Auto Defrag

Get your head out of the cloud -- have you hugged your PC today?

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

It seems you can't visit a technology web site or pick up a trade publication today without seeing - oh - 1 to 10 articles on the ubiquitous cloud. Pity the poor, forgotten client PC. It seems nobody cares about it any more. Do they? Should they?

Daniel W. Rasmus, author of Listening to the Future (Wiley, 2008), is a strategist who helps clients put their futures in context. He uses scenarios to analyze trends in society, technology, economics, the environment, and politics in order to discover implications used to develop and refine products, services, and experiences. Prior to starting his own consulting practice, he was the Director of Business Insights at Microsoft, where he helped the company envision how people will work in the future. Rasmus coordinated the Microsoft Office Information Worker Board of the Future, an advisory panel composed of college-aged students who share ideas on how to better serve the “Millennial Generation” as they join the workforce. He also managed the Center for Information Work, an immersive experience that helped Microsoft's customers experience the future of work first hand.

Before joining Microsoft, Rasmus was an analyst with the Giga Information Group, and later Forrester Research. His achievements include inventing conceptual frameworks for next-generation collaboration, adaptive workspaces, and intelligent content services. He also served as Giga's Chief Knowledge Officer, managing internal learning within research, sales, and marketing.

Writing on the Internet Evolution website yesterday, Rasmus wrote the article It's Time to Think About Clients, Not Clouds. He asks the question -- "as computers gain more processing power, has the move to the cloud forced us to abandon higher goals for the client?" Rasmus points out that most of a computer's power is used when you sit before it, and writes:

Think about that. When you turn your computer on in the morning, it is no different than it was the night before. Even if you leave the computer on, the most you can hope for is a completed backup, a few patches, a new RSS feed or two, a complete local index, perhaps a hard drive defrag.

Well, there you have it. Yes, computers do a lot of nothing when their owners or users are not driving them. They sit there, waiting for the next user command so they can go off and do whatever it is the user wants. To defrag a computer or defrag hard disk may not be the most important PC issues for many people (although we think it should be!), we're proud that we are one of the few applications that can give the client PC a boost when you're not sitting in front of it. Whether you want to fix a slow PC startup or obtain overall faster PC performance, applications like PerfectDisk and PerfectSpeed address the issues when your PC is idle and not consuming any CPU. Auto defrag when your computer is otherwise idle, through StealthPatrol. It works, even when you're resting.

Check out thought leader Daniel Rasmus' article on the Internet Evolution site; and remember who's thinking smarter when it comes to your computers.

PerfectDisk 11 Service Pack 3 (Build 178) defrag update

Friday, August 13, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

The PerfectDisk 11 Client and Enterprise Console have been updated to Build 178. 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:

We corrected a bug when creating Auto Pilot schedules for Exchange Data stores on Exchange 2010. If individual stores were selected instead of all stores, you would get an error.
A new feature was added to allow controlling the behavior (display) of the registration dialog. This can now be blocked using group policy, the config.ini file or the Enterprise Console
A new feature was added to control the VSS settings from Group Policy or the config.ini file.
A new feature was added to control the custom SMARTPlacement settings from Group Policy.
We modified the behavior of the Screen Saver Auto-Pilot schedule to allow the monitor to power off. Prior to this version, Screen Saver schedules would not run if the monitor powered off as not screen saver was present. This behavior was modified to recognize the corporate need to have monitor power down to save energy.
The defragmentation logic was modified to minimize skipping files during a defragmentation pass. Prior to this version a file could be skipping after failing to move when requested. This logic was changed to only skip the file under more restrictive terms.
We corrected a flaw in the SmartDefrag logic where the proper defragmentation algorithm was not always being used.
We added support for Japanese translations.

