Defrag Your Computer’s Hard Drive For Improved Performance

Diskeeper 2009 (**** out of four) is the newest and fastest version of a highly acclaimed feature-filled hard drive defragmenter.

Hard drive fragmentation occurs because of your saving and deleting files. Windows tries to save files on your hard drive in a contiguous fashion. When a file is deleted, this leaves a "space" on the hard drive. The next file to be saved may not quite fit in that space, so Windows puts most of it in the space and the rest of the file elsewhere, keeping track of exactly where it is in a Master File Table (MFT). This operation splits and fragments the file. When that file is read, the hard drive needs to check the MFT then go to two (or more) places on the hard drive to get the complete file. This slows down your computer. Fragmentation of critical system files can also result in computer crashes or freeze-ups. You could think of fragmentation and its relation to performance as trying to make a ham sandwich if the bread is in the kitchen, the ham in the basement, the cheese in the attic and the mustard in the bedroom. Defragmentation puts all the ingredients in your kitchen.

And, to add to the problem, the files on your computer aren’t just the ones you save, change or delete while working in a word processor, spreadsheet or while editing photos or using other applications. Windows is constantly creating files and deleting them behind the scenes. This can happen while you’re browsing the Internet or can be a result of Windows’ internal hidden operations. For example, in one of our computers that we haven’t defraged in a while, there were 11,199 fragmented files, one of which was in 2,803 fragments and another in 1,879 fragments. That’s enough to slow down any computer.

Defragmenting your hard drive puts all the pieces of a fragmented file in one place on the hard drive so the file can be read contiguously, and this speeds up the read process considerably and improves computer performance.

Diskeeper 2009 is made by the same company that made the core technology for the defragmenter found in Windows, but Diskeeper 2009 offers many useful features not found in the simpler manual defragmenter found in Windows. For example, following analysis of a drive, you are provided with a lot of information regarding the fragmentation of that drive. This information includes a Performance Report, where the read times of fragmented files are displayed along with an optimized read time (i.e. what would happen if the disc is defraged), along with an estimate of performance improvement.

Recommendations are displayed along with explanations. Also, the read time of all files, fragmented and non-fragmented, are displayed along with optimized read times--allowing you to evaluate overall performance improvement. The program provides a separate Reliability Report assessing the effect of your hard drive’s fragmentation on computer reliability--that is, how susceptible it may be to crashes, freeze-ups and so forth. In part this relates to how much space Windows has reserved on the hard drive for the MFT. If it is too small and the files that Windows needs to keep track of become too large to fit, the MFT itself may become fragmented and result in potentially unstable performance of the computer. If needed, recommendations are made to change the size of the MFT, which can be done automatically by the program or manually by you following the program’s suggestions. Similar assessments and recommendations are made, if needed, for the Page file (virtual memory).

Following analysis of the hard drive, you are also provided with a Performance Map and a Drive Map, both of which display graphically the condition and locations of files on the drive. The display makes it easy to see the holes and fragments of files scattered over the drive. In addition, a detailed Fragmentation Report that outlines the numbers of files is provided, showing fragmented files, number of fragments, percentages of fragmentation and recommendations.

Now on to the defragmentation: the program defrags your hard drive faster than the Windows built-in defrager and can do it manually, or you can have it done automatically in a "Set It and Forget It" mode. This mode of operation is called InvisiTasking, where the defrag runs in the background and eliminates the need for manual or scheduled defrags. Also new to this version is real-time defragmentation, which can clear fragmentation as it occurs.

Best of all, when the defragger runs, you can still use your computer because the program sets its priority to a low level and sports a zero resource conflict so it won’t interfere with your use of other applications. If you’re using the program on a laptop, defragmentation is suspended while the laptop is on battery power. Smart, eh?

Help in Diskeeper 2009 is especially good, with detailed explanations of the various operations and options and free 90-day telephone support.

Who needs a defrag program? Anyone who uses a computer and wants fast and reliable operation. We think that includes most of us.