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Perfect Disk


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I've tested both - Diskeeper and PerfectDisk. Which one did I decide to purchase?

PerfectDisk of course. Even when it runs in the background (on Autopilot), it's non-intrusive, and doesn't slow the system down to a halt. I've never had any problems with PD, but oh god, the problems I've had with Diskeeper. In terms of stability, PD takes the cake. Diskeeper would freeze up on me at random, and keep in mind- I wasn't using it on just one system, I was testing it on a variety of systems, including a few file servers and bench machines (all at work). PD seems to take care of the files before moving them. Diskeeper seems to move files reguardless of their importance to the system.

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Well, it's a trade-off then...

You either go with PerfectDisk to have all your files side-by-side for fastest access time,

or

You go with Diskeeper which will place files at the beginning and end of the disk and just leave huge gaps in between files.

I have to say that this is one of the best threads ive ever read here at MSFN. HDD's are close to my heart, and i greatly fear their loss.

which is why i want to go with whichever will reduce the workload on my HDD. Im not worried about speed.

is there a significance between the health of a HDD that is defragged by either PD or DK?

one more quick question, is PD8 significanctly better in performance than PD7? if a thread over this topic exists, feel free to direct me to it.

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It has been said by some users on different forums that PD8 performs a bit faster than PD7. I haven't tested this myself, even though I would love to, so I myself would know for sure and then let everyone else know.

Sheesh, and Zxian's supposed to be the scientist, not me... :P

Anyway, I don't think any of us really know which one does do the better job. I personally feel like PD8 does the best job because I like how my files are placed in sequencial order (side-by-side).

Zxian obviously feels DK does the better job since DK leaves room between files for say, a Windows Update to system files. If PD arranges files side-by-side, an update to a system file that is placed at the very beginning of the disk, would probably result in all other files being moved over that small amount to make room. I don't think

this is known for certain, though. if so, SmartPlacement would require a tougher workload for your harddrive as opposed to defrag-only or even having DK leave gaps between files.

The question is:

a) Is it better to have every side by side for best access time and the least distance needed to travel by the harddrive's mechanical reader?

b ) Is it better to have files placed here and there, beginning and end on the disk so the arm has to go from one end to the other.

You also have to ask yourself, "Am I being too picky?" Because harddrives today are guarenteed for what, 5 years? So regardless of the access times or how many times you try and access your files, the harddrive should last you a very long time.

Anyway, having a defragged drive with one of these excellent products is how to keep your drive healthy.

Never having heard of defragmenting and having a drive you've been using for 5 years... that's unhealthy.

Zxian says:

on a global scale (i.e. ALL files), PerfectDisk puts all the files together, lowering overall seek times (access times will depend on other factors)

Zxian says:

on a local scale, Diskeeper's I-FAAST puts related files closer together, leading to those files being accessed quicker together than they would be under SmartPlacement (or no placement strategy)

Zxian says:

when you boot windows, you're only looking at a portion of your entire disk contents, meaning that you need to look at the system on a local scale (basically just the contents of C:\Windows\ more or less)

Jeremy says:

Diskeeper keeps files placed together by file type?

Zxian says:

not file type - file associations

Zxian says:

i.e. it realizes that you're probably going to be accessing shell32.dll and explorer.exe in a relatively short time period (i.e. one file, then the other)

Zxian says:

so it'll put those two together

Zxian says:

so if PerfectDisk only arranges files based on last access (except for those listed in the layout.ini file), it wouldn't necessarily lead to those two files being placed "close" to each other

Edited by Jeremy
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I fully understand what Zxian is saying, but im not sure hes right. sort of. ha!

"Zxian says:

i.e. it realizes that you're probably going to be accessing shell32.dll and explorer.exe in a relatively short time period (i.e. one file, then the other) so it'll put those two together. PerfectDisk only arranges files based on last access (except for those listed in the layout.ini file), it wouldn't necessarily lead to those two files being placed "close" to each other"

theoretically it may be true that shell32.dll and explorer.exe may not be placed close together, because association isnt how PD directly works, but the reality is that those two files will be placed close together.

