[CoffeeFiend]

Jeremy, on Sep 9 2006, 11:57 PM, said:

Regarding the MFT, Diskeeper can resize it to a recommended value or a custom one set by the user.

Size is not the issue, it's placement and it truly DOES affect performance - more than you'd think (it's a very important part of the filesystem after all). And respecting MFT growth zone prevents further MFT fragmentation (of the actual file - not inside it).

[ricktendo64]

I really like Diskeeper its cool and the "MFT Padding" is the reason i prefer it over PerfDis.

[Jeremy]

crahak, on Sep 10 2006, 01:15 AM, said:

Size is not the issue, it's placement and it truly DOES affect performance - more than you'd think (it's a very important part of the filesystem after all). And respecting MFT growth zone prevents further MFT fragmentation (of the actual file - not inside it).

Yes, I'm aware of all that. However, PerfectDisk can only defragment the MFT, it cannot resize it. If you are using 99% of your MFT and install several programs, it will obviously become larger, and thus fragmented. of course you can just go ahead and defragment it again with PD, or have everything taken care of ahead of time with the resiziing feature in Diskeeper. I personally don't see the big deal in just letting it become fragmented since you'd defragment it immediately afterwards.
Like I said before, I just don't like doing it manually anymore. I do think PD does defragment better.

[Tarun]

PerfectDisk actually can resize the MFT table, but it only does so when it's necessary.

[CoffeeFiend]

Jeremy, on Sep 10 2006, 12:13 PM, said:

Yes, I'm aware of all that. However, PerfectDisk can only defragment the MFT, it cannot resize it. If you are using 99% of your MFT and install several programs, it will obviously become larger, and thus fragmented. of course you can just go ahead and defragment it again with PD, or have everything taken care of ahead of time with the resiziing feature in Diskeeper. I personally don't see the big deal in just letting it become fragmented since you'd defragment it immediately afterwards.

The MFT "file" growing is a total non-issue if you're respecting the growth zone. It can grow a fair amount without becoming fragmented at all. There's no reason to upsize it manually like that, except perhaps very extreme cases. The only real issues I've seen WRT the MFT were oversized ones after resizing partitions - not the inverse. DK won't place it right though, which results in a slower filesystem all the time, on every single PC.

[ricktendo64]

OK guys im gonna give perfdisc a trial and see if I change my mind

[braindedd]

Offline defrag is broken in the leaked version of v8 as far as I can tell. I would advise anyone to stick to v7.

[liquidguru]

braindedd, on Sep 10 2006, 06:18 PM, said:

Offline defrag is broken in the leaked version of v8 as far as I can tell. I would advise anyone to stick to v7.

if you have Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120 installed you need to disable the sptd device in windows Device Manager (view - show hidden devices) to get the offline defrag to work. the virtual drives grab your drive before PD can get exclusive access...i'm sure they will fix this

[jftuga]

I just bought 3 copies of PD8 and one copy of PD8 for Exchange. I recently evaluated PD7 and DK. PD did a much better job at defragging drives. Our data use is in the 200 - 300 GB range on each of our servers. Exchange data is much smaller.

I am running it on our test server now.

-John

This post has been edited by jftuga: 12 September 2006 - 11:10 AM

[ricktendo64]

ricktendo64, on Sep 10 2006, 06:10 PM, said:

OK guys im gonna give perfdisc a trial and see if I change my mind

Im sticking with diskeeper untill PerDisc fixes boot time defrag

[Jeremy]

I did a Boot Time Defrag (offline) with PD8 without any problems.

[janger]

Has anyone had any issues with this version? Tried it last night and every time PD finishes a defrag of my windows partition it says another defrag is recommended, even though the analysis shows no fragmented files. This happens time after time. Yet when I analyze my second non-system disk, which is something like 80% fragmented due to video work, it says the disk is healthy and no defrag is necessary! Think I'll stick to the windows tool and Sysinternals Contig for now.

[Jeremy]

Well, even though it may have the analysis thing wrong for you, I'd still do a SmartPlacement defrag on your drive, especially if it's 80% fragmented!

[janger]

Jeremy, on Oct 3 2006, 12:26 PM, said:

, especially if it's 80% fragmented!

Actually it's about 64%. But who's counting. I've been doing some heavy video editing on an almost full disk so that's why it got so bad. Anyway I would do that, except PerfectDisk trashed my system partition - 67Mb lost fragments after XP said chkdsk must run. After I reinstall my system later, will use Contig to defrag the individual vobs ready for burning. At least that's never caused problems for me.

[Jeremy]

Well, you know, it's different for everyone I guess. I'd probably blame your harddrive and not PerfectDisk. People have said Diskeeper is satan. People have said PerfectDisk is satan. People say maxtors suck. People say Windows sucks when they have trojan viruses and worms running wild.
Whose really responsible is a mystery, I guess.

[Tarun]

PerfectDisk has never caused any issues on any machine I've used it on. You most likely had those errors that chkdsk found before you defragged. This is why you scan your disk before you defrag.

[CoffeeFiend]

Same here. Been using PerfectDisk for quite a while on a TON of PCs - also the version for Exchange, and on large arrays as well, without any such issues. It's just you...

[janger]

crahak, on Oct 4 2006, 02:39 AM, said:

It's just you...

That's as bad as me saying it was PD's fault without any proof.
Seriously, I could understand if this occured just on one disk. But PD gave the wrong recommendations for two different partitions on two different drives - one a seagate and one WD. One had zero file fragmentation but PD wanted to defrag it again and again. The other was in serious need of defragging, but PD reported it as not requiring it, even though the list of fragmented files was huge. Both drives had low level checks done with manufacturers utilities not long ago. And chkdsk was also ran before trying PD. Smartmontools has never reported probs with these disks. This 8.0.30 version is fairly new, so who knows. I did stop a defrag operation half way through, so maybe that was the cause of corruption? Really wish I had taken screenshots.