In last year's version of Diskeeper, the company introduced its Intelligent File Access Acceleration Sequencing Technology and it has now been improved in the current Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier utility.  I-FAAST claims to improve disk speed an average of 10% to 20% over and above the performance enhancement gained by defragmentation alone.  Well, I was skeptical – but decided to give it a try nonetheless.

Initially, I-FAAST monitors your file system usage and assesses the performance characteristics of your PC's specific hard disk drives for about a week.  After the learning period, it then silently and invisibly organizes files for maximum performance.  In my case, the tool reports an 18% performance enhancement.  Whether the number is exactly correct or not, I can't say – but I can report that I-FAAST does add a quite noticeable and pleasant degree of "zip" back into the PC.  It is definitely worth trying, if you're incredulous like me.

To learn how and why I-FAAST is different than other file placement/sequencing strategies available on the market, read:  Comparing I-FAAST

For an overview of I-FAAST, see:  Inside I-FAAST

what drive are you running your o/s from, pleo?

7200-rpm? 10,000-rpm? sata?

in the past diskkeeper poo-poo'ed speed optimizations, in favor of pure defrags. i remember trading a few emails with them.

placing your most-used files in the faster parts of the disk, and the least-used files in the slowest parts of the disk is something i've always advocated with my partitioning strategies.

http://partition.radified.com/

the only downside i can see to speed optimizations is that it will take longer to "degrag" (since you are doing more than merely defragging).

Pleonasm

I think *PerfectDisk* has been doing this for awhile, now:

PerfectDisk Features


Quote:

SMARTPlacement™ -- patented file placement strategy   PerfectDisk's SMARTPlacement™ optimization strategy results in faster subsequent defragmentation runs because many of the files on the drive do not need to be moved at all, since they are placed according to users unique usage patterns. Typical defragmenters waste resources by constantly moving all files around on the drive.

Pleonasm

Hmmm....

Looks like DiskKeeper Pro Primier is over twice as expensive as  PerfectDisk Professional!

NightOwl, I'm running on Seagate Barracuda Ultra ATA/100 drives (7200 RPM).

Concerning the partitioning strategy observation, the use of an I-FAAST (or equivalent) approach ought to be the better avenue, since the organization of files on the volume are customized to the user's specific activity pattern as well as the characteristics of the individual hard disk drive.  Additionally, I-FASST (or equivalent) provides a finer degree of granularity of potential optimization, since it does not group all operating system and applications files together but rather differentiates among them based on the user's actual activity pattern.  (Perhaps a motivated forum member could conduct a test?)

I have used Diskeeper over the years without the I-FAAST technology, and now see no difference in the total duration of a defragmentation operation (it's very fast).  Both the defragmentation as well as I-FAAST run transparently in the background (with no observable impact on the user's experience) using the "InvisiTasking" technology.

I haven't used PerfectDisk, and so can't comment on the similarities and differences (although see Comparing I-FAAST).  I was aware that PerfectDisk has something similar to I-FAAST.

Yep, Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier isn't inexpensive.  But, if you purchase the annual maintenance agreement ($26), upgrades to new versions are free.

Pleonasm

Product/Features comparison:  Unique Differences Between PerfectDisk v8.0 and DiskKeeper v10.0

Most of the other defraggers have been doing this (speed optimizations) for a while now. Diskkeeper was the lone hold-out, faik.

I've been using PerfectDisk 8 for the last 3 weeks. It's the defragger for those who use incremental images.

I've used various versions of Diskeeper on 4 computers over the last few years. Great, fast defragger but it can't do free space consolidation properly. There is always a band of data one or two bars below the main data and this band moves every few day independently of running Diskeeper. When this happens the next incremental image is large, up to 20% of the size of a baseline image.

PerfectDisk really does do free space consolidation properly and runs as fast as Diskeeper. Using Windows, I can't tell if one defragger is better than the other. Not surprising. But, I've never had an incremental image more than 2% of the baseline image size. The average is 1.5%. I'm sure this is because I no longer have that band of intermittently moving data.

i've been using perfect disk the last few years. i like it, never had a problem:

http://www.raxco.com/products/PerfectDisk2k/

The issue of free space consolidation is a "hot topic" in the world of defragmentation, with very opinionated perspectives on both sides of the argument.

Diskeeper is seeking to accelerate both file reads and new file writes in real time so that the benefits are experienced by the user immediately and continuously – it is the only product that does so.  In order to accomplish the objective, Diskeeper "optimizes a large chunk of free space, adjacent to where the frequently accessed files reside, near the front of the volume. That free space chuck is specifically in a location so that new file writes can be accelerated."  On my PC, the "large chunk" is about 500 MB, I estimate.

The perspective that Diskeeper adopts on free space consolidation is completely in alignment with the position advocated by Microsoft:

Quote:

There has been some confusion in the past regarding free space defragmentation.  Some people in the industry believed that after a defragmentation job free space should be consolidated into one pool.  Here at Diskeeper Corporation we have long since maintained that this doesn't make sense (see our whitepaper on this very subject).  Moving free space into one consolidated pool is a temporary condition that wastes resources and serves no purpose.  Instead free space should be grouped in a few contiguous pools.

