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.
Sometimes it's fun to take a step back from all the file system, slow PC tips, and Hyper-V performance counters talk and see how the best defrag software tool plays out in the real world. On its own, a server defrag may seem a little drab. But if you see how it's helping a baseball team, well...that can make it a little more interesting.
The Greater Des Moines Baseball Company is the umbrella company for the Iowa Cubs minor league baseball team of the Pacific Coast League. Recently, the Cubs selected PerfectDisk 11 Server to boost its servers’ performance through disk defragmentation. The Cubs, with several hundred employees serving an annual attendance of over 500,000, use its servers for ticketing, merchandise sales, food and beverage sales, video boards and score boards, video production, financial and back office functions, and database management. The team's servers have several physical and virtual servers on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 to run the business. Prior to selecting PerfectDisk over a competitive product, the Cubs used the Windows built-in disk defrag utility, but it was not up to the task. “Microsoft’s built-in defragmenter did not really accomplish much in terms of improved performance for our server, plus it was very slow,” said Larry Schunk, Chief Technology Officer at Greater Des Moines Baseball. “With PerfectDisk, our servers are running faster than ever, which means all our employees are more productive; in addition, its automation and powerful reporting tools provide a great value.”
You can see the complete press release of the Cubs server defrag selection here.
Play ball. Win. Give your servers a good server defrag with the best defrag software.
The Cubs are in first place. Coincidence? That's crazy talk.
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.
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.
PerfectDisk, as the best disk defrag software, continues to be our flagship product. But as you've seen recently, there are more and more members of the PerfectDisk family, including our virtualization offerings, upcoming Vail (Windows Home Server R2) and Aurora solutions, and a lot more. There's PerfectSpeed, with its suite of solutions on how to make your PC faster. Plus there are new products in the works, which you'll be seeing in the coming months.
All of this, combined with our 30-plus years of history providing solutions for IT professionals, made it the right time to begin to move toward more of an emphasis on Raxco. You can continue to look to PerfectDisk for more innovation and industry leadership, and look to Raxco Software to continue to bring you more solutions -- for IT groups and for home consumers.
Bookmark it -- www.raxcoblog.com.
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.
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.
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
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.
I admit, in the day-to-day living of running around and trying to get things done here in the midst of travel and other comings and goings, it's often a challenge to do all the best practices to keep my laptop living as long and efficiently as it can. Of course, I defrag system files and defrag Windows 7 with the best defrag software I know of. That's like getting a PC tuneup every day so my laptop runs as fast as possible and I boot quicker.
But what about the life of the battery itself? I always need to be reminded of the many tips there are to extend battery life, so when I was looking through the new July issue of PC World, the article Breathe New Life Into Your Laptop's Battery got my attention. The usual reminders were there to nag me:
- don't run it down
- keep it cool
- give it a rest
- and more, including a nice set of "myths" debunked.
And keep it cool.
The NatureScapes web site labels itself The Resource for Nature Photographers. Its goal is to be an invaluable resource for nature photographers by offering relevant content and nourishing a growing community of photographers. I have not verified this, but NatureScapes claims to "offer more content in one place than any other website targeted to nature and outdoor photo enthusiasts." The site offers a wealth of editorial content that includes tips and techniques, reviews of equipment, an online store for photo gear, and photo galleries for members. It also hosts several community forums for member to share information and ask and answer questions.
Now, we know there are thousands of photographers and videographers that use PerfectDisk as their defragmentation program of choice, whether they are professional photographers or casual hobbyists. They simply want the best disk defrag software. Many of them write to us telling us why they use PerfectDisk and also how they came to learn about this defrag utility.
Many of them mention NatureScapes. Turns out there are a lot of recommendations for PerfectDisk in the NatureScapes forums from the real photographers who use it every day for the best PC optimizer and for superior PC tuneup. Comments like:
- "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."
Information Week had a recent cover story entitled Are Your Apps Smart Enough? This got me thinking, like most things do, of defrag programs and the "smarts" that are required to make the best defrag software. After all, any decent defrag utility, even freeware, is going to do a bare minimum (hopefully), to at least attempt to put fragmented files into a single piece and get you faster PC performance.
But how do you know if your defrag program is smart enough to be the best defrag software? Here are 12 to get you started:
- 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.
- 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.
- It performs robust free space consolidation to significantly prevent fragmentation, reduce the rate of future fragmentation and improve write performance.
- 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.
- 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.
