Sorry, double posted by mistake.

jaclaz

How so? As I said the built-in defrag was stripped down meaning it was less powerful. To get more functionality you could pay for the full version. Diskeeper Corporation used to be Executive Software. They made money off Microsoft licensing the stripped down version that was part of the installed OS.



Do some searching on the web. This is not a new revelation. The XP built-in defrag was definitely the stripped down Diskeeper. Executive Software did offer a free version at one point and I don't know what the differences were between that and what was part of Windows.

I must correct myself. I believe Diskeeper was used in XP and the newer NT-based OSes. Symantec holds some of the ownership of the Windows 98 built-in defrag software. I have no idea about ME and Vista.



I had issues updating and uninstalling on multiple systems. In short, I couldn't uninstall the software in some cases without reformatting. I did go through support and the results, in the end, were just not enough for me to wish to continue using the product. As for a time period of when I used the software... the company was still Executive Software back then and I've been using PerfectDisk for quite some time. I can't give a definitive answer.



Good for you. We are all entitled to our opinions and likes and dislikes.



Sorry if I have to roll my eyes. You don't even know me and you suggest this? The Diskeeper software was fully licensed by me until I let the license lapse due to my not using it anymore. My Raxco software is fully licensed by me and I continually update the license as needed. The O&O software I used I was evaluating with the trial version.

I would advise you to bite your tongue before replying to other people like this in the future. I made a simple post and noted I had issues and in your vehement support for Diskeeper you have all but flat out accused me of being a person who used warez. I don't take kindly to that. You've made a false assumption both about my knowledge and that I'm a pirate. Very offensive.



I read a lot of forums and I also see a lot of people recommend O&O and Raxco over Diskeeper. As I said, people are entitled to their opinions and their likes and dislikes. I, personally, do not like Diskeeper and have my valid reasons for that.

Oh please. Every other major defragmenter does everything Diskeeper does, and then some. Care to elaborate about all those very special features that only Diskeeper has and that makes it oh-so-great? I have a hunch it'll be a VERY short list (~0 lines), or one filled with factual errors.

I can't even think of any way how it's superior to O&O and Perfectdisk, much the inverse. If anything, it sounds to me like you never used anything else, or much like jaclaz says, that your opinion is heavily biased towards what makes you money/stuff you sell.

And talking about money, that's a place where Diskeeper is "greater" for sure -- charging more $ for the same feature set.

This is one place where Diskeeper is shooting themselves in the foot. I can name quite a few people I know who have disks or arrays that are greater than 1TB in size. Heck - my desktop at home uses two 640GB drives in RAID0, breaking their 1TB barrier. On that basis alone, there's no way that I'll spend $99 on Diskeeper Pro Premier when PerfectDisk Professional will do just fine - for $39. Not to mention - I can get a three pack of PD2008 Pro for $69.

As for my storage array (8x1TB RAID5), $1000 for Diskeeper Enterprise server? No thanks. I'll happily pay $100 for PerfectDisk Server though.

I purchased PerfectDisk years ago and due to their Upgrade Protection program I have continuously gotten updates through the years for all 9 USD a year. I don't pay for upgrades for major or minor versions. Yeah, I'm definitely loving the cost issue with PerfectDisk on top of the fact that is simply a solid program.

All software has bugs at times. That's a fact of life. By the way TheUrbanMyth talks you would think that Diskeeper has never ever had any bugs at all. It's simply infallible. Give me a break. I hadn't even looked at their profile until it was pointed out that they sell Diskeeper. No wonder their support for Diskeeper is so rabid and also explains why they so quickly all but said I was a pirate. The insinuation was clear, however.

In answer to your question I have been an IT Consultant and Technician for many years, and NO I do not Promote because I sell, I sell because I believe that people can benefit from the best software available. Quite frankly you are very correct in your statement concerning my knowledge of their history and due to this forums topics and information share I will investigate it further as it is good to know what you are talking about, isn't it? But I am aware of the product and what its capabilities are and I still firmly stand behind it. Diskeeper like any other corporation is going to have its faults, but here we have strayed from the point. Diskeeper Defragmentation Software is superior in my eyes. And that is all I intended to say.

