Last year, Kansas-based William Newton Hospital, which serves a community of 40,000 people and has revenues of over $40 million, made the switch to PerfectDisk to improve its virtualization performance. The hospital looked to PerfectDisk's virtualization defrag solutions, which include tools for vSphere performance and Hyper-V performance improvements. William Newton Hospital maintains physical and virtual servers for database functions such as electronic medical record keeping, financial, inventory, lab and radiology information, and Point of Care charting. Medical Verification is also used at patient bedside via wireless Chart Carts and PDAs, along with a radiology image storage and retrieval system.
The big appeal, according to IT director Randy Mayo was PerfectDisk's unique Virtual Awareness capability, which eliminated "the severe system slowdown on our servers that we were experiencing with Diskeeper." As Randy points out, "PerfectDisk automatically determines guest and host activity to eliminate resource contention and minimize the impact on our shared storage. The result is faster systems, improved productivity and better service to our patients.”
But William Newton didn't stop there, as they continued to look to Raxco Software for performance and productivity improvements. This investigation led them to PerfectSpeed, Raxco's tool for boosting performance as well as cleaning up performance-debilitating clutter. While its typical use is for the home consumer, William Newton found so many useful tools for slow PC fixes and slow PC performance in PerfectSpeed that they've put it on over a hundred employees' computers. For these users, Mayo gets not only the benefit of the best defrag software, but also a powerful duplicate file removal program and one of the best registry cleaners, all helping speed up PC performance and ensuring these computers run at peak performance and efficiency.
From virtualization performance to an easy slow PC fix -- William Newton Hospital has found its fix.
When trying to figure out how to make your PC run faster, many people turn to look for the best defrag tool and best PC optimizer. Look at reviews, head to the user forums, ask their colleagues and friends to see what the options are. Free or paid for. Automatic or manual. Lots of options or few. Enterprise defrag or for personal use only. It's all well and good, and what drives us here at Raxco to deliver the market's best defrag software year after year.
But we also like to differentiate ourselves in a different way, through our technical support and customer service. So while we truly believe PerfectDisk is the best defrag software available, we also think our service and support are superior as well. That attitude is epitomized by Wendy Clontz, who heads up our customer service department and whom we are proud to have with us.
Dan Baldry is a 20--year IT professional in Sydney, Australia, managing a team of people who sell maintenance and professional services for one of the world's largest networking companies. Dan wrote to me directly recently about what he described as our "excellent service," which he argues is hard to find these days. Here are some of Dan's words:
"I purchased Perfect Disk a few years ago mainly on the basis of an article I came across in a local PC magazine that I thought gave a good impartial review and sold me on the merits of the product. With a computing background, to me disk defragmentation is what I would describe as a routine housekeeping item that I would consider baseline for a healthy PC. In a perfect world this would be delivered as a native part of the operating system. You might argue that it is, but I'm suspicious of the standard utility and a bit wary of the available freeware (though I know they are reasonably good). With my hard disk capacity getting bigger, I was on the hunt for a good utility that would just do the job and I could be confident in (no doubts), so that was why I decided to stump up the dollars and go for Perfect Disk. In short, I wanted to be sure my system was at optimum health and running with maximum performance all the time. You might ask why? Well, I use my PC for a mix of work and play and it became a bit of a mission to drive the best performance without resorting to a massive/expensive upgrade as time went on. A few dollars on PD seemed like a good option. Eventually I did upgrade but I still use PD as part of the same housekeeping approach.
However, over the past couple of years, with reinstalls, losing keys, lost downloads etc... and needing to call on support more than once came to realise that the Raxco company offered me an extension of the confidence that I had in the product, and that was the confidence that if I had an issue I would get a reasonably quick, no nonsense, response. Even though it was probably only a few interactions over something like 24 months, I realised it was the same people assisting me throughout, which made me feel the company must have something going for it to be able to retain people like that. The consistent message I hear back is that while customers choose our physical products to drive their business based on value and the vision of our company, it's the Services we offer that keeps them coming back. Not only that, but our partners value our Services above all for the profitable revenue it drives - and customers are willing to pay as they have confidence that they are getting a total package. I think it's how we treat our customers after the sale that creates real business, and I think that's something Raxco has understood from the get go."
