ghayes

"One thing to lookout for: Crossing over 4096k cluster/sector sizes! Some disk defraggers (like XP/2k native one) won't cut it with that size! (Maybe the latest defraggers from Diskeeper, PerfectDisk, and O&O account for this shortcoming, but last I knew & tried hands on? Speedisk from Norton's the ONLY one I knew of that worked on over 4096k sector/cluster mapping sizes on NTFS formatted disks!)" This 4k cluster size limitation and defragmenters is a restriction in Microsoft's defrag APIs under NT4 and Win2k. Under WinXP, Microsoft's defrag APIs fully support defragmenting NTFS partitions with a cluster size less than or equal to 64K. SpeedDisk, under NT4 and Win2k, does NOT use Microsoft's defrag APIs which is how it is able to get around this restriction. - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.

"If it's @ the beginnning of the partition [howver that's defined] & a fixed size, then it doesn't get in the way of other files." Then by definition, if the pagefile is contiguous any other place on the partition then it is also not in the way of other files "Well I use FAT32, & as I already stated I've proven that folders can be sorted whilst windows is running." Using Microsoft's defrag APIs under NT4, Win2k and WinXP - No. Under Win9x/Me - Yes. SpeedDisk under NT4 and Win2k doesn't use Microsoft's defrag APIs and is able to consolidate directories online. Under WinXP, SpeedDisk uses Microsoft's defrag APIs and therefore can't consolidate directories on FATx partitions. - Greg/Raxco Software

When you run CHKDSK, are you doing a read only check or a fix&repair check? If a fix&repair check, does CHKDSK say that it found any errors? - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility and a competitor to Diskeeper, as a systems engineer in the support department.

"The interface/GUI doesn't look quite as good, but that's just a minor quibble. It can't move the swap file to the beginning of the partition." What is the significance of placing the swap file at the beginning of the partition? As a hard drive is comprised of several platters and defragmenting occurs at the logical cluster level, where is the beginning of the partition? On which platter? "Some people would argue that it isn't possible for defraggers to move folders like SD under 9x used to, but that is complete & utter BS." On NTFS partitions, folders can be defragmented online. It is technically possible for any defragmenter that uses Microsoft's defrag APIs to defragment folders and consolidate them. Whether they choose to do so or not is a different issue. On FATx partitions, directories can only be done at boot time. - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.

"It's not the best defragger in the world but since you only have like 2 other alternatives when it comes to NTFS defragmentation tools it not too bad." There are actually 7 commercial products capable of defragmenting NTFS partitions: PerfectDisk - www.raxco.com Diskeeper - www.execsoft.com O&O Defrag - www.oo-defrag.com FixIt Suite from Ontrack - www.ontrack.com SpeedDisk (part of Norton Utilities or SystemWorks) - www.symantec.com VoptXP - www.vopt.com Defrag Commander - www.winternals.com - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk and a competitor to the defrag products listed above, as a systems engineer in the support department.

"SpeedDisk can't defragment the MFT either, where Diskeeper can, also SpeedDisk doesnt have "Frag-Guard" technology that helps keep your drives fragment free." Because SpeedDisk doesn't use Microsoft's defrag APIs (provided as part of the operating system), SpeedDisk is able to defragment the $MFT online - not requiring a boot time defrag. That is why there is no boot time defrag capability with SpeedDisk. When you run SpeedDisk - it will ALWAYS defragment the $MFT - you have no option to tell SpeedDisk to NOT do it. All FragGuard does is to monitor the fragmentation level of the pagefile and $MFT and if it exceeds a certain number of fragments, will automatically schedule Diskeeper to perform a boot time defrag on these files. FragGuard does NOT help prevent fragmentation from occuring in non-$MFT/pagefile files. - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility and a competitor to Diskeeper, as a systems engineer in the support department.

