Author Topic: Paragon Total Defrag 2009 For Free - Powerful but controversial (Read 29831 times)

FreebyFan · « **on:** March 24, 2009, 08:43 AM »

Quote : "It seems that older computers are facing big problems when using this almost professional tool. Read here about some negative reactions after using this software ( especially Tibicar who performed a … 6 weeks defragg on her PC !!! )"

http://for-free-on-internet.com/2009/03/paragon-total-defrag-2009-the-missed-hot-find-2-and-a-word-to-raymondcc/

I've got it, the promotion works. Did not have the time to try it yet, though a bit scared by the warnings

cmpm · « **Reply #1 on:** March 24, 2009, 09:04 AM »

I got this program and have some of their others.

You actually get the full dfrag program.
Not just the special free version.
And yes it will take a while to run.
You must reboot so it has custody of the drive.
To stop it you can press esc or control c.

My advice is to keep your other defrag program and use it.
Like jkdefrag or whatever.
So it doesn't have a lot to do, although mine took about 7 hours for 20gb of actual files on a 80gb drive.

But there are options to choose.
You can put your directories at the beginning or end of the drive.
Ascending or descending.
Or you can leave the directories where they are.

So it is a major defrag utility.
I don't believe it was meant for vista and up.
Can't be certain of that though.

Someone send me a Vista machine and I'll try it

But send a way to reformat and reload Vista too...lol...

tomos · « **Reply #2 on:** March 24, 2009, 11:03 AM »

But there are options to choose.
You can put your directories at the beginning or end of the drive.
Ascending or descending.
Or you can leave the directories where they are.
-cmpm (March 24, 2009, 09:04 AM)

does it recommend any of those?
JKDefrag offers

which is based on files rather than directories but I never could see the logic of it - especially to end of disk - unless you want to get them out of the way...

cmpm · « **Reply #3 on:** March 24, 2009, 11:32 AM »

Just the options I listed is what I saw, tomos,
but there could be others. Doubt it though.
It's a simple interface, with drop down options.
But I didn't see the amount of options that jkdefrag has.
I'd have to run it again to get shots of it.
And I don't have the time right now.

http://www.paragon-s...rag/screenshots.html

It seems safe to me, but there is some complaints I reckon.
It does take a long time.
Be prepared to take at least 12 hours for it to complete.
Depending on size of disk and contents.

According to jkdefrag's analyze map it's all packed in tight.
Tighter then with jk.
As far as performance gain, I don't think I've noticed any.
But I keep this dude pretty clean anyway.....

MilesAhead · « **Reply #4 on:** March 27, 2009, 08:18 PM »

Ever since I've had HD with capacity 200 GB or greater I've kept the free space over 80%. When I tell people I defrag(like a quicky Auslogics defrag) 4 or 5 times a week and tell them it usually takes less than 10 minutes they act like I'm lying. But too many people run their HD over 80% full, then expect to defrag into that small free space.

@cmpm Did you run in "safe mode" ?? I'd be curious what the differential would be if you ran in Turbo(or whatever they call it) mode(with UPS of course.)

Sounds like it might be worth doing twice a year.
I just got the serial and download but haven't installed yet.

btw according to the info on the site it's NOT for 64 bit systems although it claims to support Vista 32 bit.

cmpm · « **Reply #5 on:** March 27, 2009, 09:52 PM »

Hi MilesAhead again,

No I didn't run it in safe mode.
After setting the options and starting it,
it prompted to restart the computer.
Which I clicked, so it then ran before windows loaded.

One thing I like is that it separated out the MFT files section.
And it wasn't in the middle of all my other files like it was.
Seems to me that it should be that way anyway.

I set it to Directories at the beginning of the drive-Ascending.

cmpm · « **Reply #6 on:** March 27, 2009, 10:17 PM »

The green up near the MFT is programs I've installed since running Paragon.

Lutz_ · « **Reply #7 on:** March 27, 2009, 11:30 PM »

Does anybody know if there is anything to the "complete low-level defragmentation" that Paragon promises?
Is this anything special and provides real world advantages?

MilesAhead · « **Reply #8 on:** March 28, 2009, 12:22 PM »

cmpm thanks for the additional info.

Innuendo · « **Reply #9 on:** April 01, 2009, 10:48 PM »

I think I'll stick with Raxco PerfectDisk. It, too, will defrag your HDs to less than 1% fragmentation & it definitely won't take 6 weeks to do it. It's also the only defragger as of this writing that is certified to work with Windows 7.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #10 on:** April 02, 2009, 11:09 AM »

Then again you always see people out there saying "hey! I have 2 gigs free how come this takes so long?" then you find out they're defragging a 1.5 TB drive! Some people have unrealistic expectations.

Innuendo · « **Reply #11 on:** April 04, 2009, 06:11 PM »

You bring up a very good point. The less free space you have on a drive when you defrag it the longer it is going to take to defrag that drive.

Also, another thing to keep in mind is that most defrag programs cannot/will not completely defrag a drive if it is over 70-90% full. O&O and Executive Software I am looking at you!

