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whats the Best Disk Defragmenter?

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Grand Master

BryanChung

Posted
Posted
why do you need to ask stupid questions?

perhaps peoples opinions might change?

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https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=29565

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=341423

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=284633

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=222909

Well I figured we still make our opinions in those. esp. the first.

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Experienced

metro

Posted
Posted

I like PerfectDisk better, but it gave me problems with running Boot Time defrags. It would never start and just reboot back into Windows. Diskeeper has always been able to run a flawless boot time defrag, but I never really noticed any disk performance issues. I turn off indexing for my HDD's, and everything just fires right up as soon as I double click an icon or a folder. I currently use Diskeeper, but on my next reformat I might install PD again and give it another try.

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Grand Master

Bearded Kirklander

Posted
Posted
Speed disk takes way to long to defragment..and even after its done, its hard to tell whether it even did anything or not.

After running Diskeeper, my system didn't seem any faster.  But after running PerfectDisk, I could actually tell that my system ran more smoothly and programs loaded faster.

The key for me is that the space is contiguous. I delete all my temp files prior to defragging, and of course do the scan disk for errors and fix 'em thing (used to be called scandisk, but Microsoft likes to rename crap and confuse you) but Diskeeper seems no better than Norton in regards to making things contiguous.

Silly programs. Do what I freakin' want you to do and stop messin' around.

Why can't we just shut down to the command line like we could in Windows 3.1 and then run defrag from there?

We need a bootable command line option with full long file name / ntfs support so we can drop to a boot floppy or cd and run a command line based util outside the multitasking nature of the OS.

Kinda like how I can run Norton Ghost 2003 for DOS off of a floppy. Gets every single file, no sweat.

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Collaborator

nos_grunt

Posted
Posted
PerfectDisk

O&O & Diskeeper both require service that runs all the times

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You can simply disable the service via control panel > administrative tools, then just turn it back on when you want to defrag :yes:

As per my post above, does PerfectDisk allow "intelligent" scheduled maintenence? IE: will it only perform the scheduled maintenence if the degree of fragmentation on the disk exceeds a certain percentage (5%, 10%, etc.)?

If so, I'll definately have to give it a go.

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Collaborator

nos_grunt

Posted
Posted
Still, kinda lame they do that.  Why can't stuff just load only when you execute the program?

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It probably has something to do with scheduled defrags. Which brings me to my previous post - anyone know if PerfectDisk has what I'm talking about?

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Proficient

BLEHINATOR!

Posted
Posted
It probably has something to do with scheduled defrags. Which brings me to my previous post - anyone know if PerfectDisk has what I'm talking about?

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http://www.raxco.com/products/perfectdisk2...2k_features.cfm

User-defined thresholds for defragmentation

Allows you to limit the times when PerfectDisk is run to only when a certain level of fragmentation is reached, thereby reducing unnecessary runs.

appears so... might give perfectdisk a whirl again... last time i used it it would always BSOD on the page file. Dunno why, so swapped to OO defrag.

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Contributor

rawr

Posted
Posted
The key for me is that the space is contiguous.  I delete all my temp files prior to defragging, and of course do the scan disk for errors and fix 'em thing (used to be called scandisk, but Microsoft likes to rename crap and confuse you) but Diskeeper seems no better than Norton in regards to making things contiguous.

Silly programs.  Do what I freakin' want you to do and stop messin' around.

Why can't we just shut down to the command line like we could in Windows 3.1 and then run defrag from there?

We need a bootable command line option with full long file name / ntfs support so we can drop to a boot floppy or cd and run a command line based util outside the multitasking nature of the OS.

Kinda like how I can run Norton Ghost 2003 for DOS off of a floppy.  Gets every single file, no sweat.

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As I do the same..clean up system using CClean and Advanced System Optimzer: Privacy Protector before running PerfectDisk. I also make sure no programs are running. Quick question though..isn't the 'Offline Defragment' kinda what you're talking about? Oh and one more question about defragmenting..would you get better defragmentation results if you defragmented in 'Safe Mode'? Sorry for the newbie question. :blush:

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Grand Master

Bearded Kirklander

Posted
Posted

Here is PerfectDisk 7 saying it has done a full-on defrag:

perdisk1.png

I captured it at 99% second round to show the progress. The map is the same in the above as when it is 100% done and that summary page pops up.