The only way to "schedule" the Windows 2000 built-in defragmenter is to write a script that simulates launching dfrg.msc and clicking on the appropriate buttons. Windows 2000's defrag doesn't include a command line defrag like Windows XP does so it's a lot harder to automate. The built-in defragmenter is also quite limited in the files that it is able to defragment. I can't defragment directories on FATx partitions, the pagefile, the hibernate file and the metadata on NTFS partitions. The built-in defragmenter (just like it's commercial cousin Diskeeper) also may require more than 1 pass to perform an adequate defrag of files. The built-in defragmenter (just like it's commercial cousin Diskeeper) also requires that you have at least 20% free space in order to defragment. The built-in defragmenter (just like it's commercial cousin Diskeeper) also doesn't do a really good job of consoli[censored] free space - which means that the partition will re-fragment quicker (requiring more frequent defrag passes, etc...). Fortunately, there are other options available than the built-in defragmenter: * PerfectDisk - www.raxco.com. Certified for Windows 2000 Workstation and Server * Diskeeper - www.execsoft.com. Certified for Windows 2000 Workstation and Server * O&O Defrag - www.oo-defrag.com * Defrag Commander - www.winternals.com. Certified for Windows 2000 Server * Vopt - www.goldenbow.com * SpeedDisk (part of SystemWorks) - www.symantec.com * Ontrack FixIt Suite - www.ontrack.com All of the above defrag products offer easier scheduling. They do, however, differ in the amount of free space required (1 will work with as little as 5% - others range from 10-20%), the ability to defrag the pagefile (not all have this ability), the ability to defrag the hibernate file (not all have this ability), the ability to defragment the MFT (not all have this ability), the abilty to defragment the remainder of the NTFS metadata (only 1 has this ability), free space consolidation (some do it well, others don't), the use of Microsoft's defrag APIs (all but SpeedDisk do), etc... - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility and a competitor to the defrag products named above, as a systems engineer in the support department.

"Defragging the page file can be done by other means also. Just boot to DOS (diskette or dual boot) and delete the damned thing. It recreates itself as a consequtive file when you boot back to W2K/XP. With NTFS I'd suggest you just move it to another partition and back, with the same effect." The pagefile will only be re-created contiguously if there is a sufficient amount of contiguous free space the size of the pagefile. If there isn't, then the pagefile will be created fragmented. - Greg/Raxco Software

"Defragging the page file can be done by other means also. Just boot to DOS (diskette or dual boot) and delete the damned thing. It recreates itself as a consequtive file when you boot back to W2K/XP. With NTFS I'd suggest you just move it to another partition and back, with the same effect." There is a bug in NT4 through WinXP where if you boot to dos and delete the pagefile and then reboot the system so that it re-creates the pagefile, the OS doesn't mark the pagfile as opened for exclusive access and if you try to defragment, the system will BSOD. - Greg/Raxco Software

"I've been using 7.0 for a while now, and it does just fine. I think Speeddisk does a little better but takes longer and won't do a boot time defrag." SpeedDisk doesn't use the defrag APIs provided by Microsoft as a part of the operating system. It can defragment the files that normally have to be done at boot time by other defragmenters (Diskeeper, PerfectDisk, O&O Defrag) can be done online. That is why SpeedDisk doesn't have a boot time defrag capability. That's also why SpeedDisk can be service pack/hotfix dependent. - Greg/Raxco Sofware Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag product and a competitor to SpeedDisk, as a systems engineer in the support department.

Even though you have a total of 28% free space available on the partition, all of that free space may not be usable by defragmenters as Microsoft's defrag APIs don't let defragmenters use the free space INSIDE of the MFT Reserved Zone. Diskeeper strongly recommends that you have at least 25-20% usable free space in order to effectively defragment. Anything less than that it Diskeeper can exhibit the behavior that you are seeing. In all fairness, Diskeeper V7 has been out since last fall and does a little better job than Diskeeper V6. "I have tried Perfect Disk, but didnt find it to my liking." If you don't mind me asking, what didn't you like about PerfectDisk? - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag product and a competitor to Diskeeper, as a systems engineer in the support department.

"isnt ntfs spose to be less defrag prone than fat" A little - but it still happens - and quite frequently. "and could this problem be the drive itself causing this?" Fragmentation occurs at the file system level - which is at the logical cluster level. This is completely independent from what actually occurs at the physical cluster level - which is the hard drive itself. The file system could be fragmenting for several reason: 1. Your defragmenter isn't consoli[censored] free space. This means that the file system has no choice but to create new files fragmented. 2. You have a lot of file deletions/creations occuring. As files get deleted, the file system will re-use those logical clusters for new files and they may or may not be able to be created contigously. - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.

Oops - my bad:-( I didn't notice the date on AlecStaars posting. Sorry! - Greg/Raxco Software

This isn't a "new" release. DK V7 was released in middle November during events at Comdex. - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility and a competitor to Diskeeper, as a systems engineer in the support department.

