Windows Defrag tools

[Metrogirl]

For several years now I've been using PerfectDisk to defrag the various XP systems I maintain. I've been extremely pleased with the results and think it's a great program. However this summer someone encouraged me to try Diskkeeper, saying that its background mode was way better than PD.

 

I installed Diskkeeper on my desktop and let it run in the background while I was using the system normally. Since June I've let it do its job. I checked its reports every so often to see if it was working and it claimed to be 'doing what it says on the tin'. I didn't notice any slowdown in performance because of the defrag engine, but over time I was beginning to suspect that the disk wasn't being defragged very efficiently despite those 'excellent' reports from DK. There was definitely a lot of thrashing at boot time and some large files seemed to take an age to open. This week I stopped DK and ran PerfectDisk just to see how the disk looked. What a mess! Files all over the shop. New files shoved in blocks amongst old ones, bits scattered all over and lots of little bits of free space which are going to be grabbed every time a new write occurs causing more fragmentation. After a single 'aggresive' PD pass the disk is nicely defragged and file access fairly zips along.

 

I did some research and found this link: Great Defrag Shootout - it certainly seems to suggest that PD knocks DK off the scale.

 

My recommendation is PerfectDisk, but I wondered what tools other users here like, and why. Any thoughts?

[cbmkgd]

From your link:

Speaking of money, the folks at Raxco sent me a discount coupon to publish on this blog.

I don't know if the discount was given before or after the results... anyway, it was quite strange for the reviewer to accept this, as it can cast a shadow on his objectivity...

 

In any case, I've used PD, DK, and OO, and they seemed all quite ok by me. But I never let these do background defrags, so can't do comparisons on this functionality. What is sure is that DK doesn't leave fragmented files all over when doing a regular manual defrag.

[CrazyKernel]

I've never used PD and don't know how well it works (or does not), but I have been using Diskeeper 2007 for a while now and it has been doing a great job both both for manual defrag as well as the background defrag (enabled for 2 of my 4 partitions). Very happy with it.

 

BTW, I am also very suspicious about the objectivity of that blog given the author's extraordinary enthusiasm for PD and his ridiculous DK bashing.

 

This is from his article on the first page.

"I often wonder whether there is some secret contractual deal between Microsoft and Diskeeper Corporation to keep the WDD crippled." Talk about paranoia

[jabusamra]

I've never used PD and don't know how well it works (or does not), but I have been using Diskeeper 2007 for a while now and it has been doing a great job both both for manual defrag as well as the background defrag (enabled for 2 of my 4 partitions). Very happy with it.

 

BTW, I am also very suspicious about the objectivity of that blog given the author's extraordinary enthusiasm for PD and his ridiculous DK bashing.

 

This is from his article on the first page.

"I often wonder whether there is some secret contractual deal between Microsoft and Diskeeper Corporation to keep the WDD crippled." Talk about paranoia

 

I cannot comment on Donn Edwards motivations or background. I've never met Donn. I don't know him. As I am with Raxco Software, I can only respond to the query about when Edwards was supplied with the discount code. It was after he had done all his testing. He emailed Raxco Software telling us he had selected PerfectDisk as his winner, and wanted to know if we were interested in giving his readers a coupon code. So we said sure. As one of about 70,000,000 bloggers in the world, to me it seems he was just trying to do something for his readers and stand out. It seems to me no different than when we won Windows IT Pro Readers' Choice, Windows IT Pro Readers' Choice, PC Magazine Editors' Choice awards for best defragmenter - the editorial people do their thing, and then the publication asks us to place an add, give them a discount, etc.

 

As I said, I cannot comment on anything else about Donn Edwards' testing. If people think Diskeeper works for them great. I would just recommend that people - everyone, PerfectDisk and Diskeeper users alike - do their due diligence, as Metrogirl did, when everything was seemingly fine. Check to see if free space is really consolidated and check to see if all NTFS metadata is defragmented, check to see if your defragmenter can defragment a very full, very large, very fragmented disk. To check free space and the metadata files, you will have to use either PerfectDisk or some other tool, as it is not reported by Diskeeper.

 

Don't trust Donn Edwards, don't trust Metrogirl - like anything, they're just some background to give people something to think about or consider. Use them, along with other postings (e.g. Microsoft user groups and Microsoft MVPs) as a basis for your decisions.

 

Joe Abusamra

Raxco Software, Inc.

www.raxco.com

www.perfectdiskblog.com

[Donn Edwards]

Hi, I am the author of "The Great Defrag Shootout" and I am not a magazine publisher or a journalist. I express my opinion as I see it, and expect others to accept it as my opinion and think about it. My blog is called "Insights and Rants" because amidst the my ravings as a writer I like to think that I have the occasional insight that may be of benefit to others.