Source:  Microsoft and Diskeeper Agree on Free Space Defrag

To understand the issue more completely, read the brief document:  How File Fragmentation Occurs on Windows XP.

Pleonasm


Quote:

The issue of free space consolidation is a "hot topic" in the world of defragmentation, with very opinionated perspectives on both sides of the argument.

Based on Brian's documented experience mentioned in reply #7 above--seems like there's something other than *opinion* to consider in the *arguments*!

NightOwl, my reading of Brian's post (Reply #7) is that PerfectDisk works better with one specific application (Ghost 9/Ghost 10) under one specific condition (when incremental recovery points are being created).  That's a very good insight to know.

However, the observation doesn't speak to the issue of whether there is any general file system read/write performance gain to be secured by consolidating all free space into one segment.  Diskeeper and Microsoft agree that such is not the case.

Diskeeper Corporation is a very substantial organization, with over 20 million licenses sold (making it the best selling defragmenter of all time) and with 288 awards and editor accolades earned in 2006 alone.  With the resources and expertise available at its disposal, if Diskeeper agreed that the consolidation of free space into one segment was beneficial to the user, then it would (obviously) add that feature into the product!  Clearly, the company has chosen not to do so, because it has no benefit to the user.

Competing advertising claims! PerfectDisk maintain that Free Space Consolidation is important as it minimizes refragmentation.


Quote:

SMARTPlacement is a patented algorithm of Raxco Software and is used for the best placement of files on your disk to minimize refragmentation. Files are organized by their creation and modified dates. The theory being that files that has not changed recently are less like to change in the future. These older files are grouped together so that once PerfectDisk has SMARTPlaced them, future defragmentation passes are less likely to move them again. This shortens the amount of time needed to keep the drive at peak performance. Also the free space is consolidated next to the newer files since these are more likely to change or be deleted. Consolidating the free space makes the creation of new files contiguous and therefore minimizes refragmentation of your drive.

On a subjective basis, I can't tell any difference except that my computer does take about 5 seconds less to boot now that I'm using PerfectDisk.

I tried I-FAAST earlier this year but Diskeeper said something to the effect of "don't bother, the improvement won't be significant."

They are both great products and if I wasn't creating incremental images I'd be happy to use either.

Pleo wrote:

Quote:

performance gain to be secured by consolidating all free space into one segment

I just should point out that there is no free space segment inside the data area. It is after the data area. That's probably what you were inferring anyway.

Brian, concerning the assertion that "Consolidating the free space makes the creation of new files contiguous and therefore minimizes refragmentation of your drive", doesn't this research prove otherwise:  How File Fragmentation Occurs on Windows XP?

When you commented, "Diskeeper said something to the effect of 'don't bother, the improvement won't be significant,'" did you mean that the Diskeeper application (or corporation) made the statement?  The I-FAAST capability in the application will automatically disable itself in cases in which it determines that no meaningful performance gain will be achieved.  Fortunately, that's not the situation with my PC - it delivers a quite pleasant and noticeable benefit.

Pleonasm wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 2:36pm:

drive", doesn't this research prove otherwise:  How File Fragmentation Occurs on Windows XP?

I can't follow their graphics. Graphic 2 is quite different from graphic 1. Is it the same partition?


Quote:

'don't bother, the improvement won't

It was a message I saw on my monitor. The new version may be different.

Brian, yes – all three graphics are showing the same partition ("D").  The intent of the article, however, is to compare Graphic 1 to Graphic 3, which illustrates the fact that even when free space is well-consolidated, the simple act of visiting two webpages creates significant fragmentation (note absence of red lines in Graphic 1 to their presence in Graphic 3).

The "bottom line" of the article is that "'consolidating every piece of free space' is no guarantee that newly arriving files won't be fragmented by the file system.  That was a maxim on FAT volumes in DOS, but certainly is not applicable to NTFS or FAT volumes under Windows XP."  Ergo, the benefit of consolidating all free space into one segment is nil.

Concerning I-FAAST, in Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier the user has the option to let the application automatically enable/disable I-FAAST, depending on whether it is beneficial for the specific drive (default); to always enable I-FAAST; and to always disable I-FAAST.

Pleonasm wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 4:50pm:

all three graphics are showing the same partition ("D").

I see that now. It would have been better if they had used the same "scale" on all graphics.

I don't know which company is mostly correct and I'm now going to do something that interests me more. I'm going fishing.

Brian wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 5:06pm:

"... and I'm now going to do something that interests me more.  I'm going fishing..."

Here on the "other Hemisphere" Old Man Winter comes and the days steadily grow shorter.  The 'specks' (CLICK HERE) are compelled by their innate photoperiodicity (conferred by what the least skeptical among us believe is 'intelligent design') to move from the outer bays to the inner lakes and channels of our God-given inner estuary.

