Author Topic: JkDefrag further developed as MyDefrag (Read 47,511 times)

PhilB66 · « **on:** April 29, 2009, 02:48 AM »

MyDefrag is still in beta.

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gexecuter · « **Reply #1 on:** April 29, 2009, 04:59 AM »

why the name change?

PhilB66 · « **Reply #2 on:** April 29, 2009, 05:38 AM »

I have no idea why the name change... all I could find is an incomplete list of the differences between JkDefrag and MyDefrag. See http://www.kessels.com/forum/index.php?topic=1812.msg11051#msg11051

y0himba · « **Reply #3 on:** April 29, 2009, 12:58 PM »

I hope this is not a precursor to creating a shareware version.

edbro · « **Reply #4 on:** April 29, 2009, 01:15 PM »

JkDefrag is so good that I can't imagine why anyone would trust beta software to be moving all their data around. Some beta software is safe to test but I wouldn't think a defragger would be.

Steven Avery · « **Reply #5 on:** April 29, 2009, 11:56 PM »

Hi Folks,

If you look at the thread with DiskTune, you find the possible explanation .. most of these softwares are doing all their actual defragging (copying and moving of files) using the same Windows API. This is also discussed on the MyDefrag page.

Thus the softwares are more involved with issues like file placement (optimization) and timing of the activity (e.g. dedicated or background) and user interface and auxiliary functions and whether or not they do a few of the ultra-techie aspects -- they do not write any new code for the actual movement and replacement of the files.

Now there are times defragging messes up, I gather from reading forums . One category would be software that places files or notations below the Windows OS, we know there are categories of software that are defrag-sensitive, perhaps in the virtualization or sandbox world, perhaps with some programs that write directly to disk, perhaps .. conceivably .. with special markers like serial #'s placed hidden that were ultra-security sensitive (I am guessing a bit). Different softwares may handle those possibilities differently .. e.g they could actually check to see if such-and-such is on the system and/or they could be trained to play nice with certain files, not moving them. I have yet to see a cogent list of the various types of apps and usages that qualify for this. However your common house-garden-variety user probably won't get hit here.

Perhaps there are other issues like recovery (power turns off) or looking for bad sectors (remember how the Windows defragger would often simply not function due to wanting the perfect chkdsk) where there are diffierences in how defrags work. Again, I have yet to see a cogent list of the special situations. And it is possible that your new beta is weaker in some special situations than a shaken-out software. Possibly.

There is also the special situation with system files that might only be touched in a dedicated boot-time defrag. If this is not your house-garden concern, the issue does not even come up. Or you might be using a special program, like NTREGOPT, for such functions.

All-in-all the primary issue is that the file movement code (something like .. copy file .. copy new file pointer .. confirm .. change pointer in mini-nanosecond.. reconfirm) is not app-specific. That, the most sensitive part, is a Windows API, apparently done reasonably well for a Redmond operation.

Anyone who can explain real deficiencies better, maybe we can have a little thread (deficiencies and pitfalls of the garden-variety defragger). Or here. I would like to learn a bit of the techie pitfalls.

As for JKDefrag/MyDefrag, I look forward to giving it a whirl, it is spoken of very highly. Apparently it does the optimization in a superior fashion than most other softwares, possible exceptions being the ultra-high-end like PerfectDisk. You can have dueling algortithms ! Generally I just use the simple background products, Auslogics and Defraggler (Piriform/Ccleaner). On the theory that the real issue is taking care of the 30K fragments that can develop -- and the file placement struggle is more nuance than substance (ducks .. YMMV).

Granted, on the other hand there is nothing wrong with a very intelligent file placement, especially one that looks ahead to the forthcoming new temp files and extensions and all. (As discussed on the Mydefrag page.) One thing I liked about the DiskTune fella was that, to a certain extent, he seemed to be willing to speak about this bluntly. That there was only so much all the optimization in the world would ever accomplish on a Windows system, and that so much was not huge.

One way to look at it is that on our systems file I-O is so far below memory usage and CPU exhaustion and internet connections and other bottlenecks in causing any actual noticeable speed bumps .. that tweaking a bit faster file I-O, while nice, will make little practical difference. Of course the unnecessary and cumbersome 50K fragments people get would do some harm .. since every file fragment can lead to an extra read on volatile files and one file can have hundreds of fragments. Just as significantly, fragmented files can be a bear in a techie recovery operation, disrupting any hope. So you try to strike a balance. In my case, I have yet to be convinced that optimization is very relevant.