So there you have it, directly from a professional in the IT field. It's not enough for us to deliver the best defrag software or to simply fix a slow PC startup. We need to go the extra mile.Service -- before and after the sale -- for life.
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.
Those of you who have followed us for at least the last couple of years have observed our entry into the virtualization performance space. As we pioneered technology such as PerfectDisk's patent-pending Virtual Awareness for vSphere performance and Hyper-V performance tuning, we've talked directly to hundred of enterprise and small business users. We've received lots of feedback on both the technology as well as the business side -- licensing and pricing.
In ComputerWorld today, Elisabeth Horwitt has a piece on Virtualization and software pricing: Very tricky. Elisabeth raises several interesting points, including:
Virtualization can provide significant TCO savings for server and desktop hardware, and in desktop software and security administration. But saving on software license costs through virtualization is problematic. For one thing, vendors can't seem to agree on a model that works for both them and their customers, says Amy Konary, a research director at IDC.
Many enterprise software vendors still charge per hardware box, which means customers can save by consolidating applications on a single server that has multiple CPUs. However, a growing number of vendors, such as Oracle, charge per CPU, says Altimeter Group partner Ray Wang.
For a time, we had internal disagreements as well. And we've modified our pricing since moved into the virtualization space. But as we continued to talk to organizations, we finally came to a pricing model that we are very comfortable with, as are the businesses and government agencies that are customers of PerfectDisk's virtualization performance products. This pricing model has been with us now for several months. Companies that have been with us for years know we try to be their partner in the performance management aspect of their business. And because cost savings are a key motivator for moving to virtualization, we didn't want to be an obstacle to that goal. So we charge by the hardware box, which, as analyst Ray Wang notes, means customers can save money.
Many factors come into play as organizations move to virtualization, or look to maximize its benefits once they have moved. Virtualization performance is a key aspect of the process. After all, the potential cost savings don't mean a lot if performance degrades. As IT delves into the environment, it usually learns that all the problems associated with the Windows environment at the physical level haven't gone away. In fact, they may have multiplied because of the very nature of the host/guest relationship and interaction. Since they are so entwined, if the relationship between host and guest do not account for each other, virtualizaton performance suffers, with the resulting negative impact across the board.
Despite the obstacles and potential pitfalls, virtualization can, in most cases, provide numerous benefits. One of those is cost. We look to help organizations maximize the benefits with improved performance, without the downside of screwing the customer on the pricing side.
Virtualization performance via vSphere defrag and Hyper-V defrag -- you can get premier performance without paying a premium price.
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.
- 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.
There's another large set of consumers who want that same power and quality that PerfectDisk provides, but also want additional tools and slow PC solutions...and they want it from an industry leader. Slow PC fixes are needed by just about everyone to fix slow PC. When thinking about the best registry repair and best registry cleaners, Raxco software has not traditionally been one that people have sought out. Same thing to find and delete duplicate files. But to fix slow PC, thousands of users are now turning to Raxco Software and PerfectSpeed PC Optimizer.
With a safe registry cleaner, duplicate file finder, trace remover and the powerful defrag engine of PerfectDisk, PerfectSpeed can be the perfect solution to fix slow PC, especially for the person or small business with minimal or no computer expertise. You'll be able to read more here about PerfectSpeed and its evolution over the coming months. And it will be evolving.
Looking for slow PC tips? PerfectSpeed is one place to start...or finish.
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.
Hybrid drives use the fundamentals of a hard drive, but add additional capability with RAM or an SSD for increased performance. Wikipedia gives the following definition:
A hybrid drive, hybrid hard drive (HHD), or hybrid hard disk drive (H-HDD) is a type of large-buffer computer hard disk drive. It is different from standard hard drives in that it integrates a cache using non-volatile memory or even a small solid-state drive (SSD). Although the cache typically uses non-volatile flash memory, some drives use battery-backed volatile RAM (a hybrid RAM disk). The flash memory buffer can speed up repeated reads to the same location; a RAM buffer speeds both reads and writes, but must be written to backup storage when power is lost.
