respect Archive was not selected.

http://www.disktrix.com/ultimatedefrag/ultimatedefragupdates.htm#Version 1.47 Released

 

Yeah, I updated yesterday... I still like this defragger quite a bit.

 

Exact procedure i use and it really makes difference. I tried PD and it's reasonably efficient so i can't really complain but what i like most is that UD offers a series of super-efficient choices, and they all work GREAT! Yeah, the defrag took me all night but in the morning the circle was solidly showing all files i selected to move close to MFT at the outer rim all in place. Then my computer takes off like a rocket as to do with opening apps. This is what i like to call a Super-Defrag!

Well, my answer to that is look at StorageCraft, how many time have you read where customers feel neglected at best, to that i can only say, as long as their claims hold water as advertised, i really don't need support unless their program fudges my machine up (and temper), which in case i'll burn the disc and turn elsewhere. Today is a buyers bonaza IMO, and there are plenty enough other alternatives to turn to. My motto, it proves itself reliable or it's in the trash basket never to it return again. Just like my very sour experience with the marathon buggy Acronis products. "Thank you for choosing Acronis Products" Bahhhh!!

 

Thanks Peter2150

I thought i run across an article last evening where we do have a ShadowCraft rep in resident here. I know people are probably remembering my posts in favoring PS over SS/SU and i stand solidly by that. But now enters a whole new technical creation to eclipse even them, namely ShadowProtect.

Peter2150 I optimistically took serious obsevation of your speed tests and anyone can plainly see the differences are notable indeed!

I want to learn more about SP. I'm of a different breed you might say since if i read for myself enough comparisons by Wilder's membership here and the excitement/satisfaction level maintains itself long enough, i'll most definitely make my move toward the proven best software, recovery/imaging programs are certainly no exception here.

I'm tempted already to make a purchase of ShadowProtect but first i need some clarifications and also some encouragement from grnxmn himself.
Peter2150, you spoke of SP IT edition as your favorite? As opposed to a desktop addition? What exactly are we to expect from the IT version that would assist greatly a desktop user in Cloning/Imaging aside from speed and also aside from that it restores efficiently without fuss, unlike so many others who's customers are only holding their breath that their next restore won't barf on them.

ShadowProtect "BOTH" clones/duplicates and images/file. Is this accurate?

Thanks so very much. More than ever, and with software customers requiring total assurance that they are receiving expert engineering in that software design for years to come, can you touch on anything else which you haven't already made clear from your experiences with Shadow Protect!
(I feel another great disturbance in the force, and another good one)
FD-ISR!

 

Nope, ShadowProtect makes backup images. It doesn't expose the functionality to clone one volume directly to another volume. The core imaging functionality is capable of doing this, but this capability is not exposed in the GUI (yet).

I'm not really here to encourage anyone to buy ShadowProtect. Just to gather feedback. I'd suggest that you try out a bunch of solutions and settle on the one that works best for you. ShadowProtect may or may not be that solution.

 

I agree with this. However, using Contig with Power Defrag does not seem to give me the same results as when running Contig straight from the DOS prompt...

True

 

Hello,

I use DK 2007 and I am trying Ultimatedefrag. One thing is very strange for me : Analyse takes some seconds with DK, but some hours with Ultimatedefrag. Why ? Thanks.

 

Fair enough and thanks for the feedback. So in essence that capability is indeed available just not by the standard means from it's GUI interface, that leads one to suppose it's supported via command line then?

Thanks. And keep it up, the more some of us know and discover about SP the more encouraged we are to turn to it.

 

have u tried setting teh resource usage to 100% instead of auto?

 

Wow !
Thanks a lot WSFuser !

 

No comment.

 

Getting back on topic, for those comparing UD with another defragger, it should not be surprising after doing a defrag with some other defragger that UD takes an extraordinary time to analyze/defrag the disk. I'm sure the same thing would occur if the 'tables were turned' because each defragger uses its own unique algorithms to defrag the disk.

 

Hi, folks: After using these two established apps; PD and DK, for a number of years (v6 to v.8 for PD; v.9 to v.11 for DK), I took some risks trying UD. Initially, due to its abundance of options, I got lost and messed up the box. Now after reading more here I am able to navigate thru its maze w/o any difficulties. I would say it is a different knid of breed. User can really feel it, feeling like you are deeply involved. Each blink on that disk diagram gives you the high hope that UD is actually working hard for you. After the task is done, I can notice the big improvement. I would not be surprised that this app will soon catch up w/ other two leaders and perhaps pass them w/o looking back some days very soon.