This thread has even triggered my defrag scheduler ! (Whenever I read a post about defragging I do a defrag.) ... Ok, before my reinstall of XP maybe I had a weekly defrag in the Splinterware system scheduler program that I use, and haven't yet reinstalled. A good minor chore for now.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

tomos · « **Reply #6 on:** April 30, 2009, 08:04 AM »

Quote from: Steven Avery on April 29, 2009, 11:56 PM

If you look at the thread with DiskTune, you find the possible explanation .. most of these softwares are doing all their actual defragging (copying and moving of files) using the same Windows API. This is also discussed on the MyDefrag page.

also discussed in this and following couple of posts

Quote from: bugis on April 07, 2009, 03:40 PM

No defragger can actually specify physical placement of the files on the platter. ...

from
Paragon Total Defrag 2009 For Free - Powerful but controversial

dont know who to believe myself ...

40hz · « **Reply #7 on:** April 30, 2009, 02:08 PM »

Quote from: y0himba on April 29, 2009, 12:58 PM

I hope this is not a precursor to creating a shareware version.

If Mr. Joren Kessels decides to go shareware with MyDefrag, I don't have a problem with that. Since it's his intellectual effort, it's only fair that he should get to decide how he wants to release it.

The very liberal EULA ( http://www.mydefrag.com/Manual-License.html ) doesn't seem to indicate his intentions go much beyond establishing authorship, and explicitly limiting liability for damages should something go wrong.

majoMO · « **Reply #8 on:** April 30, 2009, 04:21 PM »

JkDefrag - Open Source

MyDefrag - Freeware

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #9 on:** April 30, 2009, 08:45 PM »

Quote from: tomos on April 30, 2009, 08:04 AM

Quote from: bugis on April 07, 2009, 03:40 PM
No defragger can actually specify physical placement of the files on the platter. ...
from
Paragon Total Defrag 2009 For Free - Powerful but controversial

dont know who to believe myself ...

I didn't read the referenced article, but the statement is certainly true for any post-DOS computer. Since the advent of IDE drives (remember that stands for "In-Drive Electronics"), not even the OS has control of the actual physical placement. The OS communicates with the hard drive in terms of logical sectors, and the HD maps those logical sectors into physical ones.

This scheme makes it so the OS doesn't need to worry about heads and platters, as we used to have to do with MFM and RLL drives.

It also allows each harddrive to maintain its own list of known bad sectors, which it maps to alternate sectors at the end of the drive. Thus, even a drive that appears perfectly de-fragmented at the logical level may have, unknown to you, physical fragmentation because of mapped-out bad sectors.

rgdot · « **Reply #10 on:** April 30, 2009, 09:04 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on April 30, 2009, 02:08 PM

Quote from: y0himba on April 29, 2009, 12:58 PM
I hope this is not a precursor to creating a shareware version.

If Mr. Joren Kessels decides to go shareware with MyDefrag, I don't have a problem with that. Since it's his intellectual effort, it's only fair that he should get to decide how he wants to release it.

Not saying this is what is happening to JkDefrag but this kind of action when and if it happens is the very worst kind of decision, makes me shake my head when I hear some developers say "time constraints" or something similar. If you are serious about an app you are writing you should expect it to take lots of time (and by extension money and all that) and yes even for years to come. I have absolutely no problem with shareware but decide from the beginning.

f0dder · « **Reply #11 on:** April 30, 2009, 10:09 PM »

Quote

One category would be software that places files or notations below the Windows OS, we know there are categories of software that are defrag-sensitive, perhaps in the virtualization or sandbox world, perhaps with some programs that write directly to disk, perhaps .. conceivably .. with special markers like serial #'s placed hidden that were ultra-security sensitive (I am guessing a bit).

I don't think this is an issue today. The only time I've seen software that needed stuff to be on special locations on the disk has been with software protection, and I haven't seen that since the Win9x days... except for a very few protections that probably aren't used today, and those depended on writing to the "reserved first cylinder" of the drive, which isn't touched at all by defragging.

Quote

or looking for bad sectors (remember how the Windows defragger would often simply not function due to wanting the perfect chkdsk)

That was on Win9x and didn't have to do with bad sectors, but rather the filesystem metainfo. This was because Win9x didn't have a defragging API, and the defraggers had to access stuff directly (and thus re-read the FS metainfo if they sensed changed). Almost a bit amazing that there were so little disk writes going on that this worked at all

Quote

One way to look at it is that on our systems file I-O is so far below memory usage and CPU exhaustion and internet connections and other bottlenecks in causing any actual noticeable speed bumps .. that tweaking a bit faster file I-O, while nice, will make little practical difference.

Dunno if I agree with that - in most systems I'd say that disk is actually the bottleneck. And once things get fragmented enough (or you run multiple I/O threads), even a raptor disk that can do 90MB/s sustained drops to less than 1MB/s

- of course that's on an über-pessimized system, you won't really see much advantage from defragging a 100-fragment 10-gigabyte file to one single fragment.

Quote

This scheme makes it so the OS doesn't need to worry about heads and platters, as we used to have to do with MFM and RLL drives.