Console enhancements and fixes:

When deploying patch files from the Enterprise console, the wizard would sometimes crash due to an un-initialized variable. This has been fixed.
We corrected a bug when downloading the latest PerfectDisk clients for deployment. The console did not use the proxy settings. This has been fixed.
New feature was added to allow controlling the behavior (display) of the registration dialog. This can now be blocked using group policy, the config.ini file or the Enterprise Console.
We corrected a bug when downloading PerfectDisk client packages from the deployment wizard. Previous versions did not support saving the package to a network share. This has been fixed.
A change was made to the deployment wizard to use the computer name if a domain is not specified when providing credentials.
Some user interface layout changes were made to avoid confusion.
We fixed a bug when specified specific sync periods which spanned midnight.
We added support for Japanese translations.

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Big, bad and ugly drives -- what's the best defrag software?

Thursday, July 22, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

The debate about whether or not free is good enough for a defrag of the data on your disk drives will likely go on as long as Windows and NTFS are around. I've discussed the merits of third-party defrag software that is not free here before, but I'm not doing that today. However, there are some instances and conditions that lend themselves to a much easier conclusion and a clearer delineation between free and "not free". And I do want to share an interesting user experience with you.

Like the case of the CNN newsroom that was brought to a halt because its servers were so severely fragmented. And a recent story that was brought to my attention by Andrew Hart of Australia. Andrew is a heavy Photoshop user and has 5 1TB hard drives that he gives quite a workout with all he does. And he needed to defrag Windows 7. He gave a couple of freeware defrag tools a try. For his environment, they didn't cut it.

This is how Andy describes his situation:

"After only 3 days of trialing it, albeit to the point of having tried, almost exhaustively, all the available defrag options on very large, heavily fragmented data drives, I have concluded that PerfectDisk 11 PRO is a very competent and comprehensive defragging program. I am very pleased to have it looking after my 5 x 1 Terabyte HDDs in a 64-bit Win 7 computer. On days when I am working in Photoshop CS5, which is quite often, I can generate and delete several gigabytes of image data in a single session, and this makes it virtually mandatory to have a defrag program with robust strength, speed and intelligence to keep my system from becoming bogged down and unresponsive. I have tried the defrag utility built into Win 7 64-bit, as well as another free 64-bit program, but unfortunately neither are quite up to the task of both completely defragging and simultaneously compacting all free space quickly in a single pass. For those requirements I have to look to PerfectDisk."

How to make your PC run faster? There are various things that can help, defragmentation being one. When people look at a defrag utility to defrag Windows 7 or auto defrag XP, at the individual user level, freeware may be considered. But they might not be good enough for the biggest, baddest and ugliest of your drives - the ones with large files that are edited, created and deleted frequently. And when you add things like the ability to find and remove duplicate files, the decision becomes easier still.

Sometimes the best things in life are free. Sometimes, however, as in the case of the best defrag software, free just doesn't cut it.

Building network infrastructures for SMBs with PC optimization software and more

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

One of the great IT challenges in my opinion is helping SMBs (small- and medium-size businesses) maximize their use of technology to achieve their business goals. The reason it is such a big challenge is that there is often minimal expertise in-house, and even less time to devote to thinking about ways in which technology can help. If a business is devoting the majority of its resources to figuring out how to find that next customer, maintain its existing customers, or just keep afloat in these challenging times, there's usually not much time, if any, to spend thinking about how to take advantage of new technology, or planning strategically. Sure, when something goes bad and a problem arises, technology moves to the forefront of the business concerns. But once the fire is put out, it's back to the day-to-day.

But there are SMBs that have figured out that there is true benefit to taking advantage of technology to make their businesses better or smarter. There's a proactive way that not only can stop (or minimize) problems from occurring, but make the business better. Through greater efficiency, more productive employees, better service, etc.

This is where a company called ProsLink comes in. ProsLink is an IT solutions firm headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana that has carved out a niche for itself focusing on helping SMBs run their businesses better. Officially, it "specializes in building and supporting IT network infrastructures for small and medium businesses." What's that mean? Well, it can be anything from helping businesses do a better job of handling their email to helping a company deploy an anti-virus solution so the company can cross that off the list of things to worry about. Things as relatively simple as figuring out the best PCs for a company's workers, to as complex as implementing server virtualization to reduce costs, or vSphere and virtualization performance tuning. The list of services ProsLink provides is long. But the benefits are focused.

