Disk defragging programmes

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Anybody care to recommend a disk defragging programme? WXpHe seems too slow – as is Norton Utilities; so I read reviews on Perfect disk and Diskeeper. Any thoughts or comments on these please?

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Diskeeper – we’ve been using it for years with no problems.

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I too have been a Diskeeper fan for many moons, but the recent version of PerfectDisk is quite nice as well. They’re very similar; I just prefer DK because they were on the fore with many innovations that others have simply copied. These days, it’s more or less a mature software market (defragmenters) and there’s little differentiation between packages.

One that should also be noted is Norton’s SpeedDisk, which comes along with their utility suites. You may have it already since you have NU.

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Hi, Stephen ~

Diskeeper is indeed a good product, but I have migrated from it to PerfectDisk about 8 months ago and have found it to do a much more thorough & speedier job. Once you perform the first file optimization process w/ PerfectDisk, the speed at which the defragging occurs is significantly faster and is exclusively the only defragmenter that does a complete defrag of all data & system files including NTFS directories & MFT with much less required free space overhead.

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Are you saying that Perferct Disk is the ONLY software that will defragment the MFT?

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I’m intrigued in general by comments through this thread – and this is not directed at yourself – as to how some claims that one particular product does a ‘better job’ than another can be justified. To my way of thinking, two disks with identical defragmentation would need to be used – such as part of a mirror set – and then defragged from software running from another disk. And that would only give you a time-to-do-the-job result.
Does defragging the entire drive so that there are no gaps qualify as a better job?
Does one bit of software defragging a file that another defragger didn’t (or couldn’t) make it BETTER?

I’m afraid I need more scientific evidence and a qualification of ‘betterness’ here!

To my mind, the fact that as a scheduled service Diskeeper keeps the level of defragmentation down on our drives to an average of < 5% . is a fit-and-forget utility and has performed without flaw across our network for 5+ years, makes it ideal for us – and a candidate for recommendation.

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Hi, Leif ~

No, all I am saying is PerfectDisk is indeed significantly faster and is exclusively the only defragmenter that does a complete defrag.

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Unfortunately the PC Magazine defragmentation tests was really of “home” defragmenters, didn’t include PerfectDisk, and only tested the “home” version of Diskeeper. I thought PC Magazine’s target audience was mainly for business?

So the article is of limited value to those of us with many servers and workstations.

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The way to tell would be to set up a number of common perameters, agreed on in advance and test the same version type (home, workstation, for networks, ect.) head on, do a series with a lot of numbers, and you’d have to get them to agree on those criteria because you can run them both and using their own terminology and definitions, they can both say you got a complete defrag, and then subject the study to statistical analysis. This is what Leif was pointing to–a scientific objective study.[/i] Because as high as individuals are on the particular defragger they use, unless this kind of study is done you don’t have the proof you need.

As has been discussed ad infinitum in the lounge on threads, much of what many people believe is “undefragged” in Diskeeper is actually not born up by some of the papers and the book downloadable at Diskeeper’s web site.

SMBP

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Here`s my tiny contribution, for what it`s worth! I have been using Diskeeper for a long time,and after reading this thread I decided to give Perfect Disk a try. It took more than 45 mins to defrag my C Drive (after just using Diskeeper) and seems to have done an excellent job. My laptop is running much faster now, opening all apps in a flash. Not being an expert like you, this is the only way I have to judge Perfect Disk, and I have to say that this one is a keeper! (Er…I don`t mean Diskeeper). Thanks
Elaine

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Stephen–

Try downloading Diskeeper 7.0 for 30 days and Perfect Disk and see which one you like. I’d definitely try them and improve on XP’s native defrag made by Diskeeper, because I believe either of these will give you significantly improved performance over XP or Speed Disk but some might not agree– and it’s an important software choice.

I have no doubt that Perfect Disk is a fine product–we have people who have used both and two vocal proponents that it’s so much faster. But if “speed” is the most compelling reason that it is substantively better than Diskeeper I can’t see how I can improve on the two minutes[/i] as the longest time any of four drives takes to defrag with Diskeeper running it manually every or every other night with a lot of applications on the hard drive–getting complete defrag on every drive. It takes very little time if I defrag the MFT and Page file on boot. Was Diskeeper that slow (longer than a couple minutes) for those that find PD faster?? And were you using Diskeeper Lite or 7.0?

I can’t see any reason to take Raxco up on trading in Diskeeper for 75% credit when Diskeeper looks to be 100% as good and they profer this disingenuous claim of maximal defrag/minimal freespace. I’d suspect that claim from anyone.