IDE drives can still be addressed through Cylinder/Head/Sector notation (until you hit the max size limit and have to go with LBA), but even then the drive internally convers the CHS to a LBA, and then to it's internal physical structure

Proximo · « **Reply #12 on:** May 12, 2009, 10:39 AM »

I am a big JKDefrag user and sure how "My Defrag" is only a name change. I don't care much for shareware.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #13 on:** September 03, 2009, 04:12 AM »

Speaking of MyDefrag, I'm trying it out now. But it seems like it want scripts and you have to pick drives by category. I'm using the predefined "fast optimize" script but it wants to do all the HD partitions and the drive I have in the USB Docking station.

Ain't there a way to tell it just to defrag C: ?? Sheesh!!!

mahesh2k · « **Reply #14 on:** September 03, 2009, 05:28 AM »

Quote

Posted by: MilesAhead Ain't there a way to tell it just to defrag C: ?? Sheesh!!!

This MyDefrag script will work just fine for that.

Quote

VolumeSelect
Name("c:")
VolumeActions
FileSelect
All
FileActions
Defragment()
FileEnd
VolumeEnd

f0dder · « **Reply #15 on:** September 03, 2009, 06:03 AM »

MilesAhead: the .exe file takes command-line arguments - so you can launch it with "C:" and have it only defrag that partition

MilesAhead · « **Reply #16 on:** September 03, 2009, 06:11 AM »

You sure that isn't cheating?

Thanks.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #17 on:** September 03, 2009, 06:40 AM »

Hmmmm, I caught myself messing with editing the shortcut, then lightbulb went off. Use my own software!! Dragged Fast Optimize shortcut onto Selector. That way I can enter any drive on the Text param input line instead of having a bunch of shortcuts.

tomos · « **Reply #18 on:** September 03, 2009, 06:58 AM »

Quote from: MilesAhead on September 03, 2009, 04:12 AM

Speaking of MyDefrag, I'm trying it out now. But it seems like it want scripts and you have to pick drives by category.
...

doesnt sound very user friendly . .

MilesAhead · « **Reply #19 on:** September 03, 2009, 05:03 PM »

Quote from: tomos on September 03, 2009, 06:58 AM

Quote from: MilesAhead on September 03, 2009, 04:12 AM
Speaking of MyDefrag, I'm trying it out now. But it seems like it want scripts and you have to pick drives by category.
...

doesnt sound very user friendly . .

It is a bit different. I guess that's why the JkDefragGUI programmer is going to come up with a GUI for it. As f0dder pointed out, it just needs a command line param added of x: to limit it to drive x:

edit: btw it's easy to forget in Windows that you can pass params to shortcuts. When you drop a file on a desktop icon and click "open with" Windows adds the filename to the end of whatever command line params are in the shortcut already. Comes in handy for dragging the shortcut onto a launcher or other means of passing the param, instead of just using the exe file path.

yksyks · « **Reply #20 on:** September 04, 2009, 08:26 AM »

There are already several GUI's for MyDefrag available, for example:

I don't need any of them, but someone might give them a try.

tomos · « **Reply #21 on:** September 04, 2009, 09:57 AM »

Quote from: yksyks on September 04, 2009, 08:26 AM

There are already several GUI's for MyDefrag available, for example:

http://www.mydefrag.net/
http://www.emro.nl/freeware/MyDefragGUI.html
http://mydefraggui.com/

yeah,
there was a bunch of them for JkDefrag, some focusing on different aspects
For 'normal' use I found the Emro one the best but havent tried MyDefrag yet - will try that GUI, thanks yksyks

MilesAhead · « **Reply #22 on:** September 04, 2009, 05:19 PM »

Unfortunately the one thing that hasn't changed is the On Screen Display. Man is that a zero!! A snappier display would inspire more confidence I think. The program seems to work quite well. But it's tough to convince people that something that churns awhile, then spits out the number 42 is the greatest innovation since the abacus. People want to see some snazz. Esp. nowadays almost everyone has some kind of hardware accelerated graphics. Even the colors used are so drab!

f0dder · « **Reply #23 on:** September 04, 2009, 05:36 PM »

JKDefrag/MyDefrag does seem to do the job, but darn it's slow - PerfectDisk gets the job done a lot faster, and (at least) as well... but of course that's payware, and beggars can't be choosers

About the display, not only is it slow... I also don't feel it gives a lot of clues as to what's going on. There's no legend for the various colors (which aren't distinct enough), and a mode with a traditional block grid would be nice.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #24 on:** September 04, 2009, 07:51 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on September 04, 2009, 05:36 PM

About the display, not only is it slow... I also don't feel it gives a lot of clues as to what's going on. There's no legend for the various colors (which aren't distinct enough), and a mode with a traditional block grid would be nice.

It would be better if it just had a text box with the text updates. That's what I watch. The Zone 3 yadda yadda with the percentage. Even the old MS Dos defrag from PC Tools had a better display using Text Mode and colored squares in the video character cells.

Even though MyDefrag does a more thorough defrag, Auslogics looks like it's doing a good job due to the graphics display.