ProsLink has even been singled out by Cisco for its work. ProsLink's SmartCare Service works in conjunction with Cisco Services to proactively verify that a network is secure, reliable, and functioning optimally to help improve employee productivity and customer responsiveness to get the most from technology investments. The people at ProsLink know their stuff, and this is all real stuff that helps a business run better.

In looking at server and desktop performance, one area where ProsLink has researched heavily is disk defragmentation. It's looked at all the options and possible solutions out there. It's done its homework, and we're happy that it has found PerfectDisk to meet all its needs and those of its clients, from virtualization performance and vSphere performance to auto defrag, from server defrag to faster PC performance.

As Craig Hickman of ProsLink told me recently, his company "utilizes PerfectDisk solutions for clients who are looking to receive peak performance from their servers and desktops. PerfectDisk is a great solution for those looking to keep older and newer hardware optimized on a continuous basis."

A business that gets it. For SMBs that get it.

WSJ: The PC Goes on an Energy Diet — but you can still defrag

Wednesday, June 23, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, staff reporter Jim Carlton delves into the topic of energy consumption, looking at how PC manufacturers are tackling the problem of PCs sucking up “enormous amounts of electricity, often when they aren’t even being used.” Carlton writes that “for a company that has 10,000 personal-computer desktops, for example, just leaving most of them turned on all night can cost more than $165,000 a year in electricity bills, while spewing more than 1,380 tons of carbon dioxide into the air per year.” The numbers get a lot smaller for home users, but in this new world we are in today, every little bit counts — of money and energy.

Carlton discusses total industry numbers and what corporate IT managers are doing to try to bring their PC energy costs down. And PC manufacturers are leading the way, with Dell, H-P and Apple at the forefront. Carlton writes that “the PC makers have also launched computer take-back programs, and have switched to more recyclable materials.”

Of course, to keep even busy PC s completely defragmented, a single-pass, fully automated, flexible and auto-scheduled defragger like PerfectDisk is needed. Whether you’re a corporate IT manager or a home user, it’s nice to be able to shut down your PC at night knowing that when it starts up the next day, it will be completely defragmented, with all free space consolidated.

Defrag green.

To defrag Windows, play chess, not checkers

Monday, May 3, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

Writing over at the Information Week Storage blog, Storage Switzerland's George Crump last week laid out an interesting analogy with a post titled Storage Checkers vs. Chess. Crump sets up his premise with this:

Checkers is a two dimensional game where all the pieces have the same ability. Its about covering space. Chess is a complex three dimensional game where all the pieces have different capabilities and there is one common target: the enemy’s king. In storage some features begin to look like checkers because they have become so commonplace, but when you dig deeper you find that the capabilities of these features between vendors vary greatly.

Crump writes about snapshot technology, thin provisioning, deduplication, auto-tiering, compression and replication as basic capabilities that can be vastly different on further review.

George's post really struck a chord here, because we often have conversations with consumers and IT administrators who had always thought a defragger is a defragger is a defragger when you defrag Windows. It's just not the case. Sure, anyone can put together a checklist and give themselves as many checks as they desire. Free space consolidation? Sure, they say, we do that. Large drive support? Yup. Improve virtualization performance with virtualization defrag? Of course.

But upon further review, which can include actual testing of the defrag products and review of user forums that discuss slow PC tips and the like, one can learn a lot more. Like which product does the most complete free space consolidation. Which is the best defrag tool for large drives, without charging extra for the privilege. And which has specific defrag solutions to improve vSphere performance and Hyper-V performance. To name just a few check list features.

Crump concludes, "when considering your storage options make sure you are playing chess, not checkers."

The same advice should go for considering the best defrag tool.

Defrag Windows with the best defrag tool

eWeek's 5 Windows 7 Issues Every IT Pro Needs to Know - Plus 1 defrag

Friday, April 30, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

I like Windows 7. Lots of people and critics like Windows 7, and more companies are beginning the process of moving, or at least planning, to move to Windows 7. But it's not perfect, as I've also pointed out before, focusing in particular on the Windows 7 defrag shortcomings.