I and others whom I employ spend a great deal of time searching for new solutions to better our clients and partners. We have found few who stand above the rest and YES, we promote the ones that do. I joined this forum for three reasons.
1. To gain information from knowledgable sources and to explore possibilies for new and undevoured technology and information.
2. To share based on my personal, and my companies knowledgbase to somehow help others find the answers they seek easily as I personally understand how difficult it is to find the answers we all seek everyday.
3. To Learn and communicate with others with the same fundemental values, needs, and knowledge.

As you are also I am sure. Thank you for your relevant information, I asked and was answered and I hope this can continue as we are all here in the pursuit of something, better, bigger, and beyond ourselves.

Diskeeper like any other corporation is going to have its faults, but here we have strayed from the point. Diskeeper Defragmentation Software is superior in my eyes. And that is all I intended to say. Oh and btw, Diskeeper 6 Is by FAR NOT a good comparrison to the current build of 10+ in 2008 Editions. NOT even close to comparing. STRIPPED TO THE MAX. Tell me what functionality they do have that would resemble Diskeepers or Perfect Disks in any way shape or form.

Just to show myself some actual performance results I went diggin a bit and this is what I found. The first one Seems sided towards Perfect Disk. I kept in mind the tests are pretty similar so I thought of what I look for in a defragment software.

1.) Performance. I've not doubted Diskeeper in quite a while but this is what I've found.

Defragment Performance Test

In this I could only find that the Resources used are much more user friendly on the Diskeeper end of it, but who doesn't have extra resources alot of the time.
So now I'm thinking.....

2.) Cost. Here's what I found
Value-Comparison

May I add though at a user level Both products will suffice to the extreme, the only major difference it seems being that Perfect Disk doesn't defrag over a Network, and that there is no other advanced enterprise functions.

So I'm coming around.....Suffice it to say, I will be installing it tonight and I will reconsider my stand on Diskeeper. I am not alone though It seems the majority in the poll feel the same way I do. Maybe this will help someone decide. Seems like we have acieved at least one goal here. Thanks to everyone who shared valueable info. Dare I say I may just stick with Diskeeper yet, Time and Tests will tell.



EDIT-And I am sorry to the Mod and Admin for the double post I honestly thought someone else would have posted before I got to the end of this.

I'd be one of those people too, 12 HDs just in this box alone...


Yes, DK has plenty of such artificial limitations/limits. The home version is x86-only (wtf?), has a 1TB limit, and no I-FAAST, no Frag Shield. I'd also be forced to spend $99 per PC on the Pro Premier, which is still artificially limited despite the high cost: no Terabyte Volume Engine/2TB limit (I can already foresee that being a problem with cheap 1TB drives, and yes, $1000 price tag then!), still no centralized admin console (you need the $250 admin app for that), etc.

PerfectDisk indeed does do a GREAT job of defragmenting (better than DisKeeper IMO) and has better features. And even their $39 product (Pro version) has no artificial drive/array size limitations whatsoever, works fine with the free (and better) centralized admin console and everything else. And yes, if you have more than one PC, there's also bundles, 3 licenses for $23/PC which is a great price for home users (DK Pro is 4x the price, and is still limited)

PerfectDisk is not only much better priced, but also offers more standard features, and has other specialized versions for VMware (defrags inside VMs) and Exchange Servers (defrags the data store itself) for which DisKeeper has no solution AFAIK.

Most people who recommend DK do it because it's the name they know, not out of technical merit.

@The Urban Myth

Allright , to try and clarify, this is a question:

You can tell by the ending question mark and the use of the auxiliary verb "do".

The one you posted is an affirmation:


Totally and utterly based on at least partially false premises.
Anyone reading the above sentence is induced to think:
1) that you actually compared the "core" (whatever it is) of Diskeeper with Windows defragging
2) that you have the technical knowledge to do the above
3) that you found profound differences
4) that you are deeply informed in the Commercial and licensing agreements between MS and Diskeeper (was Executive Software)

Then you challenge another user to provide evidence contrasting your apodictical claim that Microsoft has no affiliation to Diskeeper, giving the latter as a known fact, but without providing any support for it.

Then you go on, unneedingly hinting that the other user is a WAREZ user:


And you top the above with the old rhetorical trick of "everyone does this, thus it can't be wrong":


The fact that (supposedly) millions of (supposedly) professionals use this program instead of another may show (once documented) a trend, not in the least prove the superiority of software "A" over software "B".
And, besides, the needs of a professional may not be the same of an amateur or of a home user.