Sure does not look 100% contiguous to me. :(

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Grand Master

Bearded Kirklander

Posted
Posted
Perfect Disk by far is the best

If you could, please explain the above and why Perfect Disk seemingly does no better than Diskeeper, or Norton Speed Disk for that matter.

I'm not saying Perfect Disk is not a decent app, but surely it's not the be-all-end-all that some may claim, no?

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Grand Master

Martyn

Posted
Posted
If you could, please explain the above and why Perfect Disk seemingly does no better than Diskeeper, or Norton Speed Disk for that matter.

I'm not saying Perfect Disk is not a decent app, but surely it's not the be-all-end-all that some may claim, no?

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Ok, I will elaborate some more. Basically I have tried both Diskeeper and PerfectDisk, Diskeeper used to take a long, long, long time to defrag my hardive and when it finished I couldnt notice any speed difference.

Then I thought whats the point of bothering to defrag if I cant notice any difference? So I switched to PerfectDisk and I found that it defragged a lot faster than Diskeeper and then I selected "Smart Placement" I found my computer started faster (I did both normal defrag and offline defrag and timed it with Bootvis and its shaved 7 seconds off the boot time).

However, to each his own.

One disadvantage with PerfectDisk is that it is not very fast at defragging FAT 32 drives, so if you really want to maximise the use of the program then convert to NTFS ;)

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Grand Master

Bearded Kirklander

Posted
Posted
One disadvantage with PerfectDisk is that it is not very fast at defragging FAT 32 drives, so if you really want to maximise the use of the program then convert to NTFS  ;)

Another user was able to help me figure out that there were some settings under a different menu area. Instead of being in the TOOLS > ADVANCED CONFIGURATION menu and dialog, where all of the other key settings seem to be, these additional settings are under the DEFRAGMENT > DRIVE PROPERTIES menu and dialog. Silly GUI builders.

Anyway, there is the OFFLINE DEFRAG SETTINGS tab:

perdisk3.png

and once I set that and had it reboot and defrag with those 3 options, the final result looked like this:

perdisk4.png

Which is much more what one would expect. Not perfect, but much closer.

I'm glad it has a dedicated option for FAT / FAT32 directories instead of just abandoning these formats. FAT 32 comes in mega-handy for dual boot and game / app compatibility stuff, so it's good that Perfect Disk can handle them.

Bummer it can't do it all from inside of Windows, but kudos that it has the option to do it all in an offline defrag.

Thanks for the comments and assistance. :)

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Mentor

the_snitch

Posted
Posted

I place a vote for PerfectDisk (Y)

Ive found it to be great. However it wont run anymore for me - i disabled a bunch of services i didnt think i needed in Windows and now Perfectdisk wont start the defrag. I cant figure out which service it is i have to reenable too :(

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Collaborator

nos_grunt

Posted
Posted
I place a vote for PerfectDisk (Y)

Ive found it to be great. However it wont run anymore for me - i disabled a bunch of services i didnt think i needed in Windows and now Perfectdisk wont start the defrag. I cant figure out which service it is i have to reenable too :(

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Did you check to make sure the "task scheduler" service was enabled to automatic? Other than that, i cannot think of any windows services that it would run off of, unless PD installs/needs its own services?

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Grand Master

Dark Ride

Posted
Posted (edited)
I place a vote for PerfectDisk (Y)

Ive found it to be great. However it wont run anymore for me - i disabled a bunch of services i didnt think i needed in Windows and now Perfectdisk wont start the defrag. I cant figure out which service it is i have to reenable too :(

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Right click 'My Computer' -> Manage -> Services & Applications -> Services -> Right click 'PDEngine' and set 'Startup type' to 'Manual'.Click 'Apply' then 'OK'

Do the same for 'PDSheduler' - though you can set this to 'Automatic' if you want, if you have sheduled defragmentaions.

Edited by Dark Ride
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