This past week, eWeek's Nicholas Kolakowski wrote about 5 Windows 7 issues that every IT pro needs to know, which I found interesting because it touched on some real world scenarios that an organization must face when moving to Windows 7. The five issues Nicholas calls out are:

Lack of upgrade path between Windows XP and Windows 7
Libraries functionality
Legacy applications backwards compatibility
Occasional battery life issues for laptops running Windows 7
Early drive incompatibility.

Some of these issues may or may not be a problem for any particular organization. For example, not everyone has experienced battery life issues, and Microsoft denies it is even an issue at all. And depending on your level of expertise, upgrading from XP to Windows 7 may or may not be an issue.

But the point is, as with any major upgrade, things may not be as simple and straightforward as they appear. And that's the case with the Windows 7 defrag - sounds decent on paper, but there's more to the story. Even ignoring even the quality, thoroughness and flexibility, a key thing for IT managers is management and control of the process. There is no management and control of the built-in Windows 7 defrag. So if you're looking to speed up PC performance across the enterprise and also manage and report on the process, you'll run into roadblocks with the built-in Windows 7 defrag. We've outlined the administrative issues and a lot more in a white paper previously released.

Windows 7 offer a lot. But particularly for IT pros, things are not necessarily as straightforward as they may seem.

You can see the entire eWeek set of slides here.

Related posts:

IT warming up to Windows 7 -- remember to auto defrag XP and Windows 7

Thursday, April 8, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

Dimensional Research recently surveyed 923 IT professionals about their Windows operating system adoption plans, and the indication is that the trend away from XP and towards Windows 7 is at least starting. Gregg Keizer, writing in Computerworld (April 5, 2010), states that "business are finally prying their hands from Windows XP and they warm to Windows 7. The feeling about how great XP has been is beginning to fade.

In Dimensional's new study, 40% of the respondents said that they're worried about the hassles of maintaining XP as it gets more and more outdated. That's up from 28% almost a year ago. And while 60% of the respondents said they're worried about the cost and overhead of migrating to Windows 7, that number is down from 72% last year. The study stated that "IT is still more worried about Windows 7 than XP, but the trend is favoring Windows 7."

As I and many others expected, it's just a matter of time. And in terms of defragmenting computer, PerfectDisk has it all covered. From auto defrag XP to a certified Windows 7 defrag, you can get the best disk defrag from PerfectDisk and speed up PC performance and boot quicker.

From the past to the present...and whatever is to come.

Computerworld -- how to compete with free -- defrag and more

Thursday, April 1, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

After yesterday's post on the PC Magazine article about software discovery being dead, I found it ironic that later yesterday a review of PerfectDisk 11 appeared in ComputerWorld, Network World, PC World, and a host of other sites that picked it up. Here's an "old school" review of PerfectDisk 11 by a set of "traditional," mainstream technology publications.

When looking at how to make your PC run faster and the best disk defrag tool, there is the Windows 7 defrag tool and lots of free Windows defrag software out there. So why pay for one? Ian Harac's review explains why, including features above and beyond simple auto defrag. He even gets into duplicate file software and duplicate file removal.

Harac, in his review PerfectDisk 11 Whips Hard Drives Into Shape, writes:

"Defragmentation is one of the chores of computer ownership, something that's tedious but which has to be done regularly. Windows includes a free defragmentation tool, but there are plenty of competing products. How do you compete with "free"? You make something worth paying for. PerfectDisk 11 ($40, 30-day free trial) is that worthy tool.

"PerfectDisk 11 has one of the best blends of features and usability I have seen....given the range of features and ease of use, it's well worth upgrading from a free product to PerfectDisk Professional."

All disk defragmentation software is not created equally. A very small set is actually worth paying for.

You can read the entire Computerworld article here.

St. Patrick's Day -- a green defrag for a greener planet

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

Happy St. Patrick's Day! A day for green bagels and green beer...and a green defrag. Yes, while you may have thought about a defrag solution when you were thinking about slow PC tips for your computer, there are also ways that you can improve PC performance and be a little greener, environmentally speaking, in the process.

