All Things PerfectDisk – and Defrag - Windows 7 defrag -- optimization missing

In the continuing story of what is missing from the Windows 7 defrag tool, today I’ll touch on drive optimization. PerfectDisk’s patented file placement strategy (SMARTPlacement) is based on file modification activity. This strategy groups files with similar modification patterns together, in a single pass. Since the rarely modified files are typically unchanged and grouped together, PerfectDisk is not required to use resources to process them during a subsequent defrag. This saves system resources and improves speed, as the drive is in essence “shrunk,” and you get a fast defrag on subsequent passes.

The recently modified files are adjacent to the contiguous free space. If one of these files grows, the fragment will be created in one piece from the contiguous free space. As a result, fewer defrag passes are actually needed, saving more system resources.

The Windows 7 defragmenter has no file placement strategy whatsoever. Files are defragmented haphazardly with no regard to type and usage pattern. No consideration is made to slow the rate of fragmentation build up. No attempt is made to improve the speed of subsequent defragmentation passes in order to reduce resource impact, and no attempt at free space consolidation for the best possible write performance is made. As a result, the Windows 7 defrag will never provide the same level of performance and resource optimization that PerfectDisk does.