All Things PerfectDisk – and Defrag

                                           

I was reading yesterday that the consumer research firm NPD Group just announced that total consumer spend for video game software in 2009 is estimated to top $15.25 billion. Dang that's a lot of games!

NPD reported further that "in addition to the $10.5 billion spent in the U.S. by consumers on new physical video game software in 2009, the total spend by consumers within other industry channels in the U.S., including used video games, rentals, subscriptions, digital full game downloads, downloadable content, and mobile game apps., is estimated in the range of $4.5 to $4.75 billion. Consumers' digital game spending is concentrated among lower priced full-game downloads and downloadable content."

                                     

We regularly have many World of Warcraft users telling us that complete disk defragmentation and free space consolidation are two of their best WoW performance tips for improving WoW performance. The WoW users are the most vocal, but we hear from players of numerous other games as well, such as Fallout 3, etc.

If you're part of that big gaming spend, do yourself a favor and look for some good WoW performance tweaks.

From time to time, I’ve saluted Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals),   recognizing the invaluable service they provide to the Microsoft user community in numerous categories. Having an MVP on staff here has only deepened my appreciation for what they do. Of course, I have to admit it’s nice to know and makes us proud that PerfectDisk is the preferred defragmenter of choice of MVPs around the world.

I love hearing their stories, which are relayed to us frequently. Keith Elder is a Microsoft MVP and INETA speaker, and runs the popular, informative and entertaining Deep Fried Bytes technology podcast as well as his blog, Words of Wisdom from the Elder. Keith is a big fan of the PerfectDisk base product, but also has experienced huge benefits from the PerfectDisk VMware Bundle.

Keith had a virtual machine that would not boot. He kept receiving an error message and it appeared to him that the disk was somewhat corrupted. Keith says he “ran PerfectDisk on it and after it was done it fixed the problem, and I’m still developing in this VM right now. Had it not been for PerfectDisk’s integration with VMware, I honestly don’t know what I  would have done next. Probably would have had to resort to recovering off site backups.”

                                            

How do you defrag VMware and boost virtualization performance?
 

• don't run it down
• keep it cool
• give it a rest
• and more, including a nice set of "myths" debunked.

• "I used to have problems defragging some drives. A few years ago I purchased PerfectDisk and haven't had a problem since."
• "PerfectDisk is the industry standard for serious defragmentation."
• "For defragmenting, you'd be hard pressed to find anything better than PerfectDisk."
• "PerfectDisk and it works like a charm. Not a hitch!"
• "I run PerfectDisk every night which defrags my drives. (A great tip I got on this forum."

1. The developers of your defrag utility meet regularly with Microsoft development teams, including file system experts, for a true understanding of file system behaviors, strategies and plans.
2. The defrag utility employs disk and file optimization strategies for the best possible drive optimization, rather than simply defragments files, so it is a true PC performance optimizer, beyond just a simple defrag utility.
3. It performs robust free space consolidation to significantly prevent fragmentation, reduce the rate of future fragmentation and improve write performance.
4.  It's smart enough to just defrag a file -- a single file or a few selected files -- rather than the entire drive, if that's all that is fragmented and that's all you need done at a particular time.
5. It doesn't force you into a single way to defrag - it provides flexible scheduling options that are accommodating to your activity and requirements, whether you need or want automatic background defragmentation during idle time, screen saver defrag, or daily or weekly schedules.
6. It optimizes boot files to improve boot time by 20% or more.
7. It provides a free, Microsoft-certified duplicate file remover and file recycler to further assist disk cleanup and optimization efforts.
8. It's simple enough for the novice user but with free, optional advanced features for power users.
9. It's smart enough to be the choice for tens of thousands of World of Warcraft users around the world to improve World of Warcraft performance and used by millions of gamers around the world to improve the performance of other PC games.
10.   It's intelligent enough to contain patent-pending technology that ensures no resource contention in virtual environments and can boost virtualization performance with specific solutions for vSphere and Hyper-V.
11.   It's passed the internal tests, pilot programs and RFPs of many of the world's largest companies and government agencies, and is deployed in and helping those enterprises today.
12.   It is certified by Microsoft for Windows 7.

The PerfectDisk 11 Client and Enterprise Console have been updated to Build 174. These latest builds include various bug fixes and minor enhancements.

You can “Check For Updates” in the products or wait for Autoupdate.