Here are just a few ways PerfectDisk can help you do your part in keeping the planet, or your life, more environmentally and economically friendly:

file placement strategies result in fewer resources consumed over time
flexible scheduling options like idle background processing, screen saver and more result in fewer resources consumed
longer life for PCs and laptops, because they maintain their performance, means fewer in the trash
longer life for hard drives.

Looking for a real-world example? Steven V. Smith is the president of SoundsSmith Mastering, a media post-production service company specializing in traditional mastering, fine editing, creating duplication masters, and quality control. Steven writes:

"I have to say that my biggest appreciation is that I’ve noticed my hard drives (all of them, regardless of brand) seem to be so much more trouble-free, and work like new (quiet, fast) after several years of hard use. Before I started using PerfectDisk regularly, hard drive failure was not so uncommon for us here.

"I think the difference has been since PerfectDisk's StealthPatrol proved to be so completely non-performance-impinging, and I could leave it on all the time (for all our drives) and never worry about fragmentation or system performance issues from running an auto defrag. This is like having your cake and eating it too. I attribute it to PerfectDisk and StealthPatrol (with the default SmartPlacement, in our case)!

"I don’t build systems for other people these days, but if I did, not a one would go out without PD11 installed and set for Stealth Patrol."

Less hard drive failure leads to holding on to your hard drives longer. And being greener.

With or without the green beer.

VSS defrag -- more flexibility and control

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

Shadow Copy (also called Volume Snapshot Service or VSS) is a feature introduced with Windows Server 2003 and made available in Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. VSS allows taking manual or automatic backup copies or snapshots of a file or folder on a specific volume at a specific point in time. VSS is used by backup software providers, including System Restore in Windows 7 and Vista, and provides previous versions of files for Windows Server 2003/2008 and Windows 7/Vista.

When VSS is enabled on a drive, VSS may detect defrag activity as changes to the drive and attempt to replicate those changes (MS KB article 312067). Depending on the amount of data that VSS attempts to replicate, Shadow Copies/Restore Points may be purged or "dropped". This means that previous versions of files may no longer be available or Restore Points may be purged. If a VSS enabled drive has been formatted with a cluster size of 16K or larger (default cluster size is 4k), VSS has the ability to detect defragmentation activity and minimize replication - reducing (but possibly not eliminating) the number of Shadow Copies/Restore Points that may be purged.

Today, PerfectDisk can be configured to detect if VSS is enabled on a drive and to take appropriate action. By default, if VSS is configured on a drive and the cluster size is less than 16k, then PerfectDisk will defragment in VSS compatible mode. If VSS is configured on a drive and the cluster size is less than 16k, then PerfectDisk can also be configured to not defragment the VSS enabled drive at all or to defragment the VSS enabled drive normally.
If PerfectDisk is configured to Stop if any Shadow Copies exist, PerfectDisk will NOT defragment the drive at all.
If PerfectDisk is configured to perform normal defragmentation, it may result in Shadow Copies/Restore Points being purged as defragmentation is performed. When configured to defragment in VSS compatible mode and the drive cluster size is less than 16k, PerfectDisk limits the number of files "moved" during the defragmentation pass so that purging of Shadow Copies/Restore Points is minimized. For VSS enabled drives where the cluster size is 16K or larger, PerfectDisk defragments drives normally.
Note that when PerfectDisk defragments a drive in VSS compatibility mode, it may not defragment files/free space as completely as it normally does.

What was just described is current PerfectDisk behavior. But some users, particularly power users, may want more control over their VSS environment. Like the ability to specify a percentage threshold on a drive that limits how much of the drive will can be defragmented, to minimize the purging of Shadow Copies/Restore Points even more than is currently available.

As always, we're looking to put more into an auto defrag. For those that want to defrag a computer with more flexibility and control than a standard auto defrag can provide.

On a scale of 1 to 10, it's an 11. March 2010.

eWeek's 25 technologies that changed the decade -- plus defrag

Monday, February 22, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

eWeek Labs recently put together a list of the 25 Technologies That Changed the Decade, an interesting list of hardware, software, applications and more "that have changed the way we work, play and live" over the last 10 years. I guess since Windows defrag software has been around more than a decade, and defrag programs in general have been around for much more than that, the simple yet important task to defrag a computer was nowhere to be found (insert smirk here).

