Anybody Know About DiskTune?

[invenit]

Just downloaded & tried the defrag and optimizer features in DiskTune at http://www.diydatare...very.nl/DiskTune.htm . Anyone familiar with DiskTune? Seems like pretty cool freeware.

[mouser]

Looks good -- but i don't know how to decide for one disk optimizer over another..

[invenit]

Thanks, mouser. I found this post by Joep about DiskTune in the freeware newsgroup this week:

I guess it's not very common for the author of the software to comment but
I'll do that anyway. It's less than a month old. So, I guess as long as
everybody keeps looking at each other for reviews it's going to take a
while. It's really perfectly safe, all file system transactions are handled
by the defrag API. In pre-alphas I have tried all kinds of weird stuff and
dangerous stuff simply isn't processed by this API. It just would tell
DiskTune, I'm not gonna do that, period. The worst that can happen is that
it makes your PC slower (but it's not going to). Well, in that case use your
trusted defragger to clean up the mess. Maybe it's even safer than all other
defraggers because it will prevent your disk from overheating. Others, while
moving large files make your disk temp rise but they don't notice and just
cary on. This is not really a problem for Auslogics etc. because they don't
move a lot at all.

I received a lot of email though. Most very positive even some 'WOWs', many
with suggestions for improvements. Probably I am the one who uses it the
longest but reviewing my own software is a bridge too far. I initially wrote
it for personal use only after trying I guess about 10 other defraggers,
free and commercial.

I didn't like most freewares because they weren't doing a lot. Their
displays and reports showed they defragged. They sometimes claimed enormous
system improvements but I didn't notice them (20% after processing 13 files,
rubbish of course). Auslogics? I didn't notice any difference. SMART Defrag
the same. It even felt slower. The one freeware that actually did do
something was JKDefrag but I found it a bit complex and I didn't want
command-line control only. I am a 'clicker'. Also, JK did make my disk get
really hot. But if you want perfect control over what goes where then
JKDefrag (next version MyDefrag is in beta with even more control) is the
tool of choice.

The commercial ones all installed more than one service/background task and
I don't like that. I think it's ok for a virus scanner to do that because I
want real-time protection. A defrag/optimize is typically something I want
to be able to run on-demand or schedule. Why install and constantly run yet
another scheduler while we have the Windows scheduler? The few commercials I
likes were Puran and Vopt. And PerfectDisk to some degree because it really
made my PC feel faster.

So, then after that I read up on the defrag API, and DiskTune is just the
result of a lot of tinkering in my spare time. A lot of what it does is just
common sense: Outer tracks are faster than inner so let's put stuff in those
that makes the PC feel faster (boot faster, launch faster, load files
faster). Files that fragment are also typically accessed a lot, so let's
make some room to defrag files into those outer tracks as well. So, I tried
a lot of stuff and dang, my PC really runs faster. It boots faster, loads my
game levels faster, makes IE load pages faster etc.. My guess is that
PerfectDisk does even better file placement but it's not my goal to
outperform anyone. DiskTune isn't the fastest either, especially analysis.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

The company gives a good impression for hands-on data recovery and has a support forum.

And I like the fact that he is emphasizing in his blog (a good read) that defrag files helps the recovery operation, very sensible. "A simple to use run-on-demand disk defragger and optimizer" to me would be an excellent occasional complement to the Auslogics or Piriform or best defrag lite du jour.

And I like this from the blog.

http://www.diydatare...ournal.com/index.php
Thursday, March 5th 2009 3:18 PM
Announcement: First public release of DiskTune the Hard disk defragmenter and optimizer!

"Why freeware? Although I spent a lot of free time on this project, I was also allowed to spent DIY DataRecovery.nl time on it. The idea is this: Rather than spending hundreds of dollars on Google ads we choose to invest some time in this project that we see as advertising. MBRtool builds up on that same idea. It’s free and hundreds of thousands of users have now heard of DIY DataRecovery.nl in return. So, we want nothing back in return, we just hope that if the need for a data recovery program arises that you will think of us. So, we just hope you will enjoy DiskTune, and if you do, do not hesitate to share it with friends and family."

Note the comment on Hiren's Boot CD - which is sometimes recommended on generally solid sites. Supposedly they were getting their copyright/trademark/non-pirate house in order .. apparently not.