Client enhancements and fixes: 

• Correct issues connecting to and displaying data stores for Exchange 2010
• Change behavior when stopping a defrag pass. PerfectDisk used to display the statistics at the time you stopped even though they were inaccurate. PerfectDisk no longer does this.
• The display files in block feature has been disabled during a defrag and analyze pass since there was no data to display
• Corrected some display issues on the virtual machine tab
• Added support for translation into Japanese
• Corrected some statistical calculations when files are being added and deleted from the drive during the defragmentation pass.
• The list of drive types that can be impersonated was limited to prevent confusion. The purpose of impersonating drive types was due to the inability to accurately determine whether or not a drive is a solid state drive.
• Corrected a display issue on the Hyper-V host product. GUID was being displayed in lieu of the guest computer name.
• Clarified the code to ensure the user realized the schedules maximum duration only applies to the online portion of the schedule. There is not maximum duration for a boot-time defragmentation pass.
• Ensure that PerfectDisk does not attempt to perform an offline defragmentation pass on a FAT/FAT32 from a schedule. This functionality is not supported.
• Corrected some typo's in displayed text
• Changed the default behavior regarding file modification date on FAT/FAT32 drives. When no date exists we now display nothing. We used to display 1980.
• Improved the layout to better fit all the on screen data
• Corrected a bug when defragmenting drives greater than 2,147,483,648 clusters (8 TB with 4k cluster size)
• Improved boot-time defragmentation logging.
• Corrected a display issue with the schedule tab buttons when using Group Policy.
• Certain error messages were improved to aid the user in understanding what went wrong.

• Improved the task planner
• Corrected an infinite loop in the Console User Interface. PerfectDisk Enterprise Console would appear to hang.
• Corrected a crash in the Console user interface.
• Updated to SQLExpress Service pack 3.
• Displayed the Space explorer Client when PerfectDisk is not installed. This feature replies on PerfectDisk Client being present.
• Improved the historic data reports.
• Default Configuration profile data values have been adjusted to better represent the real world.
• Corrected Connect using PD option not being available if Hyper-V Host installed on Console computer.
• Corrected Console listing Hyper-V Host software as VMware.
• Corrected import of settings that created registry keys that were not correct type.
• Corrected Console reports that incorrectly did not include the Console computer.
• Corrected issue in Deployment wizard that incorrectly displayed local/GP schedules.

                                     

Located in New Jersey, PS Systems is a certified dealer for most major hardware and software companies. The company is a single source for many companies' business automation needs. It works on office information systems, integrated automatic data collection through the use of bar coding, imaging and real-time data communications networks. The company maintains strategic alliances with numerous contractors, ISPs and network consultants.                                  
                                    
Like most businesses these days, virtualization is an increasingly important piece of the every day work PS Systems does. Mike Packard is a software engineer at PS Systems, and like all good software engineers, he'd rather spend his days in a productive manner, programming and testing, rather than spending valuable time administering his systems to keep them performing optimally. And virtualization performance is an important piece of the puzzle. 

Mike told us recently how he benefits from PerfectDisk 11 VMware Workstation Bundle: 

"As a software engineer, I use virtual machines extensively to maintain a clean development platform and for repeatable testing. Before PerfectDisk VMware, I had to spend a lot of time defragging, shrinking, and maintaining each of my virtual machines. It was a constant effort and not fun.

"PerfectDisk VMware allows me to have very well-maintained virtual machines with a fraction of the time and effort. It lets me batch process all my machines in unattended maintenance after-hours. This means I can spend my day hours programming and testing, rather than running maintenance tasks. I'd say that PerfectDisk VMware is the high-strength aspirin for my virtual machine headaches. It really takes the pain away." 

Virtualization defrag with PerfectDisk VMware Workstation Bundle for improved virtualization performance and recaptured time for yourself.

It's how to defrag a computer - virtual or physical.
                                           

• Windows 7 -- defrag with confidence
• Windows 7 defrag -- no file or folder exclusion
• Windows 7 defrag in a corporate environment
• Windows 7 defrag -- real world, real guy
• Defrag for Windows  7 -- "Raxco Software has outdone itself again"
  
   

                                          

Just about every Windows user can benefit from a defrag utility, and the best results come from the best defrag tool. Certain applications and certain uses of the computer can benefit even more, and the area of video performance is one such particular subject. We're happy to count some of the world's best photographers and videographers as PerfectDisk users, but we're just as happy to have recreational and even novice users benefit from improved video performance with PerfectDisk. 

