The Friendliest Computer Club in Ventura County Since 1986
DISKEEPER
This is a reprint has not appeared in the TOE Newsletter yet.
By Jim Thornton
As a computer user, you dread the thought of having your computer slowdown during bootup or when opening a program, or experience an overall system slow down. Or even worse have bootup failures, total system crashes and freeze ups, etc. The easiest way to avoid these problems caused by a highly fragmented hard drive is to regularly run a good defragmentation program. But how do hard drives get fragmented in the first place? When you open and close your e-mail program, your Microsoft Word program, etc., including when you are surfing the Internet, scanning for viruses or spyware, etc., your computer is moving files back and forth between your hard drive and your RAM (random access memory). This file movement activity occurs, for example, when opening a program, the space where the files came from is immediately reused and is no longer available. Therefore, your computer must breakup the returning files into segments in order to fit them into the remaining smaller free spaces on your hard drive, resulting in your files being fragmented or scattered all over your hard drive and not being placed together. Defragging programs reassemble these file segments and the most common programs are Microsoft's Disk Defragmenter, Norton Utilities' Speed Disk, and Executive Software's Diskeeper. In the February 2004 issue of this newsletter, I reviewed and compared these three programs and selected Diskeeper as being the program of choice. Since that time, the Diskeeper programs has been upgraded twice to version 10.0 and let's see what the improvements are.
DISPLAYS - One of the first things that you notice is a greatly improved interface that is easier to use with more user-friendly reports on the health of your drive, its real-time performance, and fragmentation status. During the defragging process, the activity is graphically displayed using seven different colored blocks providing detailed information - blue for defragmented files, yellow for paging file, white for unused space, light blue for defragmented folders, red for fragmented files and folders, green for system files, and white/green for reserved system space.
SPEED - Diskeeper is the fastest, taking less than one minute to defrag a 93GB hard drive that was 14 percent full of data. Diskeeper run equally well in the regular and safe modes. During the defragging time, Diskeeper reports its status in terms of percentage complete.
RUNNING IN THE BACKGROUND - Diskeeper runs totally invisible to all other programs that are running and doesn't interfere with those programs in any way. In other words, you can keep on using your computer while Diskeeper is defragging it. In fact, you won't know when Diskeeper is defragging your computer unless you happen to notice a small blue Diskeeper icon down temporarily in your system tray.
WHEN TO RUN - Defragmentation is completely automatic and no longer do you need to schedule when to run the program. However, if you still wish to schedule the defragmentation, you can use Diskeeper's scheduler "Set It and Forget It" which can be programmed to run hourly with choices ranging from every 2 to 72 hours, every day or one day of the week, after hours, every night, on weekends only, whenever the screen saver is activated, every time your computer is restarted, or whenever a certain level of file movement has been reached. Plus you can specify the starting and ending times.
FILE MOVEMENT - One of the new features is Intelligent File Access Acceleration Sequencing Technology (I-FAAST), which reduces the file access times by an average of 10 to 20 percent and as high as 80 percent according to the manufacturer. It identifies your most commonly used files and keeps them totally defragmented. This feature is only available on computers using NTFS operating systems (Windows 2000, NT, and XP).
REPORTS - Diskeeper provides detailed reports ranging from degree of fragmentation, the current and the optimum read speeds after defragmentation as measured in milliseconds, number of fragments per file, percent of fragmentation, etc. And even lists your most fragmented files by name and location.
OPTIONS - When you call up Diskeeper and view a drive, a several options are available - Set It and Forget It (to schedule future defragmentations), Analyze (to obtain a status report how fragmented the drive is), Defragment (to defragment the drive), Change Your Settings (to change your scheduling of defragmentations, etc.), Help, etc.
COST - There are almost as many versions of Diskeeper as there are of Windows XP or Vista. The most elaborate version is the Professional Premier followed by the Professional which does everything that the Professional Premier does except it doesn't have the I-FAAST feature and the disk support is limited to 768GB while the Professional Premier supports 2TB (2,000GB). The Home version like the Professional doesn't have the I-FAAST feature and also only supports 768GB drives. In addition, the Home version doesn't support 64 bit operating systems. Executive Software's Diskeeper the Home Edition version 10.0 is $30, Professional is $50, and Professional Premium is $100. The Professional Premium edition and other server editions are intended for larger business networks while the Home edition is ideal for the home computer user including those who have small home networks.
RECOMMENDATIONS - The easiest defragging program to use is Diskeeper as it is the fastest, runs in the background, provides good reports, has its own scheduler, and is compatible with all versions of Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, and XP. I used to use Norton Utilities' Speed Disk with Windows 95, 98, and Me as Windows' Disk Defragmenter was way too slow. Did you know that Microsoft includes a stripped down version of Diskeeper identified as its Disk Defragment program in Windows XP? Another endorsement is from the Intel Corporation who includes Diskeeper Lite in their Intel Desktop Utilities version 2.1.9.66. In addition, Diskeeper works equally well on USB flash drives and works wonders on laptop drives.
Diskeeper is introducing a new version of Diskeeper for 64-bit computers and for Windows XP and Vista users. This version is called Diskeeper 2007 and comes in the same three different versions - Home ($30), Professional ($50), and Professional Premier ($100). A free trial version is available from for Diskeeper and may be used up to 45 days.