Shades · « **Reply #12 on:** April 04, 2009, 10:16 PM »

For defragging my hard disk I use (on a monthly basis) the 'Ultimate Defrag' software from a company called: Disktrix.

Guess some year ago they did a promotional campaign on the net to promote their new version by putting the previous version in the public domain. Previously I used Diskeeper but I was not satisfied with the results from that one, so I tried. And I am happy I did!

First, it doesn't require that stupid rule of 15% free space, it moves most recent data to the outer (faster) tracks, older data to the center tracks and puts folders next to the MFT (Master File Table). Because of all that, my PC felt as 'snappy' as a new installation again. Something DisKeeper was never able to manage. Until now everyone who has seen that software in action and worked with the result is grateful for leading them to a very good defragger. It even comes with a manual that explains every option in clear, understandable English (PDF).

Unfortunately, the company does not link to that free version of their software anymore

A search with Google for download links resulted in this overview.

No affiliation, just a happy user (who should be starting his monthly defrag soon

).

EDIT: added a comment.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #13 on:** April 05, 2009, 12:48 PM »

Ultimat Defrag looks very nice and seems to give a lot of control. However there are a couple of thoughts/questions I have:

How does it actually perform the defrag? Perfect Disk and DiskKeeper both us the MS API and if UD uses the MS API to achieve this (and hopefully it does for the sake of security and consistency) then how can they argue where they place files since the API only gives a virtual view of the hardware and doesn't let software where to physically place specific files on the hardware. A number of years ago I had a long conversation with a tech from Perfect Disk where I had it explained that actual physical placement is not possible through the API only logical placement within the API view. Logically contiguous files are really pysically contiguous but the software cannot guarantee which physical blocks on the hardware are used.

Shades · « **Reply #14 on:** April 05, 2009, 03:18 PM »

@ Carol:
If you want I can send the installation file to you, which includes the help file. The help file mentions that the software uses the Microsoft API's that are in common use for this kind of thing. Besides those API's they use their OptiSeek technology that is able to place files where you want them.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #15 on:** April 05, 2009, 04:54 PM »

Thanks - it is downloadble but to be honest I am pretty happy with Perfect Disk 10

Shades · « **Reply #16 on:** April 05, 2009, 06:04 PM »

First of all I'm sorry for venting, but...

[rant]
I used to pay for DisKeeper (until version 8 or so), my main frustration with that one was that I have to have 15% of harddisk space free before defragmentation could took place.

Given the harddisk sizes of today that is a sizable chunk of space (for example: 30GByte on a 200 GByte disk/partition!!!!). The stupidity of that rule baffles me to no end. I have been around PC's long enough to know why that rule was put into place, but today that rule is insane.

With today's 1Tbyte drives i am not allowed to use 150GByte, because my defragger won't allow for it?!?
Denying me a 'snappy' system just because I use the total capacity of my hard disk?!??!
Do you have (an) contiguous file(s) of 150GByte in size on your disk? The biggest single file I have seen was 35Gbyte (Oracle database file).

Because the file size of the biggest (fragmented) file on a harddisk and equivalent free space on a harddisk should be the only reason why defrag software isn't able to start. And even that should actually not be a reason to start defragmenting the files that do fit in the available free space.

In that sense most defragmenting software has a lot of growing up to do.

Not the software from DiskTrix though. The harddisk in my system is an IDE WD Caviar with a capacity of 160GByte capacity (unformatted, 149GByte formatted). Directory Opus reports that this disk has 2,3Gbyte of free space or 1.5% free.
DiskTrix starts without any problem.

If Perfect Disk would commence to defragment my disk all the power to it, but my guess is that it either will not commence or will be painfully slow because of all the (literally) grinding work. DiskTrix commences without problems and it will take quite some time because of the amount of files, but it goes on without complaining.

Furthermore, how often is defragmenting required? DisKeeper was setup to run every night when I was asleep and still the results were not that great. Defragging every night puts (quite) some wear and tear on the disk. Nowadays I have scheduled the defrag software to run once a month.

[/rant]

It is just the stupid archaic rules required by this kind of software and the lack of results that drives me insane

...and which make me a (very) happy Disktrix user.

f0dder · « **Reply #17 on:** April 05, 2009, 06:13 PM »

I'd personally (probably) never use any software by DiskTrix.

Anybody remember the trick they pulled with "WE OMG KNOW SUPER SECRET TRIX TO MAKES YOUR XP 500% FASTERER! BUY NOW!" ntfs compression scam? And the user interface giving you the impression that they actually do some über-special physical placement and know disk layout is bordering ludicrous, imho.