Smartplacement may sort files in the order of most recently accessed, but if two files are accessed virtually at the same time, wouldnt they be placed together?

leaving gaps like you do on a bookshelf so you can add new books without moving them all over sounds good, but i think its faster to go with PD, because associated files would still be placed together.

if im to understand this properly, anyway.

i mean....yea, PD basically lumps all the files accessed, say....within the last week, and puts them altogether, but its doesnt just put them together randomly. It would only make sense that shell32.dll and explorer.exe would be close together.

am i completely wrong? most of this im jsut getting from what ive been reading here, about how each functions. and it seems like perfectdisk is more efficient.

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Smartplacement may sort files in the order of most recently accessed, but if two files are accessed virtually at the same time, wouldnt they be placed together?

SmartPlacement groups files based on how frequenyly a file is modified, not last access. The two files may have been modified at differnt times, and therefore be regarded as "different" by PD.

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if your harddrive is even remotely full, it will take that fat bloated DK about 50 long tries to defrag it completely. DK is trash.

PD is lightweight and works. the science behind DK may or may not be better, but PD makes a noticeable difference in speed when i use it on a heavily fragged drive. DK does too, but not as much.

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What size file systems and % full has anyone run PD8 on? We need to run it on our SQL 2005 drive which is 60 - 70% full of a 250 Gig drive on our SAN. Since this is our bread-n-butter database, I am a little reluctant to run PD8 on it since it just came out. We purchased it and ran it on the test server w/o any problems, but I am wondering if that will have any minor updates to fix any show-stopper type bugs.

Any replies would be greatly appreciated.

Also, does the PD8 for Exchange actually shrink the size of the exchange database files or just defrag the files internally? The reason I ask is that we only have about 2.5 gig free on our Exchange drive.

Thanks,

-John

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What size file systems and % full has anyone run PD8 on?

1.28TB NTFS @ ~85%, and lots of other smaller disks, including some with only a few MBs left of free space... No problems whatsoever.

I don't think it's unreliable or anything like that. But I've never tried to defrag a SAN remotely, I'd be a little worried the first time (I'd try on another disk coming off the SAN first - something that's backed up and not mission critical).

Also, does the PD8 for Exchange actually shrink the size of the exchange database files or just defrag the files internally? The reason I ask is that we only have about 2.5 gig free on our Exchange drive.

Yes it does. You get space back from reclaiming the unused space in the data store. Very good and reliable product. You will need more free space than that to run it though.

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what i just know is diskeeper never use 100% usage before or after defrag...

perfect disk will use up to 100% when analyzing disk....

maybe that is the cause of the topic starting about....

just try out perfectdisk.... still vote diskeeper... dun hate me.. =)

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Ok, so let me see if I got the gist of this thread correctly..... (so far, it's been a bit vague)

PerfectDisk is crapola.....Diskkeeper is written by the same company that wrote Windows Defrag (a fact, not rumor) and they support the Church of Scientology. How am I doing so far?

Well, I'm so glad to know all that, but I quit using Defrag a long time ago to keep my HD in order.

All the defrag programs 'wet the bed' as far as this tech is concerned. The last decent Defrag was in Windows ME. I still share that will all my Win-98 customers.

I found that if I just do a Ghost Restore after I've done a Ghost backup, all my files are rewritten in perfect order, with no spaces and NO fragmentation. And it only takes five minutes, not the long times that defrag programs are noted for. When seen from MS XP's Defrag Analysis, right after a Restore, it looks like this:

mydrive.jpg

Now, if any of yous have a Defrag program that can do any better'n that.....I'll buy it. :thumbup:lol::lol::lol:

Cheers!

Andromeda43 :thumbup

Yes there is and it's SpeedDisk from the Norton Systemworks. However it's quite old (they never updated it since 2001).

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