Benefits of hybrid drives can include decreased power consumption and heat generation, the ability to boot quicker via faster boot times and faster PC startup, decreased noise, improved reliability, and improved performance.
But there are drawbacks too. Such as lower performance for non-cached data and small disk writes. They are more expensive than regular hard drives and don't last as long. There may actually be more noise and power usage in some cases. And importantly, recover-ability of data can be problematic.
Well, once you've look at all the considerations and do your research, if you do end up with a hybrid, what about defragmentation - do you need a defrag program for your hybrid drive? The short answer is -- yes.
As for the why, it's due to the fact that at the core of a hybrid drive is a good ol' fashion hard disk drive. So just think - if you need to a defrag utility to defrag hard drive, defrag metadata and defrag, you'll need to defrag a hybrid drive -- because a good portion of it is a hard drive. The reading and writing - and therefore the modifying, adding and deleting that causes fragmentation -- ultimately occurs on the hard drive itself. And that had drive is where the NTFS file system resides, along with all its peculiarities and problems.
A lot of activity may occur in a RAM drive (or now, SSD), but when this happens, periodically the data is moved to the hard drive. This periodic flushing of the data occurs within the controller and is determined by the drive manufacturer. But once it ends up on the hard drive, it's prone to fragmentation just like a non-hybrid drive.
Hybrid drive defrag? Yes, and use your best defrag software, as always.
Related Posts:
SSD overview and do I need an SSD defrag -- Part 1
SSD overview and do I need an SSD defrag -- Part 2
Redmond Magazine recently reported a problem with Windows 7 and video performance, where the VC-1 video codec does not use all of the cores in three-core and six-core machines. What does this mean? Well, if you've purchased a new computer with Windows 7 for better graphics and video support, you may not be getting all you signed up for. For example, Blu-ray disc players aren't leveraging the power of some multicore machines running Windows 7.
The issue may also affect Xbox 360 game consoles, which also use VC-1, as well as a few other video codecs. Codecs compress and decompress media files. Most computer users probably don't care about them, as long as the video frames run smoothly. But many do.
As Redmond reports, there's no word from Microsoft on when the problem with the VC-1 video codec in Windows 7 will be resolved. 
In the meantime (and afterward), thousands of videographers, graphic designers and the like turn to thorough disk defragmentation to boost their video performance. Particularly when you're doing lots of editing, with large files changing and being deleted, video performance can take a big hit. That's why so many of them turn to defragmentation utilities like PerfectDisk to keep video performance humming along.
Fast defrag. Faster defrag performance. All leading to better video performance.
It's not often that PerfectDisk and disk defragmentation software get into an article on a hot topic like Google Voice in publications like Network World and ComputerWorld. But yesterday was such a day. Okay, you have to read the entire article and it's not the focus of the article, but hey, I'll take it (and for a ComputerWorld, Network World, PC World article all about PerfectDisk, see this).
Mark Gibbs, writing in Network World in an article picked up by ComputerWorld and others, penned Google Voice turned loose and finding duplicated files in an article stating that Google Voice is now available to the public. And not being a Google Voice user right now, I will be soon. After reading Gibbs article, there seem to be many reasons to follow his advice -- "...you should really check it out...."
Besides giving a brief overview of Google Voice, Gibbs turns his focus to duplicate file removal and duplicate file software. It's a key part of a cleaning and streamlining effort he undertakes, writing:
"...what could need cleaning out? The answer: Duplicate files.
On my storage systems I have literally hundreds of projects along with various resources that simply exist for our entertainment (such as iTunes) that I know contain in many cases many duplicate copies of files.
So, in an attempt to streamline my stuff, I decided to try out three de-duplication products..."
I agree wholeheartedly with Mark that duplicate file removal is important and a great way to clean your PC. What Mark didn't mention was that PerfectDisk includes a duplicate file manager for duplicate file removal. However, he does mention that PerfecDisk is handling his disk defragmentation needs on his servers and PCs.