This is the season where on a sunny day you can sleep late, deign to have a lesisurely lunch at midday, and then when the sun is well past the yardarm you slip your anchor gently on waist-deep broad flats adjacent to deep channels.  The forage fish and the 'specks' all start to move upon to the shelf into the shallow warming waters where you patiently wait.  When the seabirds start to power-dive into the baitfish, you stand on the highest decks and throw 1/2^oz gold-plated solid-brass Acme Kastmaster Spoons with red and white bucktail teasers on the single treble hook (CLICK HERE) in their direction and begin to reel in steadily with rod tip high.  The Kastmaster spoon can be thrown further than the length of a tennis court with the right open-faced spinning tackle setup, and until sundown every cast - that's right, every cast - will get you at the least one or more hard bumps as long as the tides continue to run in your favor.  Typically, you will actually land a 'speck' about every third cast and it is good policy with action this furious to bend the barbs of your hooks flat so you can get back into action in a hurry - oh, yeah... it's also kinder as it causes negligible injury to the non-keepers.  Three blokes on a good day will come ashore with more 'specks' between 13 and 16 inches ('school trout', no 'busters') than they will be able to clean before the witching hour.

EP :'(

EP, that sounds like heaven. It really does.

Today, we caught 15 sand whiting of average length 40 cm. The best bait is mud worms. They are an estuarine and beach fish, caught mainly in late spring and summer.

http://www.amonline.net.au/FISHES/fishfacts/fish/sciliata.htm

Sand whiting are one of the best tasting Australian fish.

I'd could go for some speck fishing 'bout now.  Some years ago on Thanksgiving Day we did well.  CLICK
Edit:  By the way, all this took place in about a two hour period.  It was one of those "every cast" days.

Not so productive days looked like this... CLICK

Favorite, most productive baits?  CLICK

here in socal, we like to make fish tacos .. with warm corn tortillas, melted cheddar cheese, salsa & shreaded cabbage .. rice-n-black beans on the side. maybe some hot sauce. a little grated carrots works good, too.

sumrica, is that a C172? I like your runway. We have similar runways on Fraser Island.

http://www.hervey.com.au/FraserIsland/default.htm

I just saw your first image. It's not a C172.

Brian wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 9:21pm:

sumrica, is that a C172? I like your runway. We have similar runways on Fraser Island. http://www.hervey.com.au/FraserIsland/default.htm I just saw your first image. It's not a C172.

Brian, Fraser Island looks pretty remote.  

The plane is a 1959 Piper PA-22 Tripacer.  And the runway is what used to be Chandeleur Island...a barrier island in southeast Louisiana.  Sadly, Hurricane Katrina all but washed it away.

sumrica, sorry I didn't mention your fish. Very impressive. Fishing and flying. What a combination. Most of my fishing trips have involved light aircraft. My favourites were a Beech A36 Bonanza and a Beech B58 Baron. I've got 1500 hours on the A36 and 200 hours on the B58.

Brian wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 9:41pm:

Most of my fishing trips have involved light aircraft. My favourites were a Beech A36 Bonanza and a Beech B58 Baron. I've got 1500 hours on the A36 and 200 hours on the B58.

Well, now I'm just plain envious!  Fancy planes to go fishing in.

I've got time in both those.  Only a tiny fraction of the time you have in them, though.  Most of my high-performance time is in the V-35b.  I tell ya, ol' Walter Beech came up with a winner, didn't he?

sumrica wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 9:50pm:

ol' Walter Beech came up with a winner, didn't he?

He sure did. I don't have any flying time in the V35. Only as a passenger. A beautiful aircraft.

This was my A36.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b16/bjkdegree/BE36.jpg

sumrica wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 9:30pm:

"... a barrier island in southeast Louisiana.  Sadly, Hurricane Katrina all but washed it away..."

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1141141606;start=4#4

"... Before Hurricane Katrina, besides being active with the EAA and very much into WarBird restoration activities, I was also deeply involved with computerized flight simulation with emphasis on recreating military scenarios and campaigns.  Katrina's foodwaters managed to get me out of both modes, and permanently I fear..."

Keyword: PERMANENTLY

EP :'(
Former member EAA Mosquito Squadron 697  

Brian wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 10:10pm:

This was my A36. http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b16/bjkdegree/BE36.jpg

I like that particular paint scheme.  Always have.  Club seating too, huh?  Fine looking ride, Brian.  
It hardly gets any better than what you've got sitting there.

[quote author=El_Pescador  link=1164121202/15#27 date=1164255483]
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1141141606;start=4#4

"... Before Hurricane Katrina, besides being active with the EAA and very much into WarBird restoration activities, I was also deeply involved with computerized flight simulation with emphasis on recreating military scenarios and campaigns.  Katrina's foodwaters managed to get me out of both modes, and permanently I fear..."

Keyword: PERMANENTLY

EP :'(
Former member EAA Mosquito Squadron 697  
[/quote]

I remember that post, Pesky.  Have you been out to the airport lately?  Any activity?
Heck, let's get Rad to build us an aviators forum.  haha

Christer has done a little flying himself:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=Extra_Rad_Forum;action=display;num=1119911693

sumrica wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 10:36pm:

"... Have you been out to the airport lately?  Any activity?  Heck, let's get Rad to build us an aviators forum..."

