Vista - Defragmenting Vista - Quick review of the available products

Defragmenting Vista - Quick review of the available productsTESTBED
HW:
Dual Xeon 2.8 prestonia
2 GB pc2700 drr ram (4x512mb)
WD 1200JB ATA testing drive (4 partitions)

SW:
Vista RC1 5600, clean install
All vista drivers except:
Nvidia 55.33 beta drivers
Terratec DM6 Fire LT (winXP, copatibility mode)
Creative Live!Cam (updated to the latest)
PC Cillin full install, latest build
Office 2007 Beta2 (TR NOT installed)
Sun Java 5.08
Nero 7.5.1.1 LITE

Contenders:
-Diskeeper 10 beta for Vista RC1
-Perfect Disk 8 beta for Vista
-Auslogic Disk Defrag 1.0
-O&O Defrag professional 8.


1. DISKEEPER 10 beta
I have always used diskeeper since I knew Windows XP was in fact using
Excecutive defrag engine.

Interface: ****
User friendly, but a bit confusing. If you dont like to schedule
everything, it's annoying. The best defrag method is available only as
scheduled. Disk view not by cluster groups has always been a drawback
of Diskeeper, and they dont plan to change it.

Speed: ****
Good, better than Vista built-in defragmenter.

Features: ***
IIFAST not available on Vista beta. A real pity, but with the
problems that users have reported with boot-time defrag it is an
understandable choice.

Stability: *****
Stable

Problems: ***
Stable and reliable program. Unfortunately it killed the disk
management in the MMC. Waiting for a reply from Diskeeper Corp.

Conclusion: If you want more features than Auslogic Defrag and you
dont need to use Vista Disk management tools for awhile, Diskeeper is
the best choice.


2. PERFECT DISK 8 beta
I tried Perfect Disk 7 in Windows XP and I wasnt terribly impressed,
but I liked the user interface.

Interface: *****
Excellent interface.
Cluster view, recommended options after analysis makes sense. Good
reporting.

Speed: ****
Good, better than Vista built-in defragmenter.

Features: ****
The beta is complete of features and the trial period is 150 days.

Stability: *****
Stable, until you reboot the machine

Problems: N/C
PD8 made my system unable to boot anymore. Tricky way to put it back
to work due to lack of space for more than one restore point on system
drive. Raxo support is somewhat dumb to deal with.
Other more lucky people simply had issues performing the boot-time
defrag, for which there is a patch available.

Conclusion: if you have a restore point, a full backup and lot of
patience and like taking risks, try it.

3. O&O DEFRAG 8
The latest version 8.5 wont install on Vista. The older 8.0 will.
But... It will probably crash every now and then. I used O&O on XP,
because I love the cluster view, where u can zoom on the single block
and see which files are there - priceless. But the complete defrag is
very very slow, expecially the first time.

Interface: ****
Good interface, the Cluster view is the best of the bang.
The recommended options after analysis makes sense. Quick analysis.

Speed: ***
The Stealth method is ultrafast but it's a waste of time, it doesnt
defrag anything. The SPACE method is probably the one you would use
the most. It helps on heavily fragmented drives with few free space.
The 3 complete methods (by name, by access time and by modified time)
are extremely slow (more than Vista defrag).

Features: *****
Being not a beta, it has the complete set features you would expect.
The complete defrag/accessed method should be almost equivalent to
Diskeeper IIFAST or Perfect Disk boot optimization.

Stability: **
Not very stable. On my system O&O kept crashing while performing a
space defrag on the system drive without a reason. Also, the
cpu-priority is too high, you basically cant use the system while
performing a complete defrag -not even listening to music.
It tended to crash more when used within the MMC.

Problems: **
Frequent program crashes. Makes the system very sluggish when
performing a complete defrag and if you keep using the system could
cause a BSOD.

Conclusion: Try it and if it's stable on your system, its the most
complete alternative available, because currently Diskeeper doesnt
offer IIFAST on Vista beta. Leave the computer alone for 1-2 hours if
you plan to run a complete defrag.


4. AUSLOGIC DISK DEFRAGMENTER 1.0
This is a free and slim program. It wont mess with ANYTHING. It
doesnt install any service or runtime program.

Interface: **
Almost non-existant interface. Choose the unit, and defrag. But it
has a cluster view No analysis available before you actually defrag
the unit, but the report is good. and...

Speed: *****
...And the speed is awesome!
OK, it doesnt offer the best defrag - It will likely leave something
fragmented (according to other programs)

Features: *
Non-existant. Either defrag or quit, If you did a defrag, you can
display the report.

Stability: *****
Stable in every condition, not a resource hog, doesnt make your
system sluggish while you are defragmenting. Works with every build of
Vista, AFAIK.

Problems: *****
None. Can co-habit with other defrag programs, heck it can even run
at the same time.

Conclusion: Download it after installing Vista and defragment it as
the first thing. Then start thinking of trying other programs.


(c)Telstar 2006, do not repost or publish without giving credits.