But I was interested to see how much defrag programs touched on many of the 25 technologies. While the expected flashy consumer products were on the list, including the iPhone, iPod and other smart phones, several back-end technologies that power our world of technology were also there, and disk defrag software played a role with those technologies. From multicore processors to netbooks to blade servers to virtualization to Windows XP, PerfectDisk is there to help these technologies work better. Whether it's a faster PC startup or the need to speed up PC performance or a server defrag to ensure a mission critical application runs fast and efficiently, auto defrag has played a role.

Regarding the 25th spot, it seemed a bit amusing to see Windows XP listed, since the flashier and well-received Windows 7 seems a more likely candidate. But as the article states, "Windows XP is certainly the most dominant operating system of the decade." I can see some merit in that selection.

You can read the entire article here and compare it with your Top 25.

A PC performance optimizer and service, all in one

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

We like to think we have the best PC performance optimizer software, and we're constantly testing and improving to make sure that's the case. But we also take pride in the technical support and customer service we provide to go along with our defrag and PC optimization software. It's instilled into everyone here, no matter what their job title. We receive a lot of feedback from our customers praising our employees as well as our technology, and I'd like to share some of a recent one. We think the perfect mix is superior technology and service.

George Carr of Ontario, Canada is a retired employee of a Fortune 100 hardware company, who managed a $600 million division of the company. George now is an active stock trade, where faster PC speed is critical, which is why he is interested in PC optimization software. One of his 3 laptops is devoted specifically for trading. Video performance is also important to Carr, as he has another laptop devoted to his hobby of video creation and video editing. The third laptop in his household belongs to his wife, who wants a optimize PC, but doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about PC maintenance.



Unsolicited, George wrote the following:

"I am writing to share an experience I recently had with your company that was pretty unique in the consumer software business, and really influenced my decision to purchase from your company. I downloaded a trial copy of your PerfectSpeed product for evaluation. Within days of downloading the trial, I received a message from Wendy Clontz. What was unique about this is that the email was very professional, it was from a real person, and the tone of the message sounded to me like your company was really interested in how the evaluation process was progressing.

Normally when you download a software trial, a computer generated form message is sent saying "if you have any questions, please call "1-888-i want to sell you something." This was not the case with the message I received. I actually replied to the message with some comments and questions that I had about the product, and amazingly, I received a reply within 24 hours actually addressing my questions and comments.

What I learned from my communication with Wendy was that the PerfectSpeed product was probably not the one I really needed. The product I needed was PerfectDisk Professional, and I purchased that product with a 3-user license, and now have it installed on all three of my computers. The product has made a huge difference in my disk performance, and I love the fact that I can set the "AutoPilot" on my wife's computer. She is not technical, and usually ignores defragmentation warnings.

Finally, I want you to know that the overall approach you company uses to communicate with clients is what made me decide that you are the company that I want to do business with. I have spent over 30 years in the computer industry in client services for a fortune 100 computer company, and this experience would rank as number 1 in my book.

Please thank Wendy for her tremendous dedication, diligence, and follow up. This is what clearly demonstrates the Great companies from the average companies."

Will do -- thanks Wendy. And thanks for sharing your video performance and PC performance optimizer story, George.

Look beneath the surface, clean your PC, shrink your drive

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

Many PerfectDisk users install the program, set up an automated schedule or auto defrag to run in the background, and almost never think about defrag again. They've made their slow PC fix and achieved faster PC speed, effortlessly.

And then there are those, of which there are many, that like to watch the map viewer, with all it's color and information about file location and drive layout. And then there's another set of users - those who want to dig deeper into the map -- to get an understanding of what files are where on their drives.

But there's also another reason to look into the colorful blocks, even beyond fixing slow PC problems. For Vista and Windows 7 users, Windows ability to shrink drives can be very powerful. But it doesn't always work according to plan, according to the Microsoft text book.
In order to shrink a drive, it's very likely that you'll need to clean your PC, either through duplicate file removal or the removal of other unnecessary files. And then, with PerfectDisk's free space consolidation, you're in good shape to shrink the drive.