Regrettably, I fear that aviation and flight-simming are a closed chapter in my life - thanks to Katrina.

As to forums, the Sim-Outhouse used to be my favorite hangout.

EP :'(

Well, I don’t fish or fly, so . . .

I decided to try to replicate the research reported in the article How File Fragmentation Occurs on Windows XP to test the hypothesis advocated by PerfectDisk that "Consolidating the free space makes the creation of new files contiguous and therefore minimizes refragmentation of your drive" (see Reply #12 and #13).

1.  Defragmented the C-drive, resulting in zero fragmented files.
2.  Disabled Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier, so that it would not defragment files during the period of the test.
3.  Launched Internet Explorer 7 with Google as the home page.
4.  Navigated to the CNET home webpage.
5.  Navigated to the CNN home webpage.
6.  Exited Internet Explorer 7.
7.  Analyzed the C-drive, to discover whether any fragmented files exist.

The result?  The simple act of looking at three webpages produced a total of 44 fragmented files.

This empirical study argues against the assertion that "Consolidating the free space makes the creation of new files contiguous and therefore minimizes refragmentation of your drive."

Because Windows XP fragments files whether or not free space is consolidated, there appears to be no advantage to consolidating all free space into one contiguous segment, as noted by Microsoft and Diskeeper.

Pleonasm, I repeated your test and Perfect Disk reports 5 fragmented files. I wonder how each advertising department would present these figures.

Brian, I really wouldn't interpret the difference in the number of fragmented files in your test versus mine as meaningful, regardless of which is smaller.  Any discrepancy could quite likely be due, for example, to the different content displayed on the CNET and CNN home webpages which are continually changing and which are tailored to each country (Australia versus the USA).  The key point is not how many fragmented files were generated – rather, it is the fact that fragmentation occurred so readily.  Thus, we are both confirming that PerfectDisk's statement "Consolidating the free space makes the creation of new files contiguous" is highly suspect.

As Diskeeper has noted, "'consolidating every piece of free space' is no guarantee that newly arriving files won't be fragmented by the file system.  That was a maxim on FAT volumes in DOS, but certainly is not applicable to NTFS or FAT volumes under Windows XP."

PerfectDisk may not be doing any harm in consolidating all free space into one segment, but it is highly unlikely that they are doing any good.  As Diskeeper explains:


Quote:

Why doesn't Diskeeper move all of the files into one place on the volume? Our primary philosophy with Diskeeper is improving and maintaining the performance of your computer.  The disk drives are the primary bottleneck in your computer's performance.  Diskeeper restores the disks to top speed by eliminating fragmentation. It is a common misconception that a defragmented disk should look very neat and tidy in the Volume Map tab, with solid blue bars all the way across the screen (representing fragmentation-free files) and the rest white space (representing consolidated space). Clearly, the speed of the volume (meaning how fast you can access the data on it) is more important than the prettiness of the display or the consolidation of all the free space into one place.  Free space consolidation might be important if the next file that you plan to create needs to be one gigantic contiguous file, but it has no effect on performance. I n fact, the operating system may or may not write the next file into a contiguous location—even if there is a large enough space.... Even so, you might ask why we don't continue and rearrange the files further to get a neat display?  Because it takes computer power to do so.  We long ago decided that it would be wrong for Diskeeper to consume more of your computer's performance than it gives back.  So Diskeeper defragments until the disk is in top shape performance-wise and then stops. Now this might not be important to you if you like to sit and watch the display as Diskeeper defragments your drive, but it is a very big deal to large corporate data centers and people who depend on their computers for their work.  They need all the performance they can get and can't hold up production while the defragmenter works to enhance the “look” of the disk but not improve its performance.

Source:  Diskeeper 2007 User Manual (page 54)

Note that I am not arguing that PerfectDisk is better or worse than Diskeeper; rather, that the belief in the benefit of a single consolidated free space segment is most likely unwarranted.

Pleonasm, PerfectDisk says it does matter and Diskeeper says it doesn't and to be honest, I don't really care who is closer to the truth. They are good products but PerfectDisk is better for my purposes.

I agree – both products have good reputations, although each may have some features lacking in the other.

To clarify, the position of Diskeeper is not that free space consolidation is unimportant, only that there is no performance benefit between having a single segment of free space versus having "a few" free space segments.  Both PerfectDisk and Diskeeper acknowledge that when there are "many" free space segments, performance will suffer.

Pleonasm, do you see the situation I described with Diskeeper? A band of data towards the bottom of the window that jumps up or down a row or so every few days. It jumps independently of running Diskeeper and the number of fragmented rises appropriately day by day so it is not Diskeeper running a defragmentation without being told.

PS I was running Diskeeper weekly.

