free disk fragmentation that is better than the standard XP ?

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Is there any free disk fragmentation that is better than the standard XP
? And I search a comparison page, an evaluation, for disk fragmentation.

Frank
Click to expand...

Power Defragmenter GUI
http://www.excessive-software.tk/
Power Defragmenter is a GUI (Graphic User Interface) application for
program Contig by Sysinternals.
Contig is a very powerful defragmentation application designed for Windows
NT/2000/XP operating systems.

regards

Dud
 
let me try again... why would anyone want to use free 3rd party
software that rewrote their harddrive? that's dangerous stuff (yes of
course you should backup first - yeah everyone does that...) you would
want to use the package the OS provider gave you or a well known 3rd
party which many people use so that if there is an error, someone else
finds it not you. as mentioned in my previous email it's not clear
that degramentation beside bootup optimization is really worth the
effort these days..let's see some thoroughup tests first.

here's the posting..


To the reviewer:

Richard V. Dragan

Richard V. Dragan, a contributing editor of PC Magazine, has written
over 250 articles and reviews for the magazine and other Ziff Davis
publications since 1992. From 1994 to 1998 he authored a programming
column for Computer Shopper.

Regarding your excellent experience, I'm afraid something slipped
through the cracks on this article.

Defraggers, PC Magasine, US edition?

Home > Product Guides > Software > Utilities > Defraggers
May (05).04.2005

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1811993,00.asp

you just measured how long the deframentation took????

Since there is an active controversy on whether disk defragmenting
these days with ntfs is really worth it - there have been a few studies
- financed by the software utilitiy companies, but its not clear they
represent real typical desktop usage (i'm not arguing that NTFS can't
be fragmented as some have alleged). And yes, Microsoft includes a
basic one with XP - probably mostly for the quick boot optimization not
full disk defrag. (strange, that it wasn't reviewed and tested as well
- it makes one think PC Mag is only interested in trumpeting
advertisers new products?

see some of the controversy:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zd4166/is_200306/ai_n9518916

It would be helpful to us readers if you performed testing on the
quality of the defragmentation results - various real world tests like
boot time, and loading normal programs to do tasks before and after the
defrags to see which if any measurably improved results. Otherwise we
are stuck with the possibility that this software is going towards the
faux RAM compressor or faux window tuneup apps.

In the past, Gibson's GRC Spinrite did noticibly improve disk access,
but technology has changed so that solution no longer applies.

Frankly I don't know if full disk defrags or special file placements
etc are useful or not these days - maybe a clone & file by file restore
would be better, and maybe due to usage patterns even that many not
result in any realistic improvement.

interesting background here on unbuffered sequential i/o in windows:

http://research.microsoft.com/barc/sequential_io/

Maybe the best solution is to get a new faster larger hardrive
occasionally and do a file by file restore to it for contiguous layout
and then you have the benefit of a prior drive you could store away as
an archive.

How about a followup story?

Just to clairify, here is PC Labs testing criteria, it's hard to see
how this testing was Appropriate.

Who is responsible for this poor review and testing? - Specifically a
name and title, because your name (Richard V. Dragan) was unfortunately
on the article.

Accurate means that the product is evaluated using test
methodologies based on technical research of the industry, our readers,
and experts in the field.

Appropriate means that product evaluation measurements are based on
metrics that are applicable for both individual and corporate
real-world use.

Reproducible means that test scenarios used in an evaluation can be
recreated at a later time, with results deviating not more than 5
percent from the original results.

Thanks for your consideration regarding this matter,

Kimo Crossman

San Francisco

PS I have no personal or financial stake in the software or companies
mentioned.

========

A lot of marketing speak here at the Diskkeeper site:

Why is it crucial to defrag your drives daily?

Disk fragmentation causes crashes, slowdowns, freeze-ups and even total
system failures. The number one reason for performance bottlenecks is
fragmentation. Even the best hardware will eventually slow down unless
the drive is defragmented daily.

The disk drive is by far the slowest of the three main components of
your computer: CPU, memory and disk. If the drive isn't defragmented
the fastest CPU in the world won't improve your system's performance,
because information from the disk simply can't be delivered fast
enough.