But you can't easily remove those files to shrink your drive if you don't know where they are. The perfect solution would be to click on a block to gain a better understanding of the files and their usage. Then again, you may want to click on the bit map to see what's where.

A new block viewer to dig deeper....and beyond the colors.

On a scale of 1 to 10, it's an 11. Coming March 2010.

Central management of defrag — easy does it

Thursday, January 14, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

The Greengate School is located in Huntsville, Alabama, educating and supporting bright children who have specific learning differences in reading, spelling or writing so that they may realize their full potential. With a dedicated teaching staff of 22, the school prides itself on superior attention to the needs of its student. You might think such a place is far from the PerfectDisk and disk defragmentation software worlds.

But the school has found that auto defrag is a boost to its desktops and server, which is used to manage user acccess to administrative, staff and student systems. Prior to using PerfectDisk on its server and PCs, defragmentation was performed using the Windows built-in defragger on an ad-hoc, as-necessary basis. The Greengate teachers use standard Office applications, as well as testing and assessment software, and shared applications that use proprietary databases.

Besides PerfectDisk’s optimization and free space consolidation, Greengate was drawn to PerfectDisk due to PerfectDisk’s central management and scheduling capabilities, all made easy through the PerfectDisk Enterprise Console. As John Allen, IT Volunteer at Greengate noted, “PerfectDisk’s central management and automation saves me an enormous amount of time every month. Defragmentation is now done much more thoroughly, but it’s also done completely automatically, meaning I barely have to think about it anymore.”

Auto defrag…and management….made easy.

Real world, real company -- Vigilante Security cuts costs and boosts productivity with defrag

Monday, January 11, 2010 by Joe Abusamra

Sometimes we get so far down in the weeds of our disk defrag utility that it's easy to lose sight of what can be gained from a top disk defragment program. Today I wanted to touch on the success achieved via PerfectDisk's auto defrag and console management system by Vigilante Security, a Michigan-based alarm system company serving the residential and large industrial markets that uses PerfectDisk for its disk defragmentation and storage optimization needs. Vigilante services over 60,000 subscribers in 43 states.

Vigilante Security maintains 17 servers, 15 laptops and over 50 workstations, with employees working on a range of applications from Microsoft Office to Vigilante Security’s own proprietary alarm monitoring system. There are also dedicated CAD workstations and several PCs dedicated to remote access of Alarm control systems. The company also provides central station monitoring to other alarm dealers throughout the industry. Vigilante performs server defrag as well as desktop and laptop defrags with PerfectDisk.

Ron Ross, president of Vigilante Security, had this to say: “The ROI for PerfectDisk was quickly established, as we’ve saved a huge amount of time using the PerfectDisk Enterprise Console to administer the entire disk management operation from one location. Manual defragmentation with the Windows built-in defragmenter took too much time and also resulted in lost employee productivity while employees waited for defrag completion. PerfectDisk Server and PerfectDisk Professional have eliminated all those wasted resources, and the Enterprise Console allows us to manage the entire process effortlessly.”

Behind all the noise, real benefits.

Construction has begun -- an update on the Washington DC Ronald McDonald House

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 by Joe Abusamra

Construction has begun!

A few years ago, Raxco Software began giving to the Ronald McDonald House of Washington, DC as our leading charity. As I’ve written about in the past, the Ronald McDonald House is part of the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC). RMHC works to better the lives of children and their families around the world. The program began in 1974 based on a simple idea: provide a “home away from home” for families of seriously ill children receiving treatment at nearby hospitals. Since that time, more than 10 million families around the world have benefited from the comfort provided by a Ronald McDonald House.



RMHC and its global network of local chapters in 49 countries have awarded more than $440 million in grants and program services worldwide to make an immediate, positive impact on as many children as possible. The Ronald McDonald House of Washington, DC has housed over 15,800 families from all over the world since its formation in the early 1980s. These families have children with serious illnesses that are being treated in Washington-area hospitals.

