Diskeeper for Windows NT

Don't Let Fragmentation Slow Your Disk Drives

ExecutiveSoftware recently delivered Diskeeper 1.01, a disk defragmenter compatible withWindows NT 3.51 running Service Pack 1, 2, or 3. Diskeeper has borne the bruntof bad press in the past because it was not in synch with the latest version ofNT. I've had Diskeeper since it was called vaporware, and I waited patiently formore than six months to receive the program only to find that it wouldn't workwith my beta version of NT. Running Diskeeper wasn't worth going back a versionof NT, and my Diskeeper sat on a shelf gathering dust for months.

I hope Executive Software now will be more timely and keep up-to-date withthe latest betas and service packs. To be fair, I shouldn't direct all the blamefor an incompatible disk defragmenter at Executive Software. Microsoft needs toput the hooks into the NT kernel so that each time a new version of NT comesout, Diskeeper will be compatible.

The Evaluation
Diskeeper currently runs on Intel and Alpha NT hardware platforms. Ievaluated Diskeeper 1.01 for Windows NT 3.51 with Service Pack 3.

The disk system of my dual 60-MHz Pentium system is not exactly typical andhas been a good evaluation system for Diskeeper. I have three disk controllersand eight hard drives for a total of approximately 13GB. I have an IDEcontroller built onto the motherboard with a Maxtor 213MB drive, an Adaptec 7770controller (2742T dual-channel) built onto the motherboard with an olderexternal Seagate 1.2GB full-height drive, and an internal Digital DSP 3160 1.6GBdrive. I also have a Mylex DAC 960 five-channel RAID controller with fiveQuantum Atlas 2.1GB XP32150S drives, each on its own channel running in a RAID 0configurated for striping. I have hard-disk partitions C through N (excluding K,which is my CD-ROM), and four of them are NT File System (NTFS) partitions. Therest are File Allocation Table (FAT).

Since I installed Diskeeper, I've seen faster performance when I load andrun various applications, especially when I read articles against my news-spoolpartition (Yes, NTFS can become fragmented, contrary to popular belief. See thesidebar, "How to Fragment an NTFS Partition," on page 48). In anutshell, any disk partition that has a high degree of file turnover will becomefragmented. This statement holds true for both NTFS and FAT partitions.

Diskeeper easily defragmented all my partitions except one: I have an 800MBFAT partition on my E drive that had about 100MB free. Because the free spacewas not contiguous, Diskeeper had a problem defragmenting it and didn't seem tobe making any headway even after running continuously all night for three days.Although Diskeeper might have eventually gotten somewhere, the CPU time itneeded didn't seem worth the effort. To resolve this problem, I copied all thedata to one of the other drives, deleted all the files and directories, andcopied the data back. For the most part, these steps combined my free space, andDiskeeper was able to defragment the drive. Except for this small inconvenience,I found Diskeeper to be a superior product. I can just set it, and forget it,and it watches over my drives to keep them defragmented. I run Diskeeper nightlyon my drives that get regular use, and every third night on my partitions thatare not heavily used.

Table 1 shows the average time Diskeeper takes for one defragmentation passon the disk partitions in my system. Notice that just the raw size of thepartition is not a good indicator of how long a single defragmentation pass willtake: My L drive is not the largest sized partition, but Diskeeper takes morethan two hours for one pass. The total number of files on the drive seems to bea better indicator of the time Diskeeper needs to make a pass. My L drive hasmore than 20,000 files because it is my news-spool partition. The time forDiskeeper to defragment a drive will vary depending on the CPU configuration andthe types of disks and controllers on your system.

After you install Diskeeper, stay on top of how well it's doing byevaluating how fragmented your partitions are after Diskeeper runs a few passes.The amount of fragmentation will vary depending on how much the partition wasfragmented in the first place and how much free space is available in it. Onceyou get the amount of fragmentation on your drives below a certain threshold(e.g., 5% to 10%), Diskeeper seems able to simply run one pass nightly to keepfragmentation in check. You no longer need to monitor the program unless youhave a partition with a high access/change rate that doesn't have much freespace.

Screen 1 shows the interface for scheduling Diskeeper. Notice you canschedule which drives run and when and how often they run. Diskeeper hasperformed flawlessly for me so far and defragments my drives while I sleep.

Two utilities come with Diskeeper to evaluate the fragmentation in yourpartitions. Screen 2 shows the Diskeeper Fragmentation Monitor. This is agraphic display of a disk partition with various colors to indicatefragmentation, contiguous files, and free space. Screen 3 shows the output forthe Diskeeper Fragmentation Analysis utility. This utility is much more usefulthan the Fragmentation Monitor: The Analysis utility shows the percentage offragmentation and how many files of the total number on the disk are fragmented.Screen 4 shows the Diskeeper Status option, which lets you see which disks arebeing defragmented and which are scheduled to be defragmented.

Although I like the product, I saw a couple of minor shortcomings that Ihope Executive Software addresses in future updates:

Diskeeper is a thoroughly implemented and superior product, and I have noreservations recommending it to anyone. Keep in mind that Diskeeper is updatedevery time Windows NT is updated, and be sure to read the readme.txt with theproduct.