UltimateDefrag v3 - is THIS the very best defragger ever?

im hoping for a new update as i went back to perfectdisk for now due to some ongoing issues. nothing major but annoying anyway

 

how can i run ultimate defrag from winpe?
thanks

 

just include it into the image. as long as you have the whole folder in there it will run

 

thanks

i don't know how build a winpe image , is there a tutorial?

 

See the BartCD website : http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Or

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

 

Hello
I'm having a DAW using Cubase, VSTi's and WAVE files, I would be much grateful to have the opinion, for a DAW best defrag method. My O.S HDD is 500GB with 150GB of O.S (XP Pro SP3) on it, the other files and folders of my DAW are sitting on 4 HDD each one 1TB (Projects, VSTi's Content Foldrs, Audio files, Videos and etch,).
Thank You

 

What the heck is a DAW and how come your OS takes 150GB? A plain Win XP takes about 5GB.
For defragging strategies, read the tutorials on the UD web page. It really depends on your system usage, so you have to figure this out yourself.

 

DAW = Digital Audio Workstation. And as for the 150 GB of O.S I'm referring to the size of the Program Files folder which contain all the VSTi's +some of the VSTi's Sound Folders that can't be separated to a different HDD all of that comes up to about 150GB sitting on the operating system HDD.
I'm still with the same question what is optimal defrag strategy?
Thank you

 

What a nice defragger. Our facility uses this once in a while with good results.

I am wondering how ud3 resolves conflicting requests, for example, if you ask a file to be included in Archive and High Performance, what gets priority?

Or what happens if you ask to Exclude a file, but have it also checked in Archive, let's say..

I had requested that 3 directories be sent to the Archive portion of the disk, and several *.jbf files be sent to the high-performance region. The *.jbf files were archived. So it seems wildcards don't work, or don't work in this situation?

Can we get clarification on this?

 

okay here is a issue. if i run a boot time with ud3 then (as a experiment) try to run a boot time with perfectdisk it says it can not acces the volume. and refuses to do so till i run chkdsk /r then perfectdisk will run. this is 100% repeatable. i can get the same result each time with 3 systems i tried it on. so what is ud3 doing to cause this? any ideas

 

Confirm that issue and my system is slow after using boot time module

 

Cool product, but buggy as all hell. Seems, like most software nowadays, I have to beta-test it to be sure it works as advertised and expected.

For example, after resizing the $MFT reserved space to a smaller value using the boot-time module. It works. The MFT is indeed resized. However, then say I go to defrag the same disk. Bammm!! the MFT reserved space is now back at the original full-size it was before I did re-sizing with the boot-time module. I'm not talking a 5 or 10 meg discrepancy, this is the full 12 or 25 % of total disk space.
So why does the MFT reserved space reset back to the original size?

 

Isn't it a Windows NTFS filesystem feature ?

 

Well, it's kinda combination of NTFS and UD problems:
The $MFT must be aligned to a 32 (or so) cluster boundary due to NTFS rules, nothing you can do about this. You also cannot explicitly set the reserved zone. UD can merely clear the space between the $MFT and the next file (eg. $Logfile or whatever you put there). Upon reboot (actually next re-mount of the volume) Windows assigns the blank space right behind the $MFT as reserved (Windows does this, not UD). But: apparently there may appear an unasigned cluster between $MFT and the reserved zone (maybe some additional alignment issue).
Now, if this cluster gets occupied by a normal file (eg. you add files to the disk or you defrag the disk), upon next reboot windows will relocate (and enlarge) the reserved zone.
I pointed this already out to Isso and I hope he is working on this.

regards,
Mike

 

Make sure Windows boot time optimization is disabled, and that similar features from other defraggers you have installed are also turned off. I think UltimateDefrag asks you to do this anyway on the first run, but certain system optimization utilities may reset those settings.

 

+1
Make sure. I caught dfrgntfs.exe running a couple of times despite having UD3 checked the way pajenn illustrates. I finally got it to stop by shutting it off with TweakUI. This can also be controlled with registry mods but it's disappointing that UD3 doesn't simply take care of it correctly (at least on my machine) if you opt for it to do so.

 

I tested UltimateDefrag 2008 and it doesn't re-expand the MFT like 3.0.100.19 does. Which is the it is supposed to work. Hopefully this will be corrected in a later version. Till then we'll most likely revert to 2.0.0.55 until bugs get worked out.

 

Well Mike, I tested out what you said and, yes, it either corrected the problem or recreated the problem, depending if I put a file there or not.

I don't know enough about the finer points of ntfs, but what about putting a tiny file there, like a zero-length placeholder of a sort? Or would that not work because of the allocation (4,096 bytes thing). I'm going to go play with this. Frakk'n windoze, can't they make it a like a normal operating system

As far as a UD fix goes, why not just ignore that cluster? Make it a no-no-zone..

MY UPDATE: A simple work-around for this problem is to manualy move whatever file that UD stuffs between the MFT and the MFT RESERVED ZONE elsewhere. It is a tiny file and no harm is caused.

 

A short answer to all the Hype and balderdash about ultimatedefrag, is that..............It Ultimately, does not do what it claims to do

 

I'll give you bonus points if you can show an 800% improvement. . Yes, the claims *are* indeed inflated beyond belief.

I saw a 3 second improvement on an application that took 31 seconds to load normally. What was unexpected and pleasant was when I hover the mouse over the start menu and navigate my Start-Programs-Photoshop stuff tree. There was an immediate response instead of a 4 or 5 second delay. I can assume the UD fixed and organized my directory tree and all the shortcuts and .ico files, things like that.

I also saw a 7 minute improvement when backing up and imaging the system. What normally took 1 hour and 16 minutes now was down to 1 hour and 9 minutes.

Typical advertising, quoting huge gains that happen only in certain (badly fragged drives) situations, nothing new there. Yes, there are gains, but nowhere near what is said.

 

Well, you should know by your self what gains you can expect from defragmentation. Of course, 800% speed gain is probably possible only on pathological systems (I've seen systems taking 15 minutes to boot). But UD basically does what promises, namely defrag.

 

As you say, no matter how small the file is, the occupied space on disk is one cluster at least. $MFT-wise there is no such thing as bytes, only clusters.
But the space is not the issue here. The thing is, as soon as there is an occupied cluster directly after the $MFT, Windows moves the reserved zone someplace else in order to start a new $MFT fragment.
In my opinion the only work-around is to increase the $MFT-size, so that it ends exactly at the alignment boundary of the reserved zone. But I don't know if that is possible.

Could be done, but still Windows (or the user) constantly shuffles around data on disk, so the odds that the cluster will get filled some time are pretty good.

In principle correct. But you'd have to check all the time whether this unfortunate cluster is still free. Cause, once Windows started a new $MFT fragment elsewhere, your $MFT is fragmented for good (till the next boot-time defrag).

 

I assume that's sector based imaging in which case fragmentation or lack thereof should have no effect. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Imaging: correct, no influence of fragmentation. Backup: file based -> strong impact, of course.

 

My bad on the terminology, it was file-based of course.