I do appreciate your newish "declared" approach:



In conclusion:


Good.
As long as you use expressions like AFAIK, "in my eyes" and so on, it's your personal opinion, and as thus is sacred here, when you induce people to think that your opinion is somehow superior to that of other people because of your background or experience, or it is a known fact, you will be challenged to support it with facts, references, test results, and the like.

I hope that apart this initial misunderstanding, you will become an active member and contribute to the board your experience and knowledge.

jaclaz

I shall be editing my posts a little more carefully in the future, Thank you for your support, feedback, challanges, information, and suggestions. Again, this is my opinion and I am open to considering others. You are also right Trends do NOT mean that it is superior, and considering we have to very excellent products on the top of the list for this debate/conversation I would say its irrelevant, but I am happy that the information is now fresh in the post and that people have some great ideas on what is a good product for defragmenting their computers, professional, or personal. Thank you also for your welcoming comments and I will be here for some time to share and to learn.

@TheUrbanMyth

Then, you might be interested in these:
http://www.msfn.org/board/tiny-fast-functi...fra-t92895.html
http://www.msfn.org/board/Defragment-Program-t85812.html
the defragging topic appears to be one (just like the NTFS vs. FAT32, the XP vs. 98, the Godzilla vs. Mickey Mouse and, lately, the Vista vs. XP) of those where people tend to heat up a bit.

If Jeremy decided to take some time apart from Diskeeper.....
... and Zxian appears to be now more on the side of PerfectDisk....
....there may be reasons.

Myself, and for personal use, being admittedly cheap tend to prefer Freeware/Open Source anyway, living with the small limitations this choice may have.

Cheers,

jaclaz

Your picture seems peculiarly familiar, like that of Neo's.

You're not the another incarnation of Neo, are you?

I myself really like PerfectDisk, since it features very good free-space consolidation and uses a fileplacement-scheme that's oriented towards reducing re-fragmention and making feuture defrags faster, but i'm actually instead using UltimateDefrag, since it provides the same functionality in a lighter and portable app which dosen't need any extra processes running in the background(by using 'Recency' mode and sorting by file-modification date from outer to inner)...

I'm using the older v1.72 non-freeware version, since that's the last version supporting my No.1 OS of choise i.e. Win2k...

Just my two cents

I am currently using Puran Defrag from http://www.puransoftware.com and m very happy... I highly recommend it.

I will go with Digkeeper 8 professional.
THANKS

I admit I was an impulse shopper when I purchased Diskeeper Home Edition.

My reasons for justifying it are as follows:

1. I am tired of nit-picking defragmenters.
2. I wanted one that handled everything automatically and silently.
3. I have not had a problem with fragmentation since I installed Diskeeper.
4. I will eventually be moving to Linux. To my knowledge, either fragmentation is not a problem in Linux or too few (if any) defragmenters support Linux.

What are your thoughts on #4?

Jeremy:

There will also be fragmentation at some point i guess, unless the filesystem is built to automatically place files in optimal order?
I've been running with 64KB clusters for some years and its awesome, defragment a 1TB disk in just minutes, file copying and moving is very fast staggering at a minimum of 70mb/s across drives, and typical 100/mb s.
Creating and copying large files, such as iso's, especially like linux iso's at several gigabytes is just fun. Using Directory opus, worlds greatest file manager ever (and more), you can enable to always see transfer rates.
It's just plain old geekie, good fun! =)

JKDefrag64 is very nice imho, i used to like defraggers as o&o, perfect disk etc, even diskkeeper, but they all got bloated at one point, and got hit by the trend that is nowadays, it needs to look good to sell. Forgetting the whole point of that its supposed to be a 100% performance program, not a application that just looks good, and installs all kinds of services into system, startup programs one never needs etc.

JKDefrag i can just setup to automatically run whenever i want, i can use it as a portable program, running defrag automatically after windows install is just great as it takes all drives it find and defrags them.

Priceless when you just have an unattended windows dvd, and it really is set&forget it, in its truest possible form.

I've used several different defragment utilities over the years and none of them are perfect it seems to me.

Diskkeeper showed promise, but it doesn't seem to live up to it's promises. Using some of it's better features like the set it and forget it and screen saver mode can cause problems on the PC. Plus it doesn't seem to help with performance over the long run.