Brian, no – I have not observed what you describe.  The two "odd" behaviors that I have seen, however, are:  (1) "Reserved System Space" will sometimes increase substantially, and then shrink back to "normal"; (2) after recently installing Adobe Acrobat Standard 8, there are a block of the application's files toward the end of the volume which don't seem to move (I have an inquiry into Diskeeper technical support to learn what is occurring for the latter).

I run Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier in the "Set-It-And-Forget-It" mode, allowing the product to monitor file usage (for I-FAAST optimization) and to defragment in the background.  Because fragmentation occurs so quickly and so readily on a PC, this provides a nearly continuous benefit of enhanced PC performance (versus running the application once-a-week, in which case you alternate between brief periods of optimized performance followed by a steady degrading until the next defragmentation occurs).

I have a number of PC maintenance tasks scheduled during the evening hours (e.g., anti-virus scans, Ghost backup, etc.), and during those hours I automatically disable Diskeeper so as to minimize any disk contention.

Does that help?

Pleonasm wrote on Nov 26^th, 2006 at 11:27am:

Because fragmentation occurs so quickly and so readily on a PC, this provides a nearly continuous benefit of enhanced PC performance (versus running the application once-a-week, in which case you alternate between brief periods of optimized performance followed by a steady degrading until the next defragmentation occurs).

When I started using Diskeeper, I used it daily. Then later weekly and once I waited a month between runs. Subjectively, my computer ran the same. When I defragged after the one month abstinence period I noted no improvement. I accept that tests would have shown performance degradation but from a user perspective there was no advantage in daily runs. Can you tell the difference if you defrag more often?

The only comparison I am able to comment upon, Brian, is (1) running Diskeeper 9/10 Professional weekly versus (2) running Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier with I-FAAST continuously.  Subjectively, there is a quite noticeable and positive difference in the latter.  (It really is a pleasantly apparent change.)  After having used Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier in the continuous "Set-It-And-Forget-It-Mode," I wouldn't even consider returning to the weekly defragmentation routine.  Program launches and file loads now "pop," adding a nice level of "zip" to the overall experience.

Additionally, I can't observe any negative impact of having Diskeeper run in the background.  Diskeeper's InvisiTasking technology (see page 4 in PDF link) is quite invisible to the user.

Pleonasm,


Quote:

After having used Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier in the continuous "Set-It-And-Forget-It-Mode," I wouldn't even consider returning to the weekly defragmentation routine.

Do you mean that immediately after running a defrag with Diskeeper 9/10 Professional, the subjective result is inferior to running Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier with I-FAAST continuously? If that's the case I'll try it out.

RE:  "Do you mean that immediately after running a defrag with Diskeeper 9/10 Professional, the subjective result is inferior to running Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier with I-FAAST continuously?"

Yes, that is my own personal experience, Brian.  There are three variables – any one of which (or combination of which) – may be responsible for the observed change in my own case:  (1) version 2007 of Diskeeper versus version 10; (2) running Diskeeper in the continuous "Set-It-And-Forget-It" mode versus running weekly; and (3) using I-FAAST versus not.  I can't say which of these factors has had the greatest influence.

If you want to test Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier, I recommend that you use the "free trial" option.  Also, note that I-FAAST only "observes" your PC usage for about the first week before it actually starts to deliver a benefit.

Please let me know how this works for you, and what you learn.

By the way, Brian, I don’t want to give you the impression that using Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier results in a “night-and-day” increment in performance.  But, subjectively, it is a quite noticeable improvement.  I especially see this in loading the applications that I use most frequently (e.g., Word 2003, Excel 2003) and in accessing the files that I use most often.

The benefit is also apparent in using Windows Explorer, with long lists of folders/files appearing quickly as you navigate around the drive.  This is probably a result of the new “directory consolidation” capability of the 2007 version.

For reasons that I do not understand, I-FAAST will not necessarily deliver a performance gain on all PC configurations (see Reply #12).  If I-FAAST detects that its algorithms will not benefit the user, it will automatically disable itself.  Other than testing Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier, I don’t know of a way to determine in advance whether I-FAAST will yield a benefit or not.

Lookin’ forward to hearing the results of your experiences with Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier!

Pleonasm, I installed the trial Diskeeper 2007 on my son's computer. He has been using Diskeeper 9. I'll report back in a week or two.

You might like to assess PerfectDisk 8 to see how it differs from Diskeeper.

http://www.raxco.com/products/perfectdisk2k/

Some users of PerfectDisk may have encountered a problem with boot time defragmentation. I had this problem and it was due to a Daemon Tools driver conflict.


Quote:

Daemon Tools/Alcohol 120. The Daemon Tools driver Sptd.sys prevents PerfectDisk from gaining the exclusive access to the drive that it needs to perform the boot time defrag. 9/26/06 - DuplexSecure, the developers of the sptd driver, have released an updated driver (v1.29) that no longer prevents PerfectDisk's boot time defrag from running. Please go to http://www.duplexsecure.com/downloads to download the updated driver.