A new house is being built in the Washington, DC area and PerfectDisk is helping to build it. We are happy to be able to share some of our success with what we believe to be a very worthy and global cause. The main wing of the building was built in 1912, and the costs of maintaining an old building over time far outweigh the one-time cost of constructing a new House. The original foundation has resulted in much water damage and other problems. The new house will provide new suites for families, play rooms and much more. The new house will also be green, with new, energy efficient systems to significantly reduce ongoing repair, maintenance and operating costs.

This new venture started over 2 years ago. After nearly 2 years of red tape and negotiations with the DC government, the Ronald McDonald House of Washington, DC is now starting! We received a letter earlier this month with this news from Debbie Wargo, Special Project Director of the DC RMHC. The builder is excited to begin (as we all are), and believes construction will be completed in the fall of 2010. Thousands of deserving families stand ready to reap the benefits.

Thanks to the entire worldwide PerfectDisk family of auto defrag users and employees for allowing us to help in this very worthwhile cause. Just one more reason all Windows defrag software is not alike.

Subway's $5 footlong -- the sandwich that ate the recession -- powered by PerfectDisk

Thursday, November 12, 2009 by Joe Abusamra

In the November 16th issue of Business Week, Matthew Boyle's feature article, The Accidental Hero, describes how Subway has thrived in the recession as nearly every other restaurant chain reeled. How is it doing it? The big surge got its boost from an obscure Subway franchisee in Miami, who started the $5 footlong concept on slow weekends and then watched business take off. The concept went national, and the rest is history, as Subway is now on track to surpass McDonald's in worldwide locations by early next year. McDonald's still has a big lead in revenue ($30 billion to Subway's $9.6 billion), but Subway has supplanted both Wendy's and Burger King in market share.

As usual, there's a lot that goes on in this multi-billion dollar business to make it all work. And in fact, as Business Week's article points out, there have been various logistical challenges in trying to meet the huge increase in demand. One thing that has not been a concern for Subway is its hard drive defragmentation. For years, Subway has relied on PerfectDisk to ensure its servers perform at maximum efficiency. At the time PerfectDisk was installed, free space consolidation and auto defrag capabilities were forefront in Subway's requirements. Now, PerfectDisk is just a standard part of its operating procedures.

See the entire Business Week article here.

$3.8 billion in sales of Subway's $5 footlong sandwiches in the last fiscal year. Simple concept, big return.

Just like Subway's server defrag software.

Defrag vSphere 4 intelligently for performance boost

Thursday, October 22, 2009 by Joe Abusamra

With our recent announcement of support for vSphere 4, PerfectDisk now provides unparralled support for vSphere defrag. VMware has received a great deal of interest with this cloud operating system, as its battle with Microsoft's Hyper-V, Citrix' XenServer and others shows no sign of abating, but only intensifying. While auto defrag is a key element of any solution for a virtualization defrag tool, any defragmenter program that fails to address the unique complexities of a virtual environment will come up short.

Because vSphere 4 is able to manage large pools of virtualization computing infrastructure, including hardware and software, its overall performance is critical to organizations implementing it. This is one area where a defragmenter program can help. And with its ability to defrag seamlessly in a vSphere environment, providing the patent-pending Virtual Awareness defragmentation that eliminates resource contention and ensures efficient use of resource, PerfectDisk 10 vSphere ESX delivers.

Time to defrag VMware environments like you mean it...with true integration.

PerfectDisk 11 defrag -- on the horizon

Thursday, October 22, 2009 by Joe Abusamra

September 30, 2009 - a fun day here at PerfectDisk headquarters -- the pre-Alpha code for PerfectDisk 11 was distributed internally here this morning. More auto defrag functionality without bloat. Backend and frontend improvements. Shinier and more intuitive, without a new learning curve required. Faster. More virtualization improvements. Desktops, laptops, production servers, Exchange servers and Windows Home Servers will benefit.

Okay, I'm biased. But your chance to see for yourselves is coming.

I know you're asking...if PerfectDisk 10 is so great, why an 11? Well, for the best defrag software, we felt "a little extra push" was needed...

And here it is.

11 is on its way -- stay tuned.