[rms]

Jeremy, on Oct 9 2006, 02:59 AM, said:

I don't agree that defragmenter Services are 'unnecessary'. I use Diskeeper and it adds only one Service, which is set to Automatic. Diskeeper monitors the overall fragmentation level of the harddrive and kicks in the defrag on the fly in the background. The impact this has on system performance is negligable, especially for my system which has 2 GBs of RAM. Considering that, I wouldn't say the Service is useless...

"Negligable" probably depends on what you are doing. When you are doing real time audio processing with 128 samples or less buffer, there is hardly anything negligible, even that one service - not talking about 'kicking in' of any kind. And, however sophisticated, those automatic algorithms are still primitive anyway. Maybe ok for office work, but for me that background activity is totally unacceptable.

Jeremy, on Oct 9 2006, 02:59 AM, said:

PerfectDisk adds two Services (PDAgent.exe, PDSched.exe) and both of them can be set to Manual without affecting the functionality of PD at all.

That is why I am using it, not DK.

Jeremy, on Oct 9 2006, 02:59 AM, said:

Also, you're statement here is opinionated and biased. It would be nice if someone actually came up with a way to compare defragmenters.

It is still based on some tests I have made for myself- sorry, not to prove anything here, and also on some real life observations, as I am quite often doing things that are really sensitive to drive fragmentation.

Jeremy, on Oct 9 2006, 02:59 AM, said:

See, I've noticed the opposite when using PerfectDisk in the past. It has actually made my system seem faster.

I have actually done some tests, comparing PD8 with Windows defrag on office computer(I was interested in how boot files optimization works). Every time Windows startup was 3-5 sec faster with Windows defrag, and also all the programs I tested (ones with slow startup, like ACAD etc) started a bit faster too. I haven't got those results with me here now, but I sent them to Raxco with some technical inquiries. The answer I got was that they have made their boot optimization algorithm based on Microsoft knowledge, and that I have the option to disable it, if I didn't like it(!). My further questions are unanswered - they simply ignore me.

Here I have to note that if running Windows defrag after PD, it reorganizes significantly the boot files, and I am quite sure that it wasn't the case about a year ago, so there is some improvement from M$ I think.

At the same time, what PD does, is quite logical and seems to make sense. PD simply moves all the files, listed in layout.ini to the beginning of disk. Looking in layout.ini gives impression that those files would really belong where PD places them, so I am a bit not clear what M$ does better, but have no time to investigate now.

Jeremy, on Oct 9 2006, 02:59 AM, said:

Again, your opinion, not fact. Zxian says his PC seems faster over a period of about a month after using I-FAAST. Sick idea? How is it sick?

It is sick, because I not necessarily do most often the things where I need most of that speed. But I-FAAST optimizes more those files I access most.

I was somehow driving back client's BMW740 with adaptive gearbox. Was listening to some music and hanging behind some row of cars and trucks for some 1/2h or so. Then got a call that I am too late, and was going to overtake all those in front of me. But the car that was before like fighter jet, was in the deep sleep, because 'adaptive' had adapted to my 'stile'. It lasted only seconds and finally I didn't get killed, but that is what I call sick.
The same thing sooner or later happens with anything that does something automatically, be it a car or defrag.

Jeremy, on Oct 9 2006, 02:59 AM, said:

Question, are you speaking only from what you have read from other people, or have you actually tried PD and DK? It just seems to me like you're not solid in what you say.

Yes, I have. finally it is DK7, but just for boot time defragmentation and data drives (with 'smart placement' disabled by setting frequently/rarely modified to 0/1 days). DK is too automatic and I do not see any reason to use it, if not I-FAAST.
For system disks regular defragmentation, I use Windows defrag.

[Jeremy]

@RMS, yeah ok... I've discussed this literally to death to the point where I just can't be bothered anymore. There are too many different setups for PCs, different interpretations and perceptions from users... it's too large of a grey area to know for sure. Whatever works for you, I guess.
I just Diskeeper defrag for me and forget about it. My drive is fast and healthy, that's all that matters to me now.

[cyberloner]

stop the war and see this
automatic is automatic defrag =.=

guess what?
i dun even need to defrag my own now... lol

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This post has been edited by cyberloner: 19 October 2006 - 11:50 AM

[Halogen]

I just tried Diskeeper 2007, and I must say they pretty much fixed all the problems I had with version 10.

But I have another problem: after installing IE7 (or at least I think that's the cause) some services were deleted somehow. (Server and one called Redirector are the ones I know of). I think this is causing Diskeeper to fail when I do a manual defrag. It hangs and then spits back an error saying to check the event log.

The automatic defrag is great so I just left that on.

[jroc]

O&O Defrag is the best....the new or any version of Diskeeper is slower than my grandmother...and she's been dead for 30 years.

[Jeremy]

jroc, on Oct 19 2006, 03:46 PM, said:

O&O Defrag is the best....the new or any version of Diskeeper is slower than my grandmother...and she's been dead for 30 years.

Another meaningless response...

