Diskeeper 11 vs PerfectDisk 8?

A bit off topic but does anyone know about or tried DiskTrix Ultimate defragger? Makes some big claims. Very small package - under 1mb.

http://www.disktrix.com/products.htm

 

Even if it can be used to put files where you wanna, just how many users would know how to determine proper placement?

Would require detailed knowledge of file system, drive properties and how each app works.

Not for typical user.

 

Anyone here some thoughts/experience with Abexo Disk defragmenter?

 

since were just naming defragmenters...anyone try VoptXP?

 

It seems to me that we've veered off topic from the OP's question

It was best answered here by nickr

 

I have used this one for over 5 years now. Lightning fast.

 

I am from DiskTrix and while I am certainly not here to advertise our product - UltimateDefrag. I do just want to correct this message to dispell any "negative" connotations of our product that states the user needs to have a detailed knowledge of the file system to use our product.

That is certainly not the case. Our comprehensive manual covers all aspects of use of our product however even considering that - using our product is very simple to use yet the power in the file placement of our product is unsurpassed. Placing files and folders is as simple as placing a checkmark next to a folder and adding it to the high performance list. Most people know which folder a certain pogram is in. If they don't want to use this feature then they can simply select days since use to place files into archive or high performance.

You will find a true increase in performance after a UltimateDefrag defrag. please also bear in mind that we are only at version 1 - and we will be diligently working to make this as simple to use a product as absolutely possible.

I might suggest that you try it before making this statement before even trying it. You will see that it is easier to use than you might have made it out to be. And yes the .exe is only 943 Kb.

Thanks
Robert

 

Fascinating!
So, I have a disk of 160 GB and the system partition is 15 GB. If I use UltimateDefrag with optimal settings, how would you estimate the performance improvement, Rob?

 

Well - you're already at somewhat of an advantage with regard to your OS performance since your system partition is only around 10% of the entire physical drive. So your system volume is already sitting on the outer tracks of your drive and achieving the fastest transfer rates. It's difficult to estimate your performance increase since it will primaily be a function of whatever degree of fragmentation may be there if any.

Is the remaining 150 Gb all in the one partition? If so, this is where you will see the most performance gains. It can be anywhere from 30 to 100% depending upon a variety of factors - however you will never achieve maximum performance possible for apps and files on that second drive due to the nature of partitioning. As you create more and more partitions, you actually create slower volumes - this is because each partition is created on more inner cylinders. Since your OS is on the outer tracks and physically preventing the files on your other volumes from occupying these tracks - your other files will at best only achieve around 95% of optimal performance.
One of the items we recommend if you are using UltimateDefrag is to not partition and keep all your files on one volume. Let UltimateDefrag get all of the extraneous files out of the way and put the important files on the outer tracks - this way all commonly used files perform at their optimum.

If you are using Diskeeper with I-FAAST I would also advise the same i.e. maintain just one partition since I-FAAST places the important "often used" files to the outer tracks also.

What UltimateDefrag does (and Diskeeper's I-FAAST) effectively achieves is the same effect as not having those "unused" files on the drive. They are still on the drive but on the slower inner tracks and out of the way and not competing for the outer band where fastest transfer performance is realized. So you are "effectively" emptying your drive of around 80% of the files - again, they still exist on the drive but are out of the way.

In short you will realize a significant improvement in performance - akin to a freshly formatted drive.

 

Very informative, thank you for your time, Rob.
Actually, the remaining ~90% is used as storage, I have a second disk for user data and pagefile.
So, if I understand you correctly, then I would end up with rarely modified data on the slower end of the partition and frequently modified data on the faster end of the partition.
And the MFT is in the center?

Again, thank you!

 

Wilbertnl

Not rarely & frequently modified - rarely and frequently "accessed". Yes rarely accessed data goes to the slower inner tracks using our "archive" feature and often accessed files (or files that you specifiy for High Performance) go to the outer tracks.

(Incidentally we do have an algorithm that does let you work with modify dates or access dates so if you did want to you could actually work from inwards to outwards. Perfect for a drive that is getting full)

We basically apply the Pareto Principle in that 80% of the time you only use 20% of your files. The other 80% of the files compete with "high performance" area for fast access space on your drive and also reduce seek confinement and compaction. The less tracks your hard drive heads traverse to access data the shorter the seek times - vastly shorter. Putting all of the unused or rarely used files out of the way to the inner tracks now gives your most often used files better seek confinement and compaction.