Shades: AFAIK, the "15%" is just a rule of thumb, not a hard limit. And it's my feeling that the important thing isn't really 15% but has more to do with the size of the files on the disk, to avoid thrashing too much by moving stuff back and forth. But sure, while all NT defrag applications use the same defrag API, they can go about planning in different ways.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #18 on:** April 05, 2009, 06:46 PM »

Perfect Disk works fine for me - I have even defragged a disk with less than 1% free without problem.

f0dder · « **Reply #19 on:** April 05, 2009, 06:55 PM »

Perfect Disk works fine for me - I have even defragged a disk with less than 1% free without problem.
-Carol Haynes (April 05, 2009, 06:46 PM)

Works fine for me (although I always have a few gigabytes free before defragmenting - if I know there's a bunch of temporary files (or stuff I can burn out to DVDs, etc) on a partition, I always do that before defragmenting).

PD does seem to be a bit slow wrt. NTFS compressed files, though - I'm not sure they're as much of a performance improvement (

) as DiskTrix claimed - especially because they very easily get fragmented. Oh well

MilesAhead · « **Reply #20 on:** April 05, 2009, 07:08 PM »

There's a lot you can do just by using the windows command line
defrag C: -b
on ocassion to defrag boot files (still works in Vista or at least it does something with no error even though it's no longer documented) and a quicky like Auslogics.

Thing is if you can keep a lot of free space, it's not a burden. Esp if you can delete a bunch of large files right before the defrag(like DVDs you've just burned) then a defrag can take 10 to 15 minutes. I wouldn't defrag 10 times a week if it took me an hour each.

My scheme has always been to do a thorough defrag once in a blue moon to position files, then the quicky defrags tend to clump onto what's already in place. When running with mostly free space the thorough defrags aren't really needed. Esp. with boot file prefetching in Vista once you have a stable boot setup defrag boot files and it comes up pretty quickly(compared to Vista not defragged that is, not compared to XP.)

Shades · « **Reply #21 on:** April 05, 2009, 07:56 PM »

@f0dder:
The placement of files you can regulate in some sense. However, you also can use the layout.ini as is generated by Windows itself, so starting programs and booting goes fast.

I agree that 400%/500% speed gain is over the top, especially in the way you just posted

However, their help file shows a calculation that makes some sense.
From the example:
A typical EIDE hard drive from 160GByte has the following specs:
   - Read Seek Time: 8,9msec
   - Latency: 4,2msec
   - Full stroke seek: 21,0msec (from center till the rim of the platter)
   - Track-to-track seek: 2,0msec
   - Transfer rate (max): 750Mbit/sec

The average Access Time for this hard drive is 8,9 + 4,2 = 13,1msec
The minimum Access Time for this hard drive is 2,0 + 4,2 = 6,2msec
The maximum Access Time for this hard drive is 8,9 + 4,2 = 25,2msec

Between the slowest and the fastest access time there is some 400% performance difference.
They also go by the following rule: 80% of the time you use only 20% of the files.

Those 20% of files are stored on the outer edge of the platter as the data transfer rate there is more like the promised 750MBit/sec, while the other 80% of files are stored near the center where the data transfer is more like 400MBit/sec.

Maybe I am just plain silly (or naive) but the idea of data and software I use most, stored in the most speedy area of the hard drive, does sound plausible to me.

For me the DiskTrix software led to a system that feels as 'snappy' as a fresh Windows installation for the best price as well, free.

For all intends and purposes I should send the help file, it expands a lot more about the reasoning behind their software and all of the possible options. Then again, I don't want to be regarded as a spammer

f0dder · « **Reply #22 on:** April 06, 2009, 04:19 AM »

MilesAhead: Windows' built-in defragger isn't very good, it's pathetic at dealing with low free diskspace situations. On Vista, they admittedly don't try to optimize beyond "keeping fragments at least 64MB in size" which kinda makes sense for regular Joe where an auto-scheduled defrag shouldn't be too disk-intensive. But consumer drives are way faster than 64MB/s today, and having to move the read/write heads is an awful speed hit.

Shades: I was referring to their NTFS compression scam, not the benefits of defragmenting. Imho the art of defragmenting is somewhat black magic, though... for instance, the access pattern while loading applications isn't necessarily linear, so you could probably gain more by grouping by read pattern than moving to the outer edge of the disk.

I'm so looking forward to cheap SSDs

MilesAhead · « **Reply #23 on:** April 06, 2009, 11:19 AM »

f0dder I only use Windows defrag to defrag boot files, as I noted.
defrag C: -b

That's all it's good for.

bugis · « **Reply #24 on:** April 07, 2009, 10:40 AM »

No defragger can actually specify physical placement of the files on the platter. The file system and storage hardware are not directly 'aware' of each other, so a defragger work only within the realm of the logical disk; it's the drive controller that decides as to which physical blocks are actually used for writing the data. Logically contiguous files may or may not be physically contiguous (but they should be pretty close I guess). Remember, the physical drive is not 2 dimensional although that's what the drive maps show. The HDD consists of more than one platter and more than one surface (and read/write heads) for storing data; so any claims of a defragger being able to write to a specific part of the platter should be taken with a pinch of salt.

As for Diskeeper, I use the 2009 Pro edition currently, and it has defragged my non-OS 250GB drive even with only 6% free space without any problems; it was in auto mode as I usually run it that way. The current Diskeeper versions work in low space quite well.