DirMS and Buzzsaw

[Zero3K]

DirMS is a program that defrags files faster and better than Executive's Diskeeper. Buzzsaw does on the fly defragmentation whenever it is needed and only when your HD is 95% idle (but only on files that have been recently modified and need defragging). I recommend running DirMS before running Buzzsaw.

Screenshot (of DirMS):

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Screenshot (of Buzzsaw):

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Homepage: http://www.dirms.com
Forums: http://www.dirms.com/forums/default.asp
Download (for DirMS): http://www.dirms.com/download/DirmsService.zip
Download (for Buzzsaw): http://www.dirms.com/download/BuzzsawService.zip
License: Shareware

[mouser]

buzzsaw sounds interesting..

[JeffK]

Ooh, can we talk about defragmenting.  I've been testing out the big three, Diskeeper, O&O and Perfect Disk and can't choose between them.  What I wanted was the ability to customise the file order when defragmenting like I used to do with Norton Speed Disk 5 (which does not work on Windows XP).  Except for Perfect Disk these let you do it in a fashion by means of "schemes" but it is not enough control for me.  I like the Perfect Disk interface the best but it doesn't have any choices.

I have tried DirMS, Buzzsawe and numerous other altyernatives but have no doubt been blinded to their good points by this need to customise the result.

BTW forum members may be interested in mst Defrag, which is designed to defrag files in the background.  ATM there is an introductory price of $US9 (reduced from $30).

Any other user experience with my issues above?

Jeff

[nudone]

what Jeff says sounds interesting.

i'll probably get laughed at for saying this but i did read somewhere recently that defragging modern hard drives doesn't really offer much benefit as their access speed is quick enough to open files whether fragmented or not.

of course, i've also read that one should keep your hard drives nice and defragged.

i use voptxp. anyone got any opinions on that one - just seems quick so i use it.

[Scott]

I use mst Defrag Home Edition, and it works quite well.  I absolutely love having a defragger that I can literally install and then forget about.  The only (very highly questionable) benefit that something like PerfectDisk offers, to me, is the ability to defrag a few bits of NTFS metadata in offline mode.  But no one is going to convince me that those metadata files are causing a performance hit.

[JeffK]

I use mst Defrag Home Edition, and it works quite well.  I absolutely love having a defragger that I can literally install and then forget about.  The only (very highly questionable) benefit that something like PerfectDisk offers, to me, is the ability to defrag a few bits of NTFS metadata in offline mode.  But no one is going to convince me that those metadata files are causing a performance hit.

Yes mst Defrag seems quite good doesn't it.  No doubt it will also get better as time goes on.  Documentation/help leaves a bit to be desired though.

Jeff

[Scott]

Yeah the docs are awful.  That, and it's far from ideal to have to configure it with manual registry editing.  I'd rewrite his manual for him, but he can't afford me. 

[Zero3K]

I use mst Defrag Home Edition, and it works quite well.  I absolutely love having a defragger that I can literally install and then forget about.  The only (very highly questionable) benefit that something like PerfectDisk offers, to me, is the ability to defrag a few bits of NTFS metadata in offline mode.  But no one is going to convince me that those metadata files are causing a performance hit.

Buzzsaw works almost the same way as mst Defrag.

[JeffK]

mst Defrag has a more friendly interface/operation than Buzzsaw.  However it is not easy to customise and I'm not sure about their relative performance.

Jeff

[Scott]

Buzzsaw works almost the same way as mst Defrag.

And I'm sure it has some advantages, too.  One thing about mst Defrag is that while it's pretty much install-and-forget, there is no way to exclude anything.

I went to the Buzzsaw home page a week or so ago (before reading about it here), and was so confused by all the titles, versions, licenses, and horrendous web page layout that I simply gave up.

[Zero3K]

Well, I simplified it for you in the first post in this thread by giving you the correct ones to download.

[Scott]

I like to make my own decisions. 

I just tried the Buzzsaw service/GUI again last night, and it was a complete disaster.  Oh well.

[Zero3K]

Well, if the UI is the problem, that'll be improved on soon.

[Zero3K]

Its been more than 2 years since the previous post and the only things that changed are that they had some bugs fixed in the latest versions and the website has been improved. I posted a message on its forum about the GUI and the developer stated that he doesn't want a fancy interface because it could cause more problems to occur.

[allen]

I've been using buzzsaw for years--long enough that I couldn't tell you whether or not it makes a difference. I'd have to remove it to find out, I suppose

Having just run windows defrag analysis on my hard drive--which has been fully defragged only once (shortly after getting it) with Dirms then running buzzsaw constantly from that time on, my final score is:
Total Fragmentation 3%
File Fragmentation 7%
Free space fragmentation 0%

[Darwin]

I've been using buzzsaw for years--long enough that I couldn't tell you whether or not it makes a difference. I'd have to remove it to find out, I suppose

This highlights a "feature" of this category of application: it's almost impossible after a couple of weeks of use to tell whether there is any benefit to running them. I've been running either Diskkeeper or PerfectDisk on my three machines for years and can't even tell if one offers any advantage over the other... Such is life. I *feel* better knowing that I have an industrial grade disk defragmenter chugging away in the background 

[Grorgy]

something odd happened to my computer and i was unable to use the inbuilt defrag utility, which id always used before, simply due to its price and availability, but after a few weeks of no defragging, i got perfect disk amd after running it, everything seemed so much quicker, whether this is the 'placebo' effect or not i dont know, but it made me happy so i bought it.  now i dont look for defraggers anymore, they arent fun, useful but not fun.