I see Raxco’s comparison to Diskeeper and just shrug. I’m getting complete defrag on a single pass and long threads have dissected the semantics of “complete defrag of free space.” The claim to maximally defrag with “minimal free space” is as intriguing as it is impossible to believe. I doubt they can compare to a decent defragger with 20-30% of free space on a drive as most sources I’ve seen recommend. Microsoft’s KB’s use 20%–books on defrag push between these two numbers.

Mabe on hard drives of hundreds of gigabytes, terabytes in size it’s faster or RAID sets. On 70-100GB I don’t see how I need faster than two minutes max. Diskeeper hung in there winning the PC Magazine Editor

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Cbd–

I appreciate this and believe that getting the best defrag program is one of the most important ways to help your performance and save time and unlike you I haven’t tried Perfect Disk, but I will try to compare it now. What I would like to know is besides the speed in getting defragging done and the results that indicate you are getting superior defragging and better placement, (because the Diskeeper people would of course argue that they are measured different ways with each program) in making this change, are you and Bruce noticing a clear difference in the way your computer(s) are running after going to Perfect Disk?

SMBP

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If you already have Speed Disk, it does a pretty thorough job. You can schedule it to run at a regular time when the PC is not busy – although it will run in the background quite happily without too much of a performance hit in general.

I have also used O&O Defrag (came free on a cover disc) on Win2k, which seemed quite reasonable. Anyone else any experience of it?

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OS Win2k.
Have used Norton Speed disk for years and was “happy” with it. Then last year got a copy of Diskeeper lite and decided to do a “test”.

Ran Speed disk until it was happy and showed no fragmentation. Then I ran Diskeeper. After running the “analysis” stage received the report that the drive was “severely fragmented”, so ran DKLite until IT was happy. Then tried Norton Speed disk again and it said everything was fine … no defrag needed.

I suspect that the various defrag suppliers use their own proprietary algorithms in their programs and each feels that theirs is “best”. For me the bottom line is that my various PCs seem to run “better and faster” after defragging — no matter whose program I run. Things load faster and seem to respond more quickly to instructions.

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CBD–

Not at all–I’m way beyond that–I’m not taking these discussions as a ‘my dad can whip your dad or one of those whatchamacallit contests.’ I think it’s healthy and helpful to air these out and much better to have strong feelings about defrag which may not be as pretty as an XP gui but is darn important–then apathy or never defragging (that happens–not here, but it does) and I appreciate all the comments. I’d much rather somebody say to me–hey, you know you could get a better program and here’s why than to just zoom along and not know. I think as Mark says, you can’t go wrong with either of these–and I have seen others mentioned in long reviews you don’t hear much of that may be very good.

I do know that if you got the most experienced tech support from both companies (who are good and do really care about what they do) you’d get a “vigorous” discussion over results and terms–because I’ve talked to the Diskeeper people about areas and sectors and sometimes programs left unfragged and it gets pretty involved as to which ones they are and why. Call them and I think you’d have a good time talking with them.

If I’m using a program, and you’ve got a significanatly better one and I can get it and afford it I really want to know–that’s why “Software Finds” can be so helpful. I have relatively little experience with image/photo programs and a lot of music/media/mp3/audio programs just to name one area of many, and I really appreciate it when someone who is obviously experienced with them for years can point out the best they feel they’ve found.

Diskeeper’s site has a free manual and an awful lot of good information on hard drives and sectors whatever you’re using. By the way, if you are using Diskeeper, they have an update download called Build 428 for whichever of the 3 progams you have. Exec Soft told me that Diskeeper 8.0 is coming out in a few months, but they wouldn’t tell me when or what it will have.

SMBP

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I truly appreciate what I can learn from other people and someone who works on and builds computers as their day job–and welcome it and will only get sensitive if I can write a program I think is great some day and critiques tear it to pieces. Always look forward to your posts.

BTW, I was having a little trouble at first mousing over the link to Diskeeper’s 7.0 update I put up here (I had downloaded it on another machine) and called no wait at all and they immediately emailed me the entire program with the update already added. I have found Exec Soft to be about as responsive as it gets, with a toll free number and willing to personally email back and forth if needed in contrast to a lot of other Tech support setups. They have voluntarily emailed me articles, tutorials–and they have a pretty good update bulletin on hard drives, NTFS, and defragging. And they know that area and hard drives very well.

SMBP

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