                                              

I know better than to talk about religion in a blog about technology and disk defragmentation. However, I'm happy to to write about a particular church's use of what it perceives as the best defrag tool for video performance. And that's where the Fundamentalist Baptist Church comes in. Located in in Santa Ana, California, in the heart of Orange County and just a few minutes from Disneyland, is where this defrag and video performance story starts. The chuirch records videos of its sermons and more. I'll let the pastor's words tell the story:

"The main reasons for my choosing PerfectDisk are:

     (1) Consolidation of files on hard drive
     (2) Defrag/consolidation of system files upon reboot

I do processing of video. I had used Diskeeper, but that software does not do consolidation of files on the hard drive. When you "capture" video on a hard drive, drive consolidation is very, very important. The reason is that, when a file splits due to running into another file ahead of it on the hard drive, it must fragment at the point. This stopping of the file and continuing it at another place on the hard drive can result in lost frames during a video capture. Lost frames are a "no no" for professional quality video capture, because it causes a momentary jump (because of a lost of frames) in movement when played back later. HDV capture from a Canon HV20 HDV video camera using Cineform was the specific application used.

I heard about your software on a Video production blog, from another guy who had the same problem (the need to consolidate files) and he recommended your product."

No matter what religion, there's only one best defrag tool for video performance.

                                                      

Dennis Lorentsen is responsible for IT systems at EnergiMidt, a local energy and broadband company in Denmark that also offers hosting services. It supplies energy and related services to almost 200,000 customers. EnergiMidt takes approximately 50 Terabytes of backup weekly from hundreds of servers, so "short backup time means everything for us," says Lorentsen.

                                         

One of the company's larger servers, which also had all its data split into million of files, had problems finishing its backup before the next weekly backup started. After using PerfectDisk, Lorentsen said "we went from 10-20% fragmentation to 0.1% - 0.4%, which in the end meant that we saved a minimum of 30 hours of precious backup time - on just this one server. It also means that we aren’t forced to expand our tape library with extra drives." And that was just the start, as Lorentsen then moved on to other servers - both physical and virtual servers -- throughout EnergiMidt.

Big savings from a server defrag, in perhaps one of the least likely places.

 

                                        

Reasonable people can have reasonable disagreements, and often do. Politics, music, travel, to name a few. And of course, our favorite - defragmentation. And while we naturally feel PerfectDisk gives you the best defrag, what often makes the decision to use PerfectDisk a no brainer is the large amount of functionality beyond disk defragmentation and free space consolidation - PerfectDisk’s Space Management component.

From freeing up space consumed by unnecessary files, to being able to find and remove duplicate files with PerfectDisk's duplicate file removal, to seeing a full view of a drive, many users find these tools invaluable. And the fact that they come included with a top-line defragger is all the better.

                                        

Leslie Alder of Austin, Texas writes that she was leaning towards PerfectDisk because she was impressed with the free space consolidation “that other tools I looked at did not address very well. But then I came across the Space Management piece of PerfectDisk and I was sold. I do a lot of video editing and I love being able to clean up my drive. After the cleanup and a defrag, my laptop and desktop run like new.” A slow PC fix that includes the ability to easily find and delete duplicate files.

To the moon, Leslie.

                                               

I’m often asked whether one should or can defragment SQL databases - should you care about SQL defrag. While not an SQL expert, we have looked at this issue a lot and work with numerous organizations that benefit from regular defragmentation of their SQL databases with PerfectDisk. PerfectDisk uses the Microsoft MoveFile APIs, ensuring the SQL defrag of SQL database files is done safely and reliably, without having to first shut down SQL services. This includes both Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle.

PerfectDisk does not address internal fragmentation of databases. Fragmentation can, and usually does, exist at both the SQL Server level and at the file level within Windows. There is SQL defrag software -- specific vendor tools to address SQL Server-level fragmentation. But defragmenting at the file level, what I refer to as SQL defrag, will usually also speed up your SQL server. The SQL server doesn’t know about the file system layout - it leaves that to the operating system.  But that means it also won’t and can’t report on file system fragmentation. And that’s where PerfectDisk comes in.

                                             

Besides defragmenting files, PerfectDisk’s free space consolidation via its Space Restoration Technology helps reduce the rate of fragmentation on SQL servers, as PerfectDisk creates large chunks of contiguous free space, which helps as your database grows. Best practice for highly available SQL servers is to create files on contiguous space that’s already been defragmented, planning ahead of time for data growth and building that growth into the size of the initial files.

Don’t leave your SQL servers behind - defrag them. SQL defrag for SQL server performance improvements.

                          

The Microsoft at Work website was put together by the folks in Redmond to help people ”streamline” their work life” so you can spend a little more time on your life…"we hope the information gathered here will help you get—and stay—ahead at the office.” In a collaboration article entitled 5 ways to speed up your PC, Microsoft recommends disk defragmentation as a key component to keeping your PCs running fast. The article states “disk fragmentation slows the overall performance of your system. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk when the file is opened to piece it back together. The response time can be significantly longer.”