Brian, is it possible to run PerfectDisk without actually installing the product?  For example, is there a standalone executable that can be run in a command-line mode in Windows, or a boot CD that allows the product to run offline without starting Windows?  My objective would be to test PerfectDisk in a manner that does not conflict with my existing Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier installation.

Additionally, I can’t find the User Manual for PerfectDisk 8 on the Raxco website.  Do you know a location from which I can download it, so that I may learn more about the product?

Pleonasm, I can't answer your questions. I don't expect you to uninstall Diskeeper to test PerfectDisk. I wouldn't.

Brian, I contacted Raxco support and received a quick reply.  To summarize, it is not possible to run PerfectDisk 8 without installing the product, nor is there a bootable CD from which a defragmentation may performed (unfortunately).

The product manual may be downloaded from:
  http://ftp.raxco.com/pub/download/pd80/userguides/PDV8_Client.pdf

I read the PerfectDisk User Manual, and uncovered two very interesting facts.


Quote:

Smart Placement Settings - Aggressive free space consolidation:  A normal SMARTPlacement defrag may leave a few free space holes if it is determined that the time and/or system resources required to completely eliminate them would be excessive.  (page 87)

Note that the default setting for PerfectDisk is not to “aggressively” consolidate free space into one segment, but rather to reduce the number of free spaces from “many” to “a few.”  That is exactly what Diskeeper does!  Clearly, Raxco can’t be very concerned about the consolidation of free space into one segment.


Quote:

Patented File Placement Strategy - PerfectDisk has a patented file placement strategy called SMARTPlacement that is designed to slow down the rate of refragmentation and to speed up future defragmentation passes. PerfectDisk accomplishes this via consolidation of free space and by identifying both rarely modified and recently modified files, and grouping them together. SMARTPlacement of files results in your drive maintaining its peak performance longer and reduces the need to frequently run defragmentation passes.  (page 32)

Based on Raxco’s own description of its SMARTPlacement technology, this capability is only designed to minimize the occurrence of future fragmentation – and contrary to popular understanding does not claim to enhance disk read/write performance by strategically organizing files on the fastest portion of the disk surface (unlike Diskeeper’s I-FAAST feature).  That’s a rather significant distinction.

A description of Raxco’s SMARTPlacement approach may be found here, for those interested in the details.  Note that the technology dates back to 1989.

I found this. Written by Raxco so naturally the comparisons are favourable to PerfectDisk.

http://www.raxco.com/products/perfectdisk2k/whitepapers/Unique_Differences_PD8_DK10.pdf

Brian, I did indeed see the document that you referenced in Reply #50 (and NightOwl in Reply #5).  While I can’t comment on each and every point raised by Raxco, there are several which either are not currently accurate or are incomplete or are “misleading.”

• “Large drive support is not available in … workstation editions of Diskeeper”:  In reality, Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier supports drives up to 2TB – which would certainly qualify as “large drive support.”
  
  
• “average improvement in file access using I-FAAST is only 20%”:  Only 20%?  Hey, that’s a 20% improvement over and above the benefits achieved by defragmentation alone.  Given that the only arena in which PerfectDisk is able to enhance performance is in the realm of defragmentation, a 20% improvement over that isn’t negligible.
  
  
• “Diskeeper uses a multi-pass defragmentation engine”:  True, but it is an engine that runs transparently and continuously to provide a uniform level of performance enhancement, an objective that cannot be duplicated by PerfectDisk.
  
  
• “Diskeeper … requires that you [sic] to first limit drive activity in order for I-FAAST to properly evaluate the drive”:  No, the evaluation is done automatically by Diskeeper and there is no user intervention required whatsoever.

It may simply be a matter of personal taste, but I find such product-to-product comparisons offensive when they are promoted by one of the two companies involved.  It’s just in poor taste for one company to blatantly attack their competition, and I think it reflects badly on the character and integrity of Raxco.

In contrast, consider the approach that Diskeeper used when writing about I-FAAST:  “…a head-to-head/which-is-better comparison. I think that would be unprofessional, and it is obviously biased”.  Unprofessional – yes, indeed – and for that reason Diskeeper has wisely chosen the “high road.”  Raxco would do well to emulate Diskeeper’s stance and leave the product-to-product comparisons to neutral third parties.

By the way, have you successfully installed Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier on your PC?  What are your initial observations?

Pleonasm wrote on Nov 30^th, 2006 at 4:33pm:

By the way, have you successfully installed Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier on your PC?  What are your initial observations?

On my son's computer, 5 days ago. I decided not to do any comparison times for 7 to 10 days as per your information. I recorded opening times etc for various apps before I uninstalled his ver 9.

Brian, to clarify, you are comparing Diskeeper 9 to Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier – correct?

You’ll be interested to review the testing procedure described in Benchmarking Diskeeper’s I-FAAST, especially the use of the free ReadFile tool to easily collect data about performance enhancement.  I don’t know how dedicated you are to the test, but running ReadFile on the Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier case versus running the same benchmark on the Diskeeper 9 case would demonstrate the incremental gain in performance.