"Buy a copy of Diskeeper. That reboots and formats without WinXX running, so it can move everything. The problem is when you're running an OS, certain files are always used and the OS can't just stop using them. kernel32 for instance. If Windows stopped using the kernel it would go haywire (and we all know Windows never goes haywire otherwise, right?). Because of that, the file can't be moved, copied, accessed, looked at with a funny face, etc. without Windows bombing out on you." This above is absolutely incorrect. There are only certain files that can NOT be defragmented online - among them the pagefile, hibernate file, directories on FATx partitions and non MFT metadata on NTFS partitions. Other than that, the Microsoft defrag APIs, (which are part of the operating system and defragmenters such as the built-in defragmenter, PerfectDisk, Diskeeper, O&O Defrag, Ontrack, Defrag Commander all use), allow files that are open by other users/processes/applications to safely be defragmented online. It is these MS defrag APIs that handle all of the low level I/O synchronization that is needed to allow this to happen. A boot time defrag (which the built-in defragmenter can't do) is required to defragment the above mentioned files. In addition, Diskeeper (as well as any other defragmenter) has no ability to format a partition during boot time - or any other time. - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility and a competitor to the defrag products listed above, as a systems engineer in the support department.

What files does the built-in defragmenter say remain fragmented? - Greg/Raxco Software

Sorry folks - I really wasn't following this thread and didn't know I was being "called"... Where to start in answering questions in this quite interesting thread: - Can somebody point me quick on how to enable em/pm in this forum - that way if somebody wants to direct something to my attention, I'll be quicker to respond. Unfortunately, I do NOT read through every thread - just the ones who's subject/title catches my eye. I'm sure you all know what I mean... - Win2k Mag defrag review. SpeedDisk is the ONLY defragmenter that does NOT use the MS defrag "APIs". This means that a lot of the restrictions of those APIs (move cluster granularity, ability to use free space INSIDE of the MFT Reserved Zone, ability to "move" files like the pagefile, $MFT and directories online) SpeedDisk doesn't have to worry about. This means that in certain situations, SpeedDisk will always be able to perform better than PerfectDisk and Diskeeper (under NT4 and Win2k). However, NOT using the MS defrag APIs comes with it's own set of issues. - $MFT placement. With Windows XP, MS has changed the preferred location of the $MFT. Instead of being at the "top" of the logical partition, it now resides further into the partition. Please see MS article http://www.microsoft.com/HWDEV/storage/ntfs-preinstall.htm for information regarding this. PerfectDisk places the $MFT according to Microsoft's recommendations - SpeedDisk and Diskeeper still put at the "top" of the logical partition. - Contrary to marketing messages, SpeedDisk (and Diskeeper) do NOT defragment ALL of the NTFS metadata. The interesting thing is that neither product will even tell you the names of the other metadata files and how badly fragmented they are - therefore, you have no way of knowing this. - No problem re-posting what I had put in another newsgroup. My postings in public are for (among other things) eduction of the user community about stuff that I have some expertise in. - WOW! You guys are going to a lot of trouble to make SpeedDisk compatible with WinXP's prefetch/layout. Sure hope that you get compensated for your effort :-) Microsoft has directed 3rd party defragmenters to honor the file placement that it is doing (via layout.ini). Defrag vendors can either "play by MS's rules" or not. PerfectDisk has chosen to play by the rules. Other defragmenters have not. Is this necessarily a bad thing? MS has impletemented prefetch/layout for specific reasons - fast boot and application launch times. If a defragger "messes" with this, the downside is that the system may or may not appear to boot or launch applications as quickly as it would otherwise. Other than that, the system won't be "broken". - Greg/Raxco Software

Actually, it doesn't work. SpeedDisk is unique in that it doesn't use the defrag APIs provided by Microsoft as part of the operating system - they are doing "their own thing". As a result, any changes that MS makes to the underlying file system can cause problems with SpeedDisk. - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a competitor to SpeedDisk, as a systems engineer in the support department.