 

I am amazed how many Diskeeper users accuse me of being "biased" or not objective, purely because I criticise DK. What they forget is that I was a DK customer. Yes, I paid them money for a product they told me would work. I asked my main customer to pay even more money ($299) for a copy for his server. Little did I know how much trouble that would cause, and how embarrassing it would be. MetroGirl's experience is quite typical, and there are plenty of scathing customer reviews on download.com to confirm this.

 

I have written in my blog that I have only contacted companies about whose products I have written after I wrote the review, unless it was to contact tech support for help during the review period. I did not request any freebies or commission. I should point out that UltimateDefrag has an affiliate program that I could have joined, but didn't.

 

Raxco very generously gave me a discount code for my blog, just as Joe describes it. The discount code was published before the "winners" were announced, but I had already decided on the winners and was busy with the article when I asked for a discount code. My reason for asking for a code was to provide a benefit to my readers, not myself.

 

Should you trust me? My reviews reflect my experiences, and were written with passion because I'm passionate about the subject. They reflect what happened to me.

 

I should point out that one of my quotes is incomplete. I wrote:

 

I often wonder whether there is some secret contractual deal between Microsoft and Diskeeper Corporation to keep the WDD crippled so that Diskeeper can sell its equally bad product for $50-$99 per workstation. But then that would violate Napoleon's advice: never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. On the question of file fragmentation, Microsoft has a history of incompetence.

 

I think the rest of the quote is quite important, and doesn't make me look like an idiot.

MetroGirl recommends PerfectDisk, and so do I. But I also recommend JkDefrag, which you can download from my blog in a useful setup form that includes contig, pagedefrag, ntregopt and the GUI. The combination of these plus PD is unbeatable, and still cheaper than DK.

[cbmkgd]

Raxco very generously gave me a discount code for my blog, just as Joe describes it. The discount code was published before the "winners" were announced, but I had already decided on the winners and was busy with the article when I asked for a discount code. My reason for asking for a code was to provide a benefit to my readers, not myself.

As I said above I don't have a preference with DK over PD.

 

I personally do not doubt the honesty of metrogirl's comments, nor even the honesty of your own analysis and verdict.

But that's not the point.

 

I just think it was very foolish of you to accept PD's discount code. Adding that the offer was made (to you) before the winners were announced doesn't help one bit... But I do trust (personally) that this didn't influence your verdict.

 

Also, saying that Raxco very generously gave the discount code is quite naive : this is simply promotion. Just as having a Raxco representative come here and defend you: this, also, is promotion.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

 

So the point is that without this PD discount promotion your review and verdict would at least have some appearance of objectivity. Now, as it is, one could rightly wonder.

 

You may take my comment the wrong way, if you are so inclined. Or take it as a friendly suggestion.

[Metrogirl]

Wow. Little did I think that my discussion would receive attention from both Joe from Raxco and Donn Edwards. Thanks, guys - and it's great to know that our humble InsanelyMac pages receive such wide notice. I had no idea how many people read this sub-forum. It's also good to see that this little controversy stimulated some new posters to put fingers to keys.

 

Actually I don't have an axe to grind here. I know a lot of people are very happy with DiskKeeper (like the guy who recommended it to me) and it matters not one jot to me if you use one, or the other, or nothing at all. Clearly DK works reasonably well or they wouldn't keep selling it. All I'm saying is that in my experience PerfectDisk has done a pretty good job for a long time on the systems for which I'm responsible, and in the case of my desktop (several 500GB drives in two different RAID configurations) it seemed to me to handle the task better than DK.

 

So my intention was to do what I've often done on these pages, to present an observation, to prompt a discussion and to allow people to express their own opinions. I tend to speak my mind and no-one here is paying my bills - it's a labour of love. Thanks again for your thoughts and responses. Anyone want to suggest another program other than the big guns here? I'm tempted to try the free software - JKDefrag- which I saw on Donn's pages and see how that runs - and if I do, I'll be back to report my findings.

 

-Sarah

[tripleboot]

I've used both over the years and I've always gone back to DK. If you go by looking at a picture of colored blocks or dots, you might assume your hard drive is nice and neat and tidy if the colors are stacked tightly. Because of the much larger hard drives these days, DK arranges the most used files where they can be accessed more quickly. The picture isn't always going to be looking like what you'd see with PD. If PD had a more efficent "set it and forget" type program that uses as little resources as DK I'd consider using it again.

 

Thats my 2 cents worth based on my experience. And no I'm not a blog writer.