Defragmentation Software

I recently downgraded my R61 from Vista to XP and am benifiting from the much improved performance and this really makes me wonder why do people use Vista in the first place. I mean, i fail to understand what vista has to offer over XP other than some eye candy.

But anyways, i got off topic here. The reason why i migrated to XP has to do with a disaster that occured with my PC. I was running Vista Home Premium and then I installed the professional version of diskeeper because i was facing severe performance issues and one of the posters suggested to me that i needed some professional disk defragmenting software. This was where diskeeper professional came into picture, it was set to defragment my hard disc on boot up and after it completed the processes on next boot up the computer just failed to start telling me that the Boot Manager was missing and when i tried to do a repair it subsequently told me that no hard disc was found. I then tried everything that i could get my hands onto..but finally after nothing worked i thought that it was good time to go back to friendly old Xp and am now wondering if the accident was a blessing in duisguise.

Anyways, being a novice but not an illletearte, i know that disk defragmentation is essentail for good health keeping of the disc. Would it be wise to try out some other professional disc defragmentation tool which would result in even more performance boost or should i stick with the XP in-built defragmentation tool?

 

i personally like JkDfrag, it's freeware, does not have to install and is very small

google for it, defrags all disks on your pc by default, or use a simple command line to set it up...........

 

The XP defragmenter is very poor. It defrags your data but scatters them. Try JkDefrag, it's so much better.

http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/

It not only optimizes your HDD but also moves your data to the fastest area on your HDD which are along the outside of the disc.

And the biggest advantage to it is that you don't even need to install it. Just download and double click to run. That's it.

Also, make sure to install TweakXP (many extra features for XP) to untick the "optimize disk when idle' option.

Good luck!

 

I use Perfect disk. It's the only defragmenter approved my Ms.

Diskeeper is good. When I have used the XP defragmenter to defragment, diskeeper has shown very little difference between what it sees as a defragmented disk and what XP sees.

I do not like the defragmenter on Vista, althought it's supposed to be improved as it provides no visual information. It is schedulable however and will defragment at whatever interval you tell it to.

 

I just started using PerfectDisk. It's great!

 

For future reference, this information and more like it is contained in Calvin's "Best Free Software for Windows" thread.

 

perfectdisk is my favorite on a home and enterprise level. my R61 came with a basic version of diskeeper which is a very good program. if you want to try other freeware go with Auslogic disk defragmenter. it works great and is very fast.

here's the link. what you want is towards the bottom.

 

Have you seen Perfect disk 2008?

It's vast improvement over the last version. Although I used it, the graphics were less than great, 2008 has brought Perfectdisk into this millenium.

 

Can someone please comment on the fact that memory resident de-fragmentation programs such as diskeeper and perfectdisk themselves consume valuable system resources, and whether the performance boost they provide viz-a-viz the resources they consume provide a win win situation or not?

Thanks

 

overhead is the name of the game. but all reputable defrag programs can be set to run on a screensaver mode, thorugh a custom set schedule or just run manually through task scheduler. properly setup you can have your machine defragged without even knowing it. defrag would not really even work properly if done while a user was on a machine.

 

"Can someone please comment on the fact that memory resident de-fragmentation programs such as diskeeper and perfectdisk themselves consume valuable system resources, and whether the performance boost they provide viz-a-viz the resources they consume provide a win win situation or not?"

There is something to consider. I am totally sure that probably I use only .0001% of the total number of cpu cycles my machine turns over. All of the rest run the Null Process which is an infinite loop run at the lowest process priority. As soon as there is a user demand the cpu is instantly vectored to take care of the that compute demand.

Background defragmenters, depending on design and preference, probably stop executing and "get out of the way" the instant you touch the keyboard just as a screensaver does. I don't think a defragger running in the background is going to deprive you of much. The question becomes, "Do you really need it? I think not. Unless you have heavy file creation all over the logical disk and deletes, you probably don 't need to use a defragmenter more than once per week.

 

Another list/poll/viewpoint here

 

raxco perfectdisk it gr8

 

Usually the Diskeeper 2007/8 editions are pretty safe, and I 've never encountered any problem with those in more than a year of use. Nothing bad happened even when I pulled the power plug on a defrag (by mistake) on my desktop (XP) once when Diskeeper was running. I did run chkdsk once immediately after that. The background defraggers usually err on the side of caution if I am not wrong.

What Diskeeper version did you use? Was it the 2008? Also, did you have any other prior problems with the drive? A defrag, like any sustained drive activity can push a faulty drive over the edge, so it's a good idea to run drive diagnostics once before you go XP just to be on the safe side.

 

FWIW, I just used JKDefrag, and it worked marvelously.

 

I just started trying a new one called Defraggler. I will try those mentioned in this thread too, I just thought I'd throw that name out there as an option. I know it sounds gimmicky but it also defrags freespace which might be standard but all I have used is windows defragmenter and auslogics...