So check out Google Voice, whether or not you need duplicate file software or a defrag utility. And check out Mark Gibbs article in Network World and ComputerWorld here. Mark knows his stuff - he's done just about everything in the networking business, from serving as an executive in various companies to creating companies; and as an author he has written four books and numerous articles about networking and computer technology.
Apparently, he can't be dupped.
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.
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.
Much has been written over the years about product activation, a license validation procedure required by some computer software programs that validates the installation with the software manufacturer. While there are those that defend the process (certainly Microsoft), this is not a path that Raxco Software has gone down with PerfectDisk defrag or other products such as PerfectSpeed for PC tuneup.
Our view is that we don’t want to penalize our millions of loyal customers. Product activation doesn’t prevent pirating and it’s an annoyance for legitimate users. I believe most users want to do the right thing - receive a fair value for their investment. We try to provide that value in our disk defragmenter, and that is one reason that Raxco Software continues to grow and PerfectDisk sales continue to rise. Yes, pirating exists, we don't deny that, and pirating happens to products with activation...all the time.
To our millions of home and corporate paying defrag customers, I thank you. We appreciate the partnership. Defrag a computer, and sleep well at night.
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.
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.
Scott Drummonds is the performance guy at VMware. All performance-related issues end up on his plate, and he spends much of his time analyzing data along with customer environments to determine how users can get the most out of what they have. From time to time, he's taken a look at disk defragmentation and its impact on virtualization performance.
We got together with Scott to evaluate the impact of guest defragmentation on a single virtual machine. In his widely-read blog, Scott sets up the test:
"Before I describe the test and its results, I want to share an important point on guest defragmentation. Most of the computer literate are aware that file fragmentation–the separation of logically contiguous pieces of a file–can hurt storage performance. But many may not realize that free space fragmentation is as big of an issue. When free space is fragmented, writes take longer and files are re-fragmented rapidly. PerfectDisk defragments files and free space and the results below benefit from both of these improvements."
I'm not going to give away the results here, but I will quote just one of Scott's comments here: "Let me repeat one of those amazing data points: the average IO latency dropped from about 55 ms to less than 4 ms. While this is a phenomenal number, the increase depends on characteristics of the storage system. Since these improvements are configuration dependent, your results may vary considerably."
You can read Scott Drummonds entire post, with lots of data and charts, here.
Get the lowdown on virtualization performance and virtualization defrag from VMware's top performance guy.
Bob Nolan, Raxco Software president and CEO, recently appeared on the long-running radio show Let's Talk Computers. The topic was PerfectDisk 11 and how to make your PC run faster. Everything from slow PC startup to slow PC performance is a problem. As host Alan Ashendorf point out in his introduction, "we all want our computer systems to run as fast as possible. No one really likes having a slow computer. But each time we use our computer, our computer will run slower and slower until we do something about this."
In the interview, Bob gets into free space consolidation as well as PerfectDisk's Selected Files Defrag to defrag a file rather than an entire drive.
You can listen to the interview here and see the transcript here.
Listen to see how to make your PC run faster.
Another review of PerfectDisk 11 is out. This one comes from 2phatgeeks, a site that covers many many things, including computers and software. The author originally came across PerfectDisk years ago knowingly, but with some skepticism, writing that PerfectDisk "was single purpose, it was small but it was full of intelligent features and it was cheaper than Norton. I was, of course skeptical at first. I’d been fooled by bright and shiny baubles and smooth talkin’ before."
2phatgeeks writes that "the newest iteration, version 11, continues the outstanding tradition set by its predecessors while upping the bar even higher for the competition...the feature set for PerfectDisk 11 is expansive enough that rather than just referring to it as a defragger, it’s more accurate to call it a drive management system...the end goal of any system maintenance software is to promote stability and speed and PerfectDisk continues to deliver."
Regarding price, the reviewer writes that "I’m not a millionaire. If you are, please buy me things and/or send me money. For the rest of you that aren’t, price matters. Norton = $49.99. PerfectDisk = $39.99 for Pro, $29.99 for Home premium. Better product for less money. How the hell could this not be a selling point?"
Need to defrag Windows 7 or just a good defragmentation program? Get the best defrag tool -- it's even more perfecter now.
You can read the entire review here.
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