[cyberloner]

Halogen, on Oct 19 2006, 01:18 PM, said:

I just tried Diskeeper 2007, and I must say they pretty much fixed all the problems I had with version 10.

But I have another problem: after installing IE7 (or at least I think that's the cause) some services were deleted somehow. (Server and one called Redirector are the ones I know of). I think this is causing Diskeeper to fail when I do a manual defrag. It hangs and then spits back an error saying to check the event log.

The automatic defrag is great so I just left that on.

i do install ie7
diskeeper never hang to me..... it is perfect as always

[cybpsych]

i can't even install Diskeeper 2007 ... it keeps giving me Error 1720.

appreciate if any1 knows a solution to fix this.

p/s: I've tried the official knowledgebase, no go. Reinstalled Windows Script 5.6 and MS Installer 3.1, still the same.

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This post has been edited by cybpsych: 25 October 2006 - 03:11 AM

[Jeremy]

Thread on DriverHeaven Forums - DK11 vs. PD8
There are replies from - Greg/Raxco Software, Microsoft MVP - Windows File Systems and Michael, project manager of Diskeeper.
Michael has also posted in www.diskeeperblog.com

Edit:
@cybpsych, do you have Windows Scripting Host disabled/removed by nLite?

Click Start > Run > cmd
Type 'wscript' in the command shell
If its enabled, the Windows Script Host Settings dialog box will pop up.

If not, Google and download the freeware 'xpy' tweaking tool and enable it. Also, you might want to use Dial-A-Fix to re-register the WSH DLLs.

This post has been edited by Jeremy: 07 November 2006 - 09:45 PM

[Jeremy]

Raxco representative, Greg has replied to me here

[pepoluan]

Defrag... let's see... the ones I've used are: Microsoft's built-in defragmenter (slow, unthorough), Norton Speed Disk 2005 (even slower, never reaches completion before I get tired of it so I don't know if it's thorough or not), System Mechanic 6 (slow, don't know about its thoroughness), and finally Diskeeper 10 (fast, thorough).

Again, that is based on my experience.

I cannot honestly say I-FAAST makes my PC run faster or not. I think so, but I'm not so sure. But I like the concept that it kinda 'watches' and 'adapts' to my usage. rms's analogy of a car has a flaw: A car is complex and it adapts the driver's driving style to ensure economy. I-FAAST (and others of its ilk) deduces which files will run faster. Other files should not run slower.

[johnnymad]

And, what about UltimateDefrag?
I think it's a really good program to perform a good job in your disk, If you have enogh knowlwdge of how your disk works.
I've read the Help/tutorial and it explains it very good.

Take al look and tell me: UltimateDefrag

[Jeremy]

I'd never heard of this program until a cracked copy of it appeared on a site featuring cracked software.
Diskeeper's automation is just too convenient to pass up.

[gugutz]

I used diskeeper 8 professional to try it out, it installs a service that starts with windows eating up 17-20mb of ram, only to be able to use a program that will be used only on a few ocasions, that is when defragmenting the disc. I´ve tried Ultimate Defrag, and i found it very slow, plus it crashed my pc while it´s was working, very very dangerous.
I also tried Power Defragmenter (witch is only a gui that uses contig from systernals software, actually), and it its´fast as hell, but the final results were not so good.

Gonna try Perfect Disk. If it´s now **** heavy, not install a useless service that will be used once in every two or three months, i´ll take it.

[Jeremy]

Don't make such a big deal out of Services, you can set them both to Manual and have full functionality w/ PerfectDisk.

[Tarun]

PerfectDisk's services can be set to manual, unless you want to allow it's scheduled defrags to run, then you leave them alone.

[gugutz]

i don´t think this way would be very "pratical".

why the need to install a service?
so i can go on and disable it?

i preffer to stick with apps that doens´t install things that i need to manually remove later.

[rms]

Tarun, on Dec 26 2006, 08:03 AM, said:

PerfectDisk's services can be set to manual, unless you want to allow it's scheduled defrags to run, then you leave them alone.

Indeed, it can be done and it was relatively ok with PD7.
Now, in PD8 they have made some improvements. Engine will not stop automatically. Even more, scheduler(or, whatever it is called now) actually is guarding and restarting Engine. So, after defragmenting you first kill scheduler and then PDEngine.

And, to be complete, after discovering this behaviour, I wrote to PD support a bug report - engine will not shut down, and received an answer that on their computer it does shut down automatically.
After observing the same thing on 3 more machines, I wrote again to receive from somebody else, that it is so by design and I need not worry, because these services do not consume anything(!!?).

Indeed, brilliant design and great support.
For sake of politeness, no comments this time.

[rehack]

i just have to chime in with JkDefrag, as i did here!

i've always been horrified by how unfathomably huge the commercial defraggers were, for something quite simple conceptually, not to mention the actual defrag apis they all use are built into windows!

hooray for something free, fast, compact, open source, etc.

[wenel]

I'm using O&O Defrag 8.5 - it's fast and good (4 methods of files defrag - access, modification, space, stealth)
There is only one con - price (not for free)