Speed Disk vs Defrag

  • Thread starter Thread starter JCO
  • Start date Start date
I think one thing all defrag software, (speed disk included)
is that they all use Microsoft's MoveFile.api which limits to
some extent what this type of software can do.

Windows built in defrag software is based on Diskeeper's
software. Speed disk lost a lot of functionality about two
or 3 years after Windows XP was released, as they
where either forced or chose to use the MoveFile.api

JS
 
Leythos said:
I'm not really arguing with you, but what happens to the MFT when you
delete a partition and it's the ONLY partition on a disk?

The reason I ask is that I've had a Drive improperly managed and a new
admin broke the array (soft) and then deleted the partitions, didn't
format, just deleted the partitions - so, it showed the entire drive as
unused. I was able to use an old program called Undelete to recover all
the files - although they were named recoveredfile001. (and proper
extension).

I'm just wondering - that's all.
Click to expand...

When you delete partitions the entries are removed from the partition
table, the rest of the information is still untouched on the disk. I
don't know all that much about recovery software but I think that in
that case it would look or scan for the partition boot sector(s) on the
drive and from the boot sector it would find the information necessary
to rebuild the partition table.

John
 
The date and time was 6/12/2008 5:50 PM, and on a whim, JS pounded out
I think one thing all defrag software, (speed disk included)
is that they all use Microsoft's MoveFile.api which limits to
some extent what this type of software can do.

Windows built in defrag software is based on Diskeeper's
software. Speed disk lost a lot of functionality about two
or 3 years after Windows XP was released, as they
where either forced or chose to use the MoveFile.api

JS
Click to expand...

I still use NU 2003 and SD is much more configurable than Defrag. I
place all my exe, dll, com, files at the beginning, page files at the
end, and optimizing takes very little time because of it.

Of course I have my OS's (5) on separate partitions, with data on
another and programs on yet another. That way I can use programs on
other OS partitions without having to waste space on multiple installs
of the program. My OS partitions are 4 to 7 gig, programs partition is
7 gig, and then my data partitions. And it's much quicker making backups.

--
Terry R.

***Reply Note***
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Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.
 
Norton, in general. :-)
Not sure what you mean; none that I know of. But Speed Disk isn't I
don't think, availalble as a standalone. It's part of several other
packages that make up Norton, namely SystemWorks.
Click to expand...

Well, and THAT is a problem!
 
I use Speed Disk 2006 which has lost some of the
nice automatic relocation and optimization features
that were listed (using color codes) the lower right,
and were once part of earlier versions of speed disk.

As mentioned in a earlier post I make use of the
Files First, Files Last and Files at End options,
The number of entries I've entered in each of these sub-groups is
rather long and the order of each entry in the list is important for
best results.

JS
 
John said:
That is not really how it works, (on FAT) the clusters are daisy-chained
in the FAT, the operating system doesn't open successive clusters to
find out where the next one is, it reads that information in the FAT.
The first cluster information for the file is found in the Directory
entry and the other cluster information along with the last cluster is
read from the FAT. In any case, if a cluster in the chain is corrupt
the whole file is usually unreadable or corrupt anyway, chkdsk can
locate and try to repair these bad clusters but most of the time the
recovered clusters are of much use and the corrupt files are not easily,
if at all repairable.

John
Click to expand...

OK (and I probably should have known this).
But above, I thought you had said that "the file system (in XP) does not
need to flip through each individual cluster to find the next one", and I
mistakenly thought you were implying that FAT was that way (in contrast with
NT). But maybe you're talking about going through the entries within the
table itself (FAT or MFT).
 
Bill in Co. said:
OK (and I probably should have known this).
But above, I thought you had said that "the file system (in XP) does not
need to flip through each individual cluster to find the next one", and I
mistakenly thought you were implying that FAT was that way (in contrast with
NT). But maybe you're talking about going through the entries within the
table itself (FAT or MFT).
Click to expand...

I think you'd be crippled if your parentheses keys ever stopped
working. It'd be like tying an Italian's hands behind his back and
then telling him to talk.
 
Bill said:
OK (and I probably should have known this).
But above, I thought you had said that "the file system (in XP) does not
need to flip through each individual cluster to find the next one"
Click to expand...

It was in reference to a post by Leytos who said that the FAT only
pointed to the first cluster and who suggested that the "chain" was then
retrieved from, or that each successive cluster "pointed" to the next
cluster in the chain. My reply was in made in that context where I made
the point that NTFS doesn't flip through clusters, I wasn't suggesting
that FAT did, I was only commenting about NTFS which is the native NT
file system.

John
 
John said:
It was in reference to a post by Leytos who said that the FAT only
pointed to the first cluster and who suggested that the "chain" was then
retrieved from, or that each successive cluster "pointed" to the next
cluster in the chain.
Click to expand...

(although the statement above, as he wrote it, still seems a bit ambiguous
to me).
My reply was in made in that context where I made
the point that NTFS doesn't flip through clusters, I wasn't suggesting
that FAT did, I was only commenting about NTFS which is the native NT
file system.

John
Click to expand...

I see. I think I got at least some of it now. :-)
 
I guess we should through Diskeeper in the mix. It lets you do several
partitions at the same time as does Speed disk. I don't know which is
faster between Speed Disk or Diskeeper (Defrag is definitely the slowest),
but if all three have different methodologies as to how to do the task...
makes you wonder if defragging is really important. If any of the 3 cause
the one of the other two to do more work, then they can't all three be
correct.
 
Twayne

Isn't Norton System Works extra baggage! Why pay out money for software
giving you an overall negative return. Either don't spend any money and
use the Microsoft Disk Defragmenter or use your cash to buy a
defragmenter that brings with it more tangible benefits. Priorities for
my money do not include buying a third party defragmenter. Making proper
use of what comes with Windows XP yields perfectly satisfactory results.
Many users of third party defragmenters do not take the time to find out
how to get the most out of the tools provided with Windows XP.



~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
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