Back in the days of FAT32 and FAT16 I really felt that PC Tools Speed Disk was probably the best. It was slow, but it did a rather thorough job of it.

The default defragger that comes with Windows still is and always has been nearly useless.

I recently discovered a product called Ultimate Defrag by disktrix.com They have released their older version to home users for free so you can download and try it out. I like all the options, but if you do anything that reorganizes your drive completely it will take a long time to do it. The main thing that I noticed was after allowing it the necessary time to completely reorganize my drive there was a very noticeable difference in performance. I can't say the same for Diskkeeper or the windows default defragger. In order to maintain the performance boost I now run in fragment files only mode which takes only a few minutes to run. I do this about once a week or anytime I do a bunch of cleanup on my system and it's been performing better than it ever has.

So, just from my experiences I have to say that I think Ultimate Defrag is one defrag utility that is not a waste of money, and even the free version is a worthy product.

I must agree with "lynbor" here, UltimateDefrag has shown promise for a good year now, but only recently has it actually been bug-free enough to depend on to do an outstanding job, but as of it's latest releases, such as version 2.0.0.51 it is proven to be the best defragmenter I've ever used IMHO. I am EXTREMELY O.C.D. about my computer and it has really proven itself to me!! It has no services in the background, I enjoy the new approach to their GUI, it has a very small install, and it has a PLETHORA of options that allows for absolutely complete control of your filesystem.

I recommend you set it up for File/Folder placement as it will really kicks your games and applictions into overdrive. One drawback is that it has no boot-time defragger, so after every manual defrag you do, just throw "defrag -b c:" into the Start Menu\Run Dialog.

http://disktrix.com/UDIntroduction.htm

Pardon me for butting in here , but have there been any studies that prove conclusively that defragmentation actually improves performance? I'm not saying file systems don't get fragmented, just skeptical about the need for a dedicated defrag tool for typical home users. Once could say that the fact that Windows comes with them built in is proof enough, I just want to see any empirical, independent data on this.

It's mostly a "state of mind".

There are people that find that defragmenting VERY often is needed, other that think that defragmenting MUST be done, but not so often.

Compare this:
http://www.msfn.org/board/Defragment-Program-t85812.html
http://www.msfn.org/board/Defragment-Progr....html&st=22

As I see it it depends on the use the hard disk is put to, which filesystem is used, and so on, one user might need on a weekly basis, another one on a monthly one, a few a daily (possibly overnight) one.

I would say that when it is needed, defragging a drive is useful, overdoing it is not, point is finding a way of compromise, i.e. at which level of fragmentation the performance decreases up to the point where a defrag is needed and when it is not.

"Blindly" defragging too often, say daily or twice a day, even when there is not a real need, may put additional stress to the mechanical parts of a hard disk.

Lots of articles talk about "case studies" and "researches", but utterly fail to provide a link to them, see this for example:
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows...icles/1702.aspx

The only studies you can usually find around are made by the defrag utility makers, thus I wouldn't call them "independent":
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pwwi/is_/ai_n25159836
http://www.scribd.com/doc/101131/Is-RealTi...eeded-in-Todays


OT, but not much , another hard disk related MYTH is on the way of being debunked, the "wipe-with-several-passes" secure deletion myth:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=21783
thanks also to this nice initiative:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/06/189248
http://16systems.com/zero/index.html

jaclaz

Ultimate Defrag 2008

3'rd party defragmenters that features intelligent file-placement schemes will obviously improve performance compared to the built-in solution, as that dosen't feature intelligent file-placement, but the actual performance difference however, is IMHO indeed very much overestimated by the different 3'rd party vendors...

The most important thing for performance IMHO is to get the filesystem defragmented, period - and so in that case, then the built-in solution is fine, allthough the other 3'rd party defragmenters generally are both faster, defrags more files, consolidates free space and defrags most NTFS metadata also, in addition to the above mentioned intelligent file-placement schemes...

uh oh... JkDefrag...

Speed Disk was from Symantec and NOT from PC Tools.

BTW, I have tried Ultimate Defrag 1.72, which is now freeware and it may be better than JKDefrag 3x!

I'm looking forward to JKDefrag 4!

Please continue discussion at the new topic:
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=129473