Manual defragmentation just isn't practical-who has time to defrag
every system, every day? Manual defragmentation is a break-fix
situation. Automatic defragmentation with Diskeeper, the Number One
Automatic Defragmenter, is the only true defrag solution. Diskeeper 9
uses "Set It and Forget It"® technology to defrag drives as needed,
keeping your systems running as fast as they did when they were
brand-new.

The various editions of Diskeeper run on the Intel® x86 platform
(including the Intel Pentium™ and Pentium-compatible CPUs from other
manufacturers) running Microsoft Windows XP (Professional / Home /
Tablet PC / Media Center editions), Windows 2000 (all Professional and
Server editions), Windows Server 2003 (all editions), Windows NT 4.0
(all Server and Workstation editions), and Windows 95 / 98 / Me. For
more information on compatibility read the Microsoft Knowledgebase
article about Diskeeper, view our product compatibility list, or select
the type of environment your computers run in from the following
choices: Home User, Small Business or Corporate/Government.
 
On Mon 17 Oct 2005 00:08:21, TedK wrote:
John said:
[...]
Click to expand...
I am using XPsp2 for over a year and never tried the MS defrag
since the Win98se defrag was lousy. I started using Diskeeper
Lite (formerly by Executive Software International - now:
Diskeeper Corporation), which I think is pretty good. But
SURPRISE...

At a PC Club meeting last Wednesday we had a demo of Diskeeper 9
(full $ version). As a result of some questions that were
raised I did some Google-ing and found the following MS site:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/227463/ that states the
Diskkeeper program is the current basis of MS'XP defragger.
Click to expand...

-- snip --

I will just mention that layout.ini is used natively by XP along
with the contents of the prefetch folder. A third party defragger
might also use layout.ini but it is not necessary to do so.

However I think a good defragger is essential for performance on
folders containing downloaded files especially if the downloads
are small.

I have seen time differences of x3 or x4 on folder tree
construction because directories in download folder themselves get
badly fragment as well as some of the download files.
 
On Fri 14 Oct 2005 20:24:39, Allan Higdon wrote:
My favorite is the Power Defragmenter/Contig combination.
Download the following:

http://www.sysinternals.com/files/contig.zip
http://freeweb.siol.net/razor256/downloads/PowerDefragmenterGUI.z
ip

Extract the files from both and move them to the same program
files folder. Then, run the Power Defragmenter GUI.exe file.
Click to expand...

CONTIG is a very good tool.

A virus checker gave me a warning when it scanned
'PowerDefragmenterGUI'. Maybe it was a one-off glitch but I would be
inclined to check that GUI software if I install it again.
 
On Fri 14 Oct 2005 20:24:39, Allan Higdon wrote:


CONTIG is a very good tool.

A virus checker gave me a warning when it scanned
'PowerDefragmenterGUI'. Maybe it was a one-off glitch but I would be
inclined to check that GUI software if I install it again.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the advice.
I always scan my downloaded files.
BitDefender (version 8 Free) and Microworld eScan (which uses Kaspersky)
found nothing.
Which AV gave you a warning?



--
"Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
~ Flannery O'Connor

"The moral rot of political correctness runs deep today in both national
parties."
~ Patrick J. Buchanan
 
On Wed 26 Oct 2005 21:03:11, Allan Higdon wrote:
Thanks for the advice.
I always scan my downloaded files.
BitDefender (version 8 Free) and Microworld eScan (which uses
Kaspersky) found nothing.
Which AV gave you a warning?
Click to expand...


It was one of the online ones. I just downloaded the installer for
PowerDefragmenterGUI and it seems ok. Maybe the code has been
changed or maybe the AV sigs have been changed.

Note on their website says they were getting false positives with
some AVs which I don't recognise as using myself.
 
Franklin said:
On Wed 26 Oct 2005 21:03:11, Allan Higdon wrote:




It was one of the online ones. I just downloaded the installer for
PowerDefragmenterGUI and it seems ok. Maybe the code has been
changed or maybe the AV sigs have been changed.

Note on their website says they were getting false positives with
some AVs which I don't recognise as using myself.
Click to expand...

Here no such AV warning. I use ZoneAlarm Security Suite, latest download

Frank
 
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