- It optimizes boot files to improve boot time by 20% or more.
- It provides a free, Microsoft-certified duplicate file remover and file recycler to further assist disk cleanup and optimization efforts.
- It's simple enough for the novice user but with free, optional advanced features for power users.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- It is certified by Microsoft for Windows 7.
The weather is warming up here in the US and around the northern hemisphere as the summer of 2010 approaches. We start to see various articles pop up in technology and even mainstream publications on summer gadgets, summer tech toys and the like.
I thought this one was a little different, going beyond standard MP3 players and ipads, etc. 10 Weird Summer Gadgets from PC Magazine. Now this is more like it! A thumb drive that opens drinks, a solar tote bag that keeps everyithing charged, Oh, and there's something with an i, of course -- the iGrill from George Foreman!
So for a little fun and to get you in the mood for summer (sorry, Australia, Brazil, Africa, and you other southerners), check out the 10 Weird Summer Gadgets here. While I'll consider one of those gadgets, you know me -- I think the best disk defrag tool and best PC optimizer are cool enough for the summer.
Just should've called them iPerfectDisk and iPerfectSpeed, and let them plug into a grill.
It looks like now it's time for the big boys and girls, as all indications are that the move to Windows 7 by businesses is on. In the Computerworld article Windows 7 gets the green light, Robert L. Mitchell details the results of a recent Computerworld survey to IT professionals. It's not a secret that just about all the initial enthusiasm for Windows 7, of which there was a lot, originated from the consumer side. Home users have been quick to embrace Microsoft's latest operating system since its launch several months ago.
Now, the enterprise market is moving, either deploying now, in testing, or planning to deploy over the remainder of 2010 and into next year. Mitchell writes that "after taking a pass on Vista, IT shops are ready to commit to Microsoft's new PC operating system." The top 2 reasons they're moving? They skipped Vista so Windows XP is getting too old, and they just want to keep current. Surprisingly (to me), over a third won't wait for SP1 of Windows 7, while over a quarter expect SP1 to be available by the time they get around to deployment.
While Windows 7 performance is not a primary consideration in the move to Windows 7, it will be a consideration when testing and deployment is ultimately done. And while there is a Windows 7 defragmenter built into the OS as always, the Windows 7 defrag option that comes with Windows 7 is, like its predecessors, not a viable solution for the enterprise. Yes, you can defrag Windows 7 with the built-in function, but only on an individual basis. From a purely functional standpoint, it is not close to the best defrag software. But beyond that, it's not for an IT organization. It lacks enterprise deployment, scheduling, management and reporting capabilities at even the basic level. This is why top IT teams continue to implement robust enterprise defrag programs - the Windows 7 defrag that comes with Windows 7 does not cut it.
With the green light on, the move to Windows 7 by businesses is on. With Windows 7 performance an important aspect of the move, having the best defrag tool is a necessity, and that move is on too.
You can read the entire Computerworld article here.
Related posts (Windows 7 defrag):
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.
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.
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.
IndyGeek.net was formed last fall "to serve the latest in technology news to both geeks and non-techies alike by using a mix of social media, blogging and in-person networking." According to the site, "we place emphasis on the end user and small businesses looking to gain an edge in the ever-competitive mid-west market."
Well, it turns out the mid-west market is a lot like the rest of the world when looking for faster PC speed, faster PC startup, and overall faster PC performance. In a PC tuneup article on the IndyGeek site last week, Senior Editor Alex Connor wrote about PC Spring Cleaning Done Right, for those looking for faster PC performance. To get faster PC performance, Connor writes that, in his article, "we will use a variety of free tools, and I will recommend a few paid tools where I feel they provide a good value."
Connor covers backup, anti-virus, and cleanup of various files, including temporary files (while not mentioned in the article, PerfectDisk 11 Pro also does cleanup of duplicate and temporary files). Then Alex gets into my favorite part of every story - the defragmentation program:
He writes -- "defragging will usually help performance. Here’s where I make a recommendation – go order PerfectDisk and install it. It will prevent your disk from becoming highly fragmented and it has an offline boot-time defragger that can defrag your system files to really give you a performance boost. I even get a pretty significant runtime boost on my laptop by keeping the disk highly defragmented with PerfectDisk. If you use PerfectDisk, run the defragment on your drive, then do an offline defragmentation of your system files – which will require a reboot..."
For faster PC speed and slow PC tips, IndyGeek has some answers that you can read here.
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