We all know that hard disk drive fragmentation is a major reason for performance bottlenecks. What you may not be aware of is that fragmentation can also cause crashes, slowdowns, freeze-ups and even total system failures. Windows comes with its own defrag utility, which is actually developed by Executive Software, but it requires a manual process to keep track of fragmentation levels and takes forever to run on large hard disks. Executive Software's Diskeeper 9.0 is quick, easy to use and effective, and it comes with scheduling and boot-time options. If you want to keep your systems running as fast as they did when they were brand new, Diskeeper 9.0 will certainly help.
Pros: Quick and effective; supports scheduling and boot defraging
Cons: Extensive range of editions is confusing
The term hard disk drive fragmentation means two things: a condition in which pieces of individual files on a disk volume are not contiguous, but rather are broken up and scattered around the disk; and a condition in which the free space on a disk volume consists of little pieces of space here and there rather than a few large free spaces.
The effects of excessive fragmentation are twofold: file access takes longer because a file must be collected in pieces, requiring several disk accesses instead of just one; and file creations take longer because space for the file must be allocated in pieces instead of just one contiguous allocation.
The bottom line is that fragmentation slows Windows system performance. The longer you wait to defragment your disk volumes, the slower your computer runs - especially if you frequently install and uninstall applications. With Diskeeper, all the disks in a Windows operating system can be kept defragmented indefinitely. Diskeeper cleans them up and keeps them that way, including drives with compressed, encrypted and sparse files on NTFS volumes.
Besides its improved effectiveness compared to Windows' built-in defrag utility, another neat feature of Diskeeper is that it can be scheduled to run either invisibly as a background job or as a manual defragmenter, rearranging files and freeing space on a disk volume whilst you continue to work or play. And because Diskeeper runs online, there's no need to lock users off while a hard disk is being defragmented.
Diskeeper is available in a variety of editions to provide specialised defragmentation of Windows operating systems, ranging from Windows 95 through Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition. Diskeeper can be installed simultaneously on multiple computers in a network, using either Diskeeper Administrator Edition, or Microsoft's System Management Server (SMS). Remote installation can be a tremendous time saver for system administrators, especially on large networks, where you may have to install Diskeeper on hundreds of computers.
Similar to other programs these days, the first time you run Diskeeper it automatically checks to see if a more recent version is available. When we reviewed the software there was already a 19.2MB patch available. You are then given the option to download and install the newer version, which we did for this review. You can also check for updates at any time you want using the product update option in the settings menu. Since Diskeeper uses mechanisms built into Windows, there should be no need to upgrade the software each time you install a new Windows Service Pack.
After installation, the Diskeeper service starts automatically each time your computer is restarted. The service runs all the time, whether or not defragmentation is occurring. The service consumes negligible system resources, claims Executive Software, so in most cases will never need to be disabled. Indeed, in our tests we never noticed any performance hit when the software was running.
