two more defrag tools - "UltraDefrag" and "Advanced Defrag"

[Lutz_]

I just came a cross these two defraggers which seem to have not been mentioned yet in all the defrag discussions here.

-  UltraDefrag is an open source project which claims to provide a comparatively fast defragmentation.  The program has many of the advanced options found in commercial defraggers and also in MyDefrag.   I have not tried the program myself yet.  According to their forum, the next version should have a much faster full hard drive optimization procedure.
http://ultradefrag.s...ge.net/overview.html

- Advanced Defrag presents some novelties.  The website claims that it defragments MFT, registry , as well as the regular files all without requiring a re-boot and boot-time defragmentation. I gave it a try and it is doing "something" as advertised.  I do not have the expertise to figure out how successful the defragmentation really is.  The fragmentation scan is extremely fast compared to Perfect Disk or Puran Defrag. The simple defragmentation is also  quite fast, but the full optimization took about 20 hours on a 100 GB harddrive that was only half full and previously defragged with Advanced Defrag.  The background defragmentation option did not slow down my computer at all.  You might want to be careful, as the registry defrag also carries out "registry fixes" without offering a backup or an option to decline the fixes. I have not had any problems due to the about 20 fixes it carried out.  Not very confidence inspiring is the lack of a physical address on the Advanced Defrag website.  The authors English seems to need some polishing; but so does mine.   
http://www.advanceddefrag.com/

Does anybody else have any experience with these tools?

[f0dder]

The arrogance of the UltraDefrag developers doesn't really make me want to even try the app... also, quickly browsing their documentation I couldn't find any reason why they're implementing the defragmentation as a driver - there has to be a darned good reason to do this because of all the problems it imposes, but yet they don't write about it in any easy to locate place

[Innuendo]

The arrogance of the UltraDefrag developers doesn't really make me want to even try the app...

-f0dder (December 02, 2009, 02:10 AM)

Any app that has to have UAC disabled in order to work will never touch my hard drive.

[f0dder]

The arrogance of the UltraDefrag developers doesn't really make me want to even try the app...

-f0dder (December 02, 2009, 02:10 AM)

Any app that has to have UAC disabled in order to work will never touch my hard drive.

-Innuendo (December 02, 2009, 12:10 PM)

Not just UAC, but also driver signing...

[MrCrispy]

That app gives a bad name to open source - as if most OSS needs to run as full admin with unsigned drivers!

[f0dder]

That app gives a bad name to open source - as if most OSS needs to run as full admin with unsigned drivers!

-MrCrispy (December 02, 2009, 05:54 PM)

Well, to be fair, it takes a fair amount of work and a bit of cash to get your drivers signed - iirc you even have to set up a company (as a legal entity) in order to get a driver signing license.

What troubles me is that attitude - calling UAC and driver signing "bugs"... and then there's the issue of using a driver at all, without detailing why. (There might be a reason, but I'd sure like to know it - both the defrag API as well as directly reading the MFT can be done just fine from usermode).

[majoMO]

... and then there's the issue of using a driver at all, without detailing why.

-f0dder (December 02, 2009, 05:57 PM)

From http://ultradefrag.s...ge.net/overview.html :

It makes use of the same defragmenting API used by many other windows defrag utilities, both open and closed source. However, UltraDefrag has many features that makes it unique. Firstly it has a kernel mode driver that does most of the work, secondly is the ability to run the application at boot up time in a manner similar to chkdsk. This allows for faster defragmentation time and the ability to defragment all files including system files. The work is done via a kernel mode driver which has an optimal defraging algorithm.

[f0dder]

majoMO: and that text says absolutely nothing about why they've implemented it via a driver. Defrag API is available to usermode programs, boot-time (chkdsk phase) apps are usermode programs using the NT native API (which has nothing to do with drivers), the ability to defrag system files is because of boot-time not driver, and optimal algorithm is, well, about algorithm and not the use of driver.

[majoMO]

Diskeeper uses a file system filter driver also. It seems that is to do their defrag process. UltraDefrag uses it for the same "that does most of the work".

You can request more info about UltraDegrag'driver (it's open source) in their support.

[f0dder]

Diskeeper uses a file system filter driver also. It seems that is to do their defrag process.

-majoMO (December 03, 2009, 01:12 PM)

A driver or a service? It makes sense to use a service for defrag, since it can do it's work in the background without a GUI running... and, if you don't care about security, it will let you launch the GUI non-privileged and control the (privileged) service. PerfectDisk does this.

EDIT: Diskeeper info page mentions it has IntelliWrite, which sounds like something that makes sense implementing as a filter driver:

IntelliWrite prevents up to 85% of the fragmentation every system suffers from. It intelligently writes contiguous files to the disk so system resources are not wasted creating fragmentation. The results? A whole new level of system speed and efficiency.

[MerleOne]

Advanced Defrag seems quite terrible : on a 90% full disk, the circular map displays over 50% free space.  Exclusions are basic and the reporting seems to be the same as Auslogic Defrag, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same product beneath.