At the moment - while we defrag the MFT - we don't reposition it. PerfectDisk can. It actually places it around 1/3 of the way in from the outer tracks. This is probably the best position for general use however we believe that there is a further optimal position to be achieved based upon where UltimateDefrag places files. We are currently conducting R&D in this area.

One thing we do however is to place directories right next to the MFT. This does result in significantly improved perfromance since there are a lot of MFT/Directory transactions that occur when accessing a file. MFT next to the Directories makes these transactions, and ultimately file access, fast.

I trust this answers your questions.

Rob
DiskTrix Inc.
www.disktrix.com

 

I can see that already!

That was probably Norton Speedisk. I've used it found it to be very buggy and was not often I could complete an analyze let alone a defrag. I also don't like what it did with the MFT. On my system it would it actually move it to the beginning of the disk and fragment it. I am not sure which version it was since I promptly removed it. But I tried it sometime back in 2005.

1. Yes you can exclude any file or folder you like from the defrag process. The power in our product is what you can do in terms of file selection - for exclusion, high performance and archiving... and we will be further improving that too.

2. Why do you do this? I'm not sure exactly what you are asking in this instance. If the image takes an exact image then the image it takes is the image that UltimateDefrag creates and the restore will be the same. Did I answer your question?

Regards
Rob
www.disktrix.com

 

Tough one to answer in terms of an absolute number. Your drive is only 5% full so it is already going to perform very fast and close to peak. Using our routines about 20 Gb is going to be moved out of the way - so it will be effectively as if you only have 5 Gb on that drive competing for the outer tracks. Also putting your directories next to MFT will help further. I feel (but this is purely a rough guestimate) that you could see a 10-20% improvement.

We will also be releasing a utility soon that will measure performance before and after an UltimateDefrag defrag - when that is available you will be able to do a true performance analysis before and after.

We do make another program called SystemBoosterXP - that is also available at our site at www.disktrix.com. Take that for a test run and see what that does to your 500 Gb drive with 25 Gb on it in terms of performance.

To be honest I haven't used PD 8 yet. I am too busy focusing on our product. I do know that in V7 (and probably still in Version eight) it tends to do the opposite of what we are trying to achieve. It places older files in terms of access to the outer tracks. Kind of opposite of what we are trying to achieve. If you have a drive that is 75% full - all of your most commonly accessed files are about 75% in from the outer tracks - You will achieve performance about 60% of what your drive is capable of. Again UltimateDefrag's algorithms cover virtually all scenario's and if you want to use this approach you actually can but not recommended.

Rob
www.disktrix.com

 

Good question Pete, I am interested in knowing that answer as well

dja2k

 

No issues with RAID drives whatsoever.

Rob
www.disktrix.com

 

Diskeeper 11 for sure! I also tried out their Disk Performance Analyzer, a freeware tool which reports fragmentation over networks, both are awesome tools!

 

Original Post Removed!

Diskeeper is a good defrager as well as PerfectDisk. Personal choice is up the individual.

dja2k

 

Why ?

 

VaMPiRiC_CRoW disregard my previous post, I was misleading and wrong! It was a impulsed reply without thinking.

dja2k

 

To Rob F

I am trying Ultimatedefrag. Before, I have DK 11. I am disappointed because the analyse with Ultimatedefrag takes more than 8 (eight) hours ! The size of my hard drive is 100Go (about 20% free). When I did an analyse with DK, it takes always less than one minute.

After a first analyse, I choose several options (consolidate with three options checked and some selected files for high perf.) and I start a defragmentation. It's running now. And it's the same speed than the first time ! It's incredible. Perhaps I miss something ?

Thanks for your explanation.

 

With particular logical drives, any defrag progran can take longer than forever.

For example, on my sister's system, she has several logical drives.
All but one were defragged in an acceptable time. However, one drive took several DAYS to defrag.

She likely has some weird process working on that drive. But I'm over 200 miles away and could not investigate.

Since each defrag program uses different algorithms, there's likely gonna be some drives that perform badly with each program, but not with others.