Diskeeper advice & opinions please.

I am looking for the advice of Diskeeper users before I take the plunge and buy it. So far I am not too impressed by DK Light. I tried it on two volumes, one of programs, and one of Windows XP. DK ran, reported moderate fragmentation left, and recommended that repeated de-frags should be carried out. However, further de-frags had no effect at all, and DK still reported 'moderate fragmentation'!

One run of Norton's Speed Disk and DK reported no fragmentation at all on the programs volume and 1% on the XP volume - beautiful solid green lines!! Speed Disk is very much slower, but scheduled to optimize once a week in slack periods, appears to do a much better job of de-fragmenting.

My question is - How efficient is the full version of Diskeeper, and what is the level of fragmentation it can be expected to keep?

Roger

 

Hi r.leale.
I have been using Diskeeper 7.0.428.0 for nearly a year. No problems
with the auto-defrag (set it and forget it) - tho' it hogs resources and memory. It keeps the disks over 90% defragged.
regards

 

Hi r.leale

I used an earlier versions of DK under NTv4.0 and it ran for several years without trouble, except I'd agree it didn't always succeed in a complete defrag.

I switched to Norton with a full suite of Norton Utilities, and Norton usually fully defragments a disc and I think works very well and it's a long time since I manually had to re-arrange files to get better optimisation.

To be fair, defrag is very dependent on the ratio of free to used space and available RAM for throughput. By its nature, a defrag routine should use all available RAM and would I think run slowly if the disc is crowded, but it should be fairly brisk on a lightly loaded disk.

By the way, I don't think there is a difference in the squeeze algorithm between DK light & DK regular. You get the same level of disk optimisation, need to check, the difference lies in the convenience.

 

Hi r.leale...

I'm with merlin...I've been running Diskeeper Version: 8.0.478.0 just after it's release and have been quite happy with it. All's I can say is "Set and Forget" rules.

As far as resources goes all's I can say that i've never noticed as I've got it to start desfragging my drives every Sunday morning starting at 03:00 am when this boy's in bed sleeping. So a couple hours from now my PC will be "defragged ".

 

Hello,

merlin,
90% defragmented is 10% fragmented and this is very fragmented

Before you decide to buy/not DK, try VoptXP. I've tested many deframentators in the last 5-6 years and this one seems to be real good - and fast also. Please look at this page too.

all the best,

Stefan

 

I can recommend DK 8.0.xxx. I'm usually only left with about 1 or 2 fragmented files. PerfectDisk 6.0.xx seems OK as well. But DK 8 looks better.

 

Hi best5, liked the funny - but look at the maths this way ...
90 % defragmented means that about 90 % of the space occupied by files/folders compared to the total of all files/folders on the drive is not fragmented after the defrag operation
regards

 

Is there a functional difference between "perfect" defragmenting and "good enough" defragmenting? BTW, what are the differences of each?

Are "scores" being kept the same? Different defragmenters use different processes. Does it matter which process is used? I tend to think it's more important that the SAME process gets used consistently. Don't bounce between Windows Defragmenter and a third party. Choose one.

Diskeeper Lite is an excellent product at the right price. But it can only deal with one volume at a time and has to be run manually.

Diskeeper 8 seems to run faster and can be set for automatic? Are these two features worth $50? You can download Diskeeper 8 for a 30 day trial. How much is $50 worth to you?

If you have a solution that is working, why change?

 

Hi Ray, The 50 $ in my opinion is a worthwhile investment.
- you do not have to do anything apart from set it up
- it gives you lifetime updates to new versions
- it is the only 3rd party defragger approved by MS
- it is consistent in the way it works - no moving stuff about when
unneccessary
- easy to use, good results

I am not considering anything else and have tried most others.
regards

 

hello everybody,

merlin, I'm glad you apreciate my sense of humor but
you know, you can laugh and say what you really think and I still think that
10% fragmentation is too high. I put here 2 pics of D drive: before & after defragmentation. See what 1% fragmentation looks like. In fact it's not a big surprise if you consider another math picture:
suppose you buy a wrist-watch which indicates the time with 0.1% precision, that is, 1/100 of 10%. Let's see what's the error range in a month :
60min x 24 x 30 = 43,200 min, that is 43.2 min/month error ...
How much one would pay for such a watch? . I guess that even for free... is still too much
When it comes to hard drives, the big problem is not the amount of clusters which are not in place - expressed in % - the big problem is that they must be found, searching the whole drive surface, before loading them in memory as contiguous files and used by different applications.

all the best,

Stefan

 

It looks good though!

 

Merlin Diskeeper 8 is a beautiful product. It's QUICK and you can keep running your computer while it's defragmenting.

 

Once again I agree with merlin...boy this sure cuts down on typing...

The only bad thing about buying DK8 is I had to pay in Canadian dollars...

 

It must be said - VoptXP is very fast, and takes up less than 1 MB on the defragged HD!

Rogerhttp://www.windowsbbs.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
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