Out of curiosity, what is the estimated performance gain that I-FAAST is initially reporting?  On my PC, it was 18% - and has remained consistently at that level.

Although a bit out-of-date, you may be interested to read Defraggers for a neutral third-party comparison of the defragmentation tool options.

Hello to all of you…. computer geniuses,

Hesitantly I would like to share my personal experienced thoughts……with no links, bench markings etc.  

Both PD & DK are great.

IFASST can only give a potential gain of approx. not more than 20%, on a stand alone machine running windows OS.

This gain shall decrease if the size of the drive/ partition is reduced.........reason I don’t know.

DK Pro Premier 10 gives me a max gain of 17-18% on a 250 GB drive. This gain drops drastically if I resize this into smaller logical partitions.

All this is stands good for a standalone machine & not for servers or machines with drives in terabytes.

The larger the size of the drives more gain from IFASST…….answer to that you would know!

Regards!

Ivanov, thanks for adding your insights to this thread.

It makes sense to me that you see a decrease in the performance enhancement delivered by I-FAAST when you divide a large drive into smaller partitions.  When I-FAAST is working with the entire drive, it can find and utilize the "sweet spot" to maximize performance – wherever that area may reside on the drive.  If, however, the same drive is divided into partitions, I-FAAST is constrained to find the quickest read/write access area within the partition – optimal as compared to the partition, but not necessarily optimal with respect to the drive in total.  It is the difference between a local versus a global optima, to borrow from the language of mathematics.

At least you're getting a performance enhancement with I-FAAST over and above that available from using defragmentation alone.  That's good, practical news.

Diskeeper reports that it has found improvements up to 80% with I-FAAST, but I suspect that such a level of enhancement is uncommon.

Interesting factoid:  An article published in 2005 by the Wall Street Journal reported that Diskeeper has 95% of the worldwide market share in the corporate defragmenter space.

Readers of this thread may also be interested in examining:  Reviewer’s Guide: Diskeeper 2007

Individuals interested in this thread may find Redmond's 2006 Readers' Choice Awards to be noteworthy.


Quote:

Disk Defragmentation and Drive Monitoring Diskeeper Corp.'s Diskeeper was the clear choice here, with 37.9 percent of voters giving it top marks. Next came Winternals Defrag Manager with 24.4 percent, and Raxco PerfectDisk with 6.2 percent.

Source:  The Best of the Best: Redmond's 2006 Readers' Choice Awards

No thanks needed, I try to share what little I know about computer related stuff.

I do apologize like always about my English & knowledge.

Thanks for clarifying the point why the potential gain decreases when the size of the drive decreases.

80% gain could occur provided the drive size is plus 1 terabyte……just a guess.

Why is Boot time disabled when IFAAST is enabled?

Is it a good habit to occasionally recreate a page file?

Hypothetically what would be pros & cons of having & not having a page file, if the total commit charge is around 700MB & the installed physical memory is 2 GB?

Regards!


http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y129/eDOC/DK1.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y129/eDOC/DK2.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y129/eDOC/DK3.jpg

Ivanov, with the amount of memory installed on your PC, you could consider disabling the use of the paging file – see How to stop the NT Executive from paging to disk.  Microsoft does not recommend, however, deleting the paging file – but disabling its use is an option.  Of course, before testing this approach, it would be wise to create a Ghost 10 backup of your system.

My experience is that Boot-Time Defragmentation is normally disabled by default (whether I-FAAST is enabled or not), and must be manually set to run (see pages 25-26 in the Diskeeper 2007 User’s Manual).  If the paging file is fragmented and you defragment it using the Boot-Time Defragmentation procedure, then I would not anticipate any need to (or benefit from) delete and recreate it.

Ivanov,


Quote:

Hypothetically what would be pros & cons of having & not having a page file, if the total commit charge is around 700MB & the installed physical memory is 2 GB?

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

Readers of this thread may be interested in the free disk defragmentation tool DirMS.

Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier reports an actual I-FAAST performance gain of 18% on my PC, together with these two statistics:
    Most Accessed Throughput:  52,831 KB/s
    Least Accessed Throughput:  34,856 KB/s

Based on the throughput statistics, the gain delivered by I-FAAST is 52% and not 18%.

Observations and comments are welcome.

Pleonasm

What were those figures *before* I-FAAST?

I'm guessing--*Most Accessed* are probably in the HDD *cache* (? on board memory chip (? RAM) inside the HDD) more often than not, but *Least Accessed* need to be brought in from the disk platters because they have not been accessed recently.  

Possibly the difference between *burst* through put vs *sustained* through put?

Greetings, NightOwl.

My interpretation of the throughput rates in Reply #62 are that they reflect the reorganization of files that occurred as a consequence of the operation of I-FAAST:  i.e., that I-FAAST placed the most accessed files on that portion of the disk surface where the throughput is highest.  Those throughput rates are not reported, as I recall, by Diskeeper 2007 Professional (which lacks the I-FAAST capability found only in the 2007 Pro Premier version).