Splitting the files provides a little better protection from file and free space re-fragmentation. However, from a sheer performance standpoint, you probably won't notice much of a difference. Why do we provide some customization? Because sometimes end users "feel" that having things at the bottom or top may make things faster. - Greg/Raxco Software

"You mentioned that XP's included defragger can't do FATx at all or not that well?" The WinXP built-in defragger can't do DIRECTORIES on FATx partitions. It can do normal data files just fine. "So, what's PerfectDisk like? " Well, it's not like I'm biased or anything *grin* but I think that it is a pretty decent product... - Greg/Raxco Software

"Alright...just a couple of quick questions: XP's defragger (Diskeeper version whatever) should do the job, even if it also buggers me up? And I know somebody who can lend me his Nortan Systemworks 2002. That says every MS OS out there with the exception of Dos 6 and Win 3.1. Somebody mentioned to stick with the NT/2k defraggers so is this new one ok when used with XP?" The WinXP built-in one is rather limited. It requires at least 15% free space and may take a while and may require multiple passes. It also can't defragment directories on FATx partitions and isn't easily scheduled (you can schedule via it's command line interface). With that being said, it the built-in defragger will probably work "okay enough" for most WinXP home users, however, you as the end user are the ultimate decision maker on whether it will work "okay enough" for you. SpeedDisk (part of SystemWorks) is the only commercial defragger that does NOT use the defrag APIs provided by Microsoft as part of the NT4/Win2k/WinXP operating systems. These APIs are tightly integrated with the Windows Memory Manager, File System and Caching System and take care of all of the low level I/O synchronization that needs to occur to allow files that are open and in use to safely be moved online. This means that SpeedDisk may be service pack dependent under WinXP as they are under NT4 and Win2k. Anything changes that Microsoft makes in the file system, memory manager, etc... via hotfix or service pack may render SpeedDisk so that it will not run until Symantec releases an update to the product. With that being said, if you are comfortable with using SpeedDisk, then use it (hopefully, you'll get you own copy instead of "borrowing" somebody elses. - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a competitor to both SpeedDisk and the built-in defragmenter, as a system engineer in the support department.

According to the Executive Software web site, Diskeeper 6.0SE is compatible with Windows XP. However, if you go to thier downloads, it doesn't mention anything about WinXP - I think they've posted XP compatibility and so far haven't updated the rest of their site to match :-) However, if you download the Win2k Professional version, I believe that it should install and run without issue under Windows XP. The best source to find out for sure about Diskeeper and WinXP compatiblity and what "version" of Diskeeper you need to download for WinXP, I'd suggest contacting Executive Software directly as they should know more than anybody else. - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a competitor to Diskeeper, as a systems engineer in the support department.

Sorry folks. Missed putting my two cents worth into this thread - I was out of town on business... Couple of confirmations and clarifications: PerfectDisk - because it uses the Microsoft defrag APIs - is limited on NT4 and Win2k to defragmenting NTFS partitions with a cluster size of 4k or less. This is enforced by the the defrag APIs. With Windows XP, this restriction goes away. Any defragmenter that can online defragment partitions with a cluster size >4k is NOT using the MS defrag APIs. If Diskeeper 7.0 is able to defragment partitions on non Windows XP systems where the cluster size is >4k, then Diskeeper is no longer using the MS defrag APIs - something that they (and to be honest - we as well) have been vocal about in positioning product. In all of the "discussions" about fragmentation, what most people have lost sight of is that defragmenters work at the LOGICAL cluster level - NOT at the PHYSICAL cluster level! The file system works at the LOGICAL cluster level. The hard drive controller works at the PHYSICAL cluster level and does all of the LOGICAL to PHYSICAL mapping. All any defragmenter can do is to ensure that a file is LOGICALLY contiguous - which means that only 1 LOGICAL request has to be made to access the file. That is where the performance benefit comes into play. Even though a file is LOGICALLY contiguous is no guarantee that it is PHYSICALLY continguous on the actual hard drive. Fragmentation is only an issue when you go to access a fragmented file. If a file is fragmented and is never accessed, then who cares!! However, it is easy to prove that fragmentation causes slower file access times. For those that are interested, defragmentation has been identified as a KEY issue in terms of performance for Windows XP. Microsoft is recommending frequent defragmentation in order to keep WinXP running at peak speed. - Greg/Raxco Software - maker of PerfectDisk. I work as a systems engineer for Raxco Software