And Microsoft continues, noting in particular some instances when performing defragmentation is particularly important. These times include:

• adding a large number of files
• free disk space totals 15% or less
• you install new programs or a new version of Windows,

There are always doubters, but coming from the maker of the operating system that it tells us all is so wonderful, the need for defragmentation is clear. Microsoft has designed a file system that fragments. It tells you so and tells you it should be fixed through defragmentation. It's an easy slow PC fix. Now, what you don’t need is one that isn’t automatic, that can’t run with low levels of free space, and has just a fraction of required functionality. Microsoft creates the problem, go to someone else to fix it. I don’t take my kid back to his sick friend to get better….we go to a doctor.

There’s a smarter cure for faster PC performance.

                                            

Happy Mother's Day Weekend! For those of you (and dads) with kids, or those adults who just like animals and games that are “good, clean fun,” you probably know all about Webkinz. For the uninitiated, you can go here to learn about these stuffed animals that take on a life of their own, a life that is controlled by the user — feeding your animal, buying it things, playing with it, etc. Watch a child play Webkinz on a computer, watch that child “lose” themselves in the moment.

                                            

Alas, like most fun things on a PC, Webkinz is more fun when it’s not bogged down by slow PC problems and slow PC performance. Real world — getting stuck in traffic stinks. Webkinz World — waiting to feed your hungry pet dog because your PC is crawling stinks. Who wants to be told by the Webkinz police that you are not taking care of your pet! Good grief.

Fortunately, some of the usual culprits are at play here, causing slow PC performance problems for the uninitiated. In researching these issues, we’ve found that most of the games within Webkinz World are big Flash games. These games consume lots of RAM and put a toll on your PC’s graphics. And often, the more time one spends playing on Webkinz, the worse performance gets. Cookies get created, cache gets filled. What happens is every time you go to the site, a boatload of temporary internet files get created from ads on the site. These get onto your PC, and you've got slow PC performance. 

                                             

This is where PerfectDisk comes into play. Cleaning up your drive of unnecessary files, then defragmenting the files and consolidating the free space. All leading to faster PC performance and a less frustrating Webkinz experience. Files on the drive are put back together in contiguous pieces so they are accessed faster. With the disk cleaned of unnecessary files, you have robust free space consolidation. And your kid, or you, are off and running through the rooms and yards of Webkinz World. Heck, you even get a faster PC startup so you can get playing more quickly!

And most importantly of all, your Webkinz dog, cow, monkey or other pet is fed and taken care of more quickly.

                                                 

One way PerfectDisk stands out is its ability to defragment all system files (including all NTFS metadata). System files is the designation that PerfectDisk uses to identify important files that the operating system uses at runtime to operate your PC. These include the Windows paging file (pagefile.sys), the hibernation file used to support sleep mode on desktop Windows PCs (hiberfile.sys), and numerous operating system files (primarily found in the %systemroot% — often C:Windows — and %systemroot%System32 — often C:WindowsSystem32 — directories).
                             
                                                
Depending on whether or not the drive is a system drive, or some other drive that PerfectDisk can’t lock, offline file defragmentation may or may not run on the drive(s). As long as PerfectDisk can lock a drive for exclusive access at runtime, it will defragment system files immediately. But for a Windows system disk or any other locked drive — one, for example, where a paging file might reside in a whole or in part — attempts to defragment system files at runtime will usually fail.

These files are then defragmented if the drive is not locked. Otherwise, this occurs at boot time with a boot time defrag. PerfectDisk locks the drive for its own exclusive use, so it can then defragment and move files the operating system would otherwise not allow to be altered. So, a boot time defrag is really only mandatory for drives that cannot be locked at run time.                         
                                            
                                               
                                                  
Occasionally when you schedule a boot time defrag pass in PerfectDisk, it doesn’t work. This is because PerfectDisk is unable to lock the drives during boot time, so the system gets booted without the defrag pass getting executed. When this happens, it is almost always because a third-party program has modified the BootExecute registry key so that PDBoot.exe (the name of the PerfectDisk boot time defragmenation executable file) is no longer the first entry in its value string. This entry must occur first in that key for boot time defrag to run correctly. Another possibility is that a third-party software product has opened the drive for write access before PDBoot.exe can mount the drive for exclusive access. If the drive is open for write access, PerfectDisk will not run a boot time/offline defrag in order to avoid potential damage to or corruption of system files.

All system files…to complete the drive.