Because these statistics are displayed by Diskeeper under the heading “I-FAAST Performance Gains and Throughput Rates” and all on one single horizontal line, I do not believe that are intended to show general performance characteristics of the hardware (e.g., burst versus sustained, or RAM cache versus magnetic media retrieval).

Maybe the I-FAAST performance gain of 18% is computed by comparing the throughput of the most accessed files (52,831 KB/s) to the mean throughput of the drive overall?  Maybe it is computed by weighting the increased file access speed by the relative frequency with which those specific files are read?

From a marketing perspective, it seems odd (but good) that Diskeeper would choose a computation method for the I-FAAST performance gain statistic that is perhaps unnecessarily “conservative.”  I have sent a request to Diskeeper Technical Support to learn more about how they compute the percent performance gain, and will post what I learn.

Brian, what are the I-FAAST statistics you are seeing for the "Actual Performance Gain" (%) and the Most/Least Accessed Throughput rates (KB/s)?

Pleonasm,

Sorry about the misunderstanding.

I know boot time is manual by default & has to be started.

But when IFAAST is on, Boot time will not work manually till IFAAST is unchecked.......??

Regards!

Ivanov, I am not aware that having I-FAAST enabled prohibits the use of the Boot-Time Defragmentation capability.  If you find that occurring, then – of course – it’s a simple matter to disable I-FAAST, run the Boot-Time Defragmentation, and then enable I-FAAST again.

Are you using Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier or Diskeeper 10?

Pleonasm,

I am using DK Pro Premier Version: 10.0.608.0.

That’s what I do if I want to run Boot time, I disable/uncheck I-FAAST, and after Boot time has done its job enable I-FAAST again.

Regards!

Pleonasm,

There is nothing exciting to report. Subjectively we feel the computer behaves the same with ver 9 or ver 11 (Pro/Premier) installed. Times to open and run various programs and access data were the same for both versions.

I couldn’t assess I-FAAST probably because my partitions were too small. The C: drive was 6 GB and I-FAAST reported 0% Estimated Performance Gain and an Actual Performance Gain of -----

The Program partition (5 GB) reported 2% Estimated Performance Gain and an Actual Performance Gain of -----

The Data partition (50 GB) reported 20% Estimated Performance Gain but also reported I-FAAST has not run.

I chose Automatic Defrag for all partitions and for I-FAAST I did choose Allow Diskeeper to enable or disable.

The Most/Least Accessed Throughput rates (KB/s) for the C: drive were 58843 and 58642.

I’ve saved money by running the trial app.

Brian, sorry to hear that I-FAAST is not able to deliver a performance gain on your PC.  Because I-FAAST isn't running on your system, I would expect (and your data confirm) that there is little difference between Diskeeper 9 and Diskeeper 2007.

The Most/Least Accessed Throughput rates (KB/s) on your PC were nearly identical, in contrast to the huge 52% difference that I observed on my PC (see Reply #62).

Based on a combination of your experience and mine, I would offer the conclusion that (A) I-FAAST isn't for every PC, but (B) when it works, it works very well.

Brian, you reported a problem with Diskeeper 9 when used in conjunction with the creation of incremental recovery points by Ghost 10 (see Reply #7).  Did you find that the issue also existed when using Diskeeper 2007 or not?

Pleo, I don't run incremental images on my son's computer.

Pleonasm,

I would like to add to your conclusions about I-FASST, based on my personal & practical experience.

I agree that I-FAAST isn’t for every pc.

It’s just like the same disease manifests differently in patients & at times the book picture is rarely there. Apparently all humans may look alike but the genetics / internals differ…..

One drug would work instantly on controlling symptoms in a particular case whilst in a similar case that drug wouldn’t be that effective….

Coming back to I-FAAST its effectiveness mainly depends on 2 things:

Firstly, the size of the drive/partition.

Secondly what sort of data that drive contains.

Partition/Drive Size is the most important in my view.

As for most users who partition their primary drive into 3/4 partitions, it’s of no good.

Personally, I feel PD is better in such cases & DK is great when stand alone has large sized primary drives/ partitions.

DK & I-FAAST work great for such stand alone & servers…….

I could be totally wrong but these are my personal thoughts……

Regards!

For your views:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y129/eDOC/IFAAST.jpg

Disk defragmentation improves the performance of backup operations, of course; but note the potential magnitude of the impact:


Quote:

Testing has found that the time required to back up data from a typical hard drive volume to backup devices can be decreased and the backup data transfer rate increased by a defrag job prior to backup. Furthermore, directory consolidation has a direct additional benefit in backup and data transfer rates. The study showed improvements in backup performance up to 69% (decrease in total back up time)—less than one half of the time for the fragmented system. Similarly, backup data transfer rates increased up to 69% over that for the fragmented state—nearly 1.7 times as fast. Combining the benefits of directory consolidation with I-FAAST (Intelligent File Access Acceleration Sequencing Technology) improved backup data transfer rates and backup times in the network disk backup trials for ARCServe by a total of 70%.

Source:  Defrag Study Indicates Increased Backup Performance