A little bit of info about NTFS metadata... NTFS is a self-describing file system. This means that all of the information needed to "describe" the file system is contained within the file system itself - in the form of metadata. The $MFT is where all of the information about files are stored - in the form of file id's. A file ID is comprised of a 64bit number - of which 2/3 is the actual FileID and the remaining 1/3 is a sequence number. When files are deleted from an NTFS partition, the file id isn't immediately re-used. Only after hundreds of thousands of files are created is the sequence number incremented and the "empty" file id re-used. That is why the $MFT continues to grow and grow and grow. It is also why the $MFT Reserved Zone exists - to allow the $MFT to grow "into" it - hopefully in a contiguous fashion. Very small files can be stored "resident" in the $MFT. As much of the $MFT as can fit into memory is loaded when the partition is mounted. The $MFTMirr is an exact copy of the 16 records of the $MFT. The first 16 records of the $MFT contain files 0 - 15. File 0 is the $MFT. File 1-15 are the remainder of the metadata (not all used btw...). The $MFTMirr is NTFS's "fallback" mechanism in case it can't read the 1st 16 records of the $MFT. The $Bitmap is exactly that - a file containing a bit for each logical cluster on the partition - with the bit either being set or clear depending if that logical cluster is free or used. The $Logfile is NTFS's transaction log - all updates to disk first go through the transaction log. This transaction log is what provides for NTFS's recovery (roll back/forward transactions) when the operating system is abnormally shutdown/crashes and provides for enhanced file system integrity. $Upcase is used for Unicode information (foreign language support, etc...). These are just a few of the NTFS metadata files and what they are used for. Windows 2000 introduced new metadata files (i.e. $Usnjnl and $Reparse). Regarding SpeedDisk: SpeedDisk is the only commercial defragger that does NOT use the defrag APIs provided by Microsoft as part of the NT/2000/XP operating system. These APIs are tightly integrated with the Windows Memory Manager, caching system and file system and take care of all of the low level I/O synchronization that has to occur to allow safe moving of files online - even if the files are in use by other users/processes. The APIs impose some restrictions, however. Pagefiles can't be defragmented online, (nor the hibernate file under Win2k), directories can't be defragmented online under NT4 (FAT and NTFS) and Win2k (FATx). The $MFT and related metadata can't be defragmented online as well. In order to get around these restrictions, SpeedDisk "wrote their own" stuff to move files - it has a filter driver that gets installed/run. This is why SpeedDisk can be service pack/hotfix dependent. Depending on the changes that MS makes to the Memory Manager and file system, SpeedDisk may have to be updated to safely run. That is why (for example), if you have Windows 2000/SP2 installed and run SpeedDisk, it displays a warning message about not being compatible with that version of the operating system and proceed at your own risk... I know HOW SpeedDisk is doing what they are doing. However, knowing what can happen if they calculate things incorrectly, makes me a bit wary. However, SpeedDisk is alot better product - in terms of actually being able to normal data files - than some of the other defrag products out there. - Greg/Raxco Software

Jim, "Sorry, I should have been more careful / precise. Have you examined the "Select Additional Files" feature on the Boot Time Defragmentation dialog in O&O? Once you have performed one full defragmentation of a drive, you have the option to add the files that couldn't be defragged with the GUI online by using the Add Exclusive feature. I won't pretend to know whether or not that comprises all the metadata, but that is some or most of it, isn't it? I mentioned it because it's a feature that I've seen many users / evaluaters of O&O overlook. Anyway, once you add the exclusively locked files, they also get defragged at boot time." I can state with utmost certainty that O&O Defrag does NOT do any of the metatdata besides the $MFT. Even if you go into the Boot Time defrag options and select Additional Files, you are not presented with a way to select any of these other metadata files from their interface (do you see a file called $MFTMir or $Logfile or $Upcase?). AlecStaar: Diskeeper also doesn't defragment these other metadata files. The interesting thing about Diskeeper is that even if the $MFT is actually in 1 piece, Diskeeper will always show it as being as in 2 pieces. Why? Because they count the $MFTMirr - one of the metadata files - as a fragment of the $MFT - even though it is a separate file. This is easier to see on an NT4 NTFS partition. - Go to a MSDOS prompt and go to the top level of a NTFS partition. - Issue the following command: Attrib $MFT Attrib $MFTMirr Attrib $Logfile These are just 3 of the NTFS metadata files. If you try to find out non-$MFT fragmentation information in any other defrag product, it can not be found. The reason SpeedDisk can sometimes only get the $MFT down to 2 pieces is that SpeedDisk can't move the 1st records of the $MFT. This means that if the beginning of the $MFT is not at the top of the logical partition, then SpeedDisk has to leave it where it is - but may put the remainder of the $MFT at the top of the logical partition. Even though I work for a competitor, I do know quite a lot about other defrag products and what they can and cannot do :-) - Greg/Raxco Software