Windows 7 defrag vs Diskeeper

Mordaunt said:

Has anyone tried Puran?
I read that all the other 3rd party defrag programs destroy your restore points, but this one doesn't, is this the case?

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Gregrocker uses and recommends Puran as far as I know. I think it may defrag some files at boot that other defraggers miss.

I can't recall anything about System Restore points being destroyed. I just use the built-in defrag and have never had any System Restore issues.

Well... defragmentation is something to worry just if you work with files very often, and mostly with big files... In my case, I just defragment once per month, or sometimes per 15 days (just if i install 3 or more heavy apps... which almost NEVER happens, or download or backup my disk images, like my windows 7 original MSDN disks, or my old Windows XP SP3, or some apps, like Corel x4 disks or even some DVD's)
If I would recommend a defragment software, then I reccomend O&O Defrag 12, Fast, reliable, defragments paging file and MFT... I just love it

I've heard that defragmenting SSD's don't help improving performance, but contribute to a faster degradation due the architecture of this drives, on magnetic media (like HDD's) this is good just if you experience a slow system or read/writes...

Talking about other filesystems, is said that HFS+ never fragments, or at least, they keep an hierarchical system that removes the need of defragment software (I don't realy believe in this... as far as I know EVERY file sysem has this issue...) But I guess that only Mac users will benefit from this... and, by the other hand, Is said ExFAT resolves this... is that true?

See ya!!

I don't think any well known defrag utility will delete/purge restore points unless you specify for it to do so. I know perfectdisk definitely does not and defaults to vss compatible mode to avoid doing so

A320 said:

It's funny you bring this up today because I was just taking a closer look at my Diskeeper 2009. I've had it since XP, and now running it 64bit in Windows 7 and I have to say I don't think I am going to continue using it.

I have it set to Auto so it defrags in the background, one of their claims to fame is how it only works when the system is idle, and uses such negligible resources to run, and I will give it that as it accomplishes this part well, but I don't think it has ever done a good job keeping the drives defragmented 'automatically'.

The point of 'auto' is to set and forget it, but occasionally when I do a manual 'analyze' it tells me the drive is defragmented and performance is 'degraded'

So I ask myself whats the point? I'm sure that windows defrag can do just as good a job or better when defragging manually.

edit: I just noticed in your post you state that the built in defrag runs automatically as well. I did not know this and am curious if this is true. If it were than I have serious issues knowing that 2 programs running in conjunction cannot keep my drives defragmented!

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I use Diskeeper Pro Premium 2007 and the first thing you need to do is to configure Diskeeper (Bottom Left) using Frag-Shield to pad the MFTs if necessary.

If the MFT tables are too small you will always have fragmentation.

I had to 'pad out' three of my four partitions before Diskeeper (or any other defrag) would defragment the files properly.

You can change the NtfsMFTZoneReservation registry key to increase the volume in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4.

To add this value:

Run Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe), and go to the following subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
From the Edit menu, click Add Value.
Type the following information in the dialog box:
Value Name: NtfsMftZoneReservation
Data Type : REG_DWORD
Data : (valid range is 1-4)
Quit Registry Editor and restart your computer.

Note This is a run-time parameter and does not affect the actual format of a volume. Rather, it affects the way NTFS allocates space on all volumes on a given system. Therefore, to be completely effective, the parameter must be in effect from the time that a volume is formatted and throughout the life of the volume. If the registry parameter is adjusted downward or removed, the MFT zone will be reduced accordingly, but this will not have any affect on MFT space already allocated and used.

The standard MS Defrag will do an even better job if you add Sysinternal's Contig which ensures a contiguous file structure. (It's an add-on.)

Piriform's Defraggler does a very good job do.