The MBRTool freeware is at
http://www.diydatare...overy.nl/mbrtool.htm

So I will be giving DiskTune a spin.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

[invenit]

Thanks for the additional info, Steven.

IMHO this is superior freeware. I'm using it on two machines now: an aging IBM Intellistation Z Pro with a 36 GB SCSI hard drive and a Dell Dimension 3000 with a 250 GB Hitachi IDE drive. Both machines run WinXP. While DiskTune did not make much difference in performance on my IBM (I was already using JKDefrag), it actually worked some magic on my Dell: noticeably faster boot AND it seems to have eliminated an annoying (but intermittent) error message about Samsung's Status Monitor Manager (SSMMgr.exe) hanging when I used to reboot. 

[sajman99]

Thanks to all posters for the heads up on DiskTune. For now, I am very happy with JkDefrag's performance (0% fragmentation at present) but DiskTune looks like one to watch carefully.

[MerleOne]

The main download link seems to be down now.  But this one does. http://www.softpedia...Download-122757.html

[sajman99]

Looks like it's been over a year since the last release. The author has noted DiskTune is a sideline/hobby project, but I really hope he continues development.

There's some pretty neat stuff in this free defragger, like the VSS safe-mode feature and online MFT defrag.

Also, the DiskTune help file has some of the most straightforward info on defrag that I've been able to find.

[majoMO]

Since app. has no bugs and/or too many annoyances, it seems to me that there aren't reasons to do too much updates.

Puran Defrag e.g. is a very good defrag that no needs to be released always. To DiskTune is the same. I don't upgrade ever MyDefrag - even the oldest versions are reliable and effective.

[sajman99]

majoMo, you're probably right that DiskTune is good enough as is, without any updates. But (at least on my dual core system) it runs very slowly-- so much so that I haven't really bothered to thoroughly test it. If the author could somehow boost the defrag speed it would become a much more attractive defrag option.

You're definitely correct about Puran Defrag--I switched to its free version some while ago and am very satisfied.

[majoMO]

Yeah I understand your point indeed, sajman99, and whenever there are annoyances it's always good to have fixed updates. Maybe the developer doesn't know a needed speed improvement in their defrag yet...

[sajman99]

...Maybe the developer doesn't know a needed speed improvement in their defrag yet...

-majoMO (May 06, 2010, 03:12 PM)

I suspect it's more that he doesn't have time to dedicate to this freeware sideline project; the guy really seems to know his stuff. For example, from the DiskTune help file's miscellaneous section...

DiskTune optimizes Windows boot and files frequently used applications launching. To make sure DiskTune can optimally do so the Windows registry needs to be edited.

Important: below modifications have already been made for you if you have 'checked' the boot-optimize items during the installation of DiskTune!

1: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction. Double click 'Enable' (right pane). The value should be set to N. Click OK.

Accepted values are Y and N. if the value is set to Y then the built-in Windows defragger will undo DiskTune optimizations!

2: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\MemoryManagement\PrefetchParameters. Double-click EnablePrefetcher (right pane). The value should be set to 3 (hexadecimal).

Accepted values are 0 = disabled, 1 = Application launch prefetching, 2 = Boot prefetching, 3 = Both prefetching. Option 3 is recommended because Windows will now monitor/record files that are accessed during boot-time and applications that are frequently launched after the operating system has finished loading and update the layout.ini file accordingly. This layout.ini file can be used by DiskTune to optimize boot and application loading by strategically placing the files referred to.

3: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OptimalLayout where EnableAutoLayout needs to be set to 0 (hexadecimal).

So I would like to know if I should implement these registry tweaks if I use another third party defragger such as MyDefrag or Puran Defrag? Based on what I've read so far, these tweaks apply to WinXP and Vista (but not Win7?) and serve to prevent the native Windows background defragger from disrupting the third party defrag's optimization.

Can anyone comment on these reg tweaks? Thanks.

[Innuendo]

So I would like to know if I should implement these registry tweaks if I use another third party defragger such as MyDefrag or Puran Defrag? Based on what I've read so far, these tweaks apply to WinXP and Vista (but not Win7?) and serve to prevent the native Windows background defragger from disrupting the third party defrag's optimization.

-sajman99 (May 24, 2010, 02:00 PM)

Been a while since I've used Vista, but I'm pretty sure if you run the built in defrag program and go into options you can turn off the background/boot defragging.