3 Enterprise Disk Defragmenters

Offline defragmentation occurs at boot time. It’s disabled by default, so you have to specifically set it by clicking Settings and accessing the Offline Defragmentation tab. You can set the tool to defrag at every startup or on just the next startup. The defragmentation occurs right after a Chkdsk.

OneButtonDefrag is a great way to quickly set up online defragmentation. O&O Defrag sets up the schedule and all the options for you. But if you want more control of how your system optimizes its files, you can set everything manually. Adding your own job in this way reveals many of the advanced features that OneButtonDefrag takes care of for you. There are five available defragmentation methods that you can choose from (i.e., Stealth, Space, Complete-Access, Complete- Modified, Complete-Name), depending on the available resources of the server, the amount of files and free space on the hard disk, and the system’s primary use. For example, the Complete-Access method places recently used files at the beginning of the partition, thereby reducing access time.

The two remaining tabs are for scheduling scripts to run either before or after a scheduled defrag. According to the user manual, the scripting feature can be useful for shutting down applications such as Exchange Server or SQL Server before a defrag run, then starting these services back up again.

Above and beyond. O&O Defrag has the simplest interface of all three products (the PerfectDisk coming in a close second). The OneButtonDefrag wizard helps you ensure that you set up your defrag schedule correctly the first time.

If I have one complaint, it’s that O&O’s support is lacking. The only number on the O&O Web site is German, and I couldn’t get through after repeated attempts. The support Web site doesn’t offer much information, either. For example, O&O Defrag has provisions to run CMD scripts before and after a scheduled defrag. I’m familiar with writing CMD scripts to shut down and restart NT services, but some administrators might not know where to start. The addition of a knowledge base to discuss this kind of problem would be a great benefit.

PerfectDisk
Like the other two products, PerfectDisk boasts a simple setup routine, asking basic questions and proceeding smoothly. The PerfectDisk installer comes in an MSI format suitable for deployment via your favorite method (e.g., Group Policy, Microsoft Systems Management Server—SMS). Perfect- Disk is also written to be controlled through a Group Policy Administrative Template (ADM). So, not only can you deploy the application to your other servers and workstations, but you can control what those users can do with PerfectDisk.

I started the application by double-clicking the desktop icon. Doing so brought up the main PerfectDisk window.

Defragmenting. When I first started PerfectDisk, I needed a little direction. I perused the user guide on the CD-ROM and checked out the company Web site, but I got better information when I contacted tech support. A friendly technician directed me to a knowledge base article titled “How Often Should I Defragment My System?” This brief article suggested performing a drive analysis to see what kind of defrag PerfectDisk recommends.

This analysis took only a few minutes, and at the end, a Start button appeared in the screen’s lower right corner, as you see in Figure 3. Clicking this button brought up a cryptic dialog box that read, Offline defrag of your System Files could not run on drive C: because the drive is in use by another process. Do you want to force all open handles closed? Like the other products in this review, PerfectDisk can’t defrag system files such as the paging file and MFT because they’re in use. I expected PerfectDisk to ask me whether I wanted to schedule a defrag at system reboot, but strangely, PerfectDisk attempted to close those system files, then prompted me to reboot the system so that the offline defrag could proceed.

After the reboot, I returned to the Analyze screen and PerfectDisk prompted me to analyze the disk again. I did so, then clicked the Start button, and an online defrag started immediately. According to the technician that I talked to on the phone, running an offline defrag followed by an online defrag is the recommended approach to drive optimization. After these two processes run, you simply need to schedule an online defrag. You can also set up a manual schedule. You can choose the drives to include in the schedule, the defragmentation type, and the date/ time you want the defrag to run.

Above and beyond. I appreciated Perfect- Disk’s ability to schedule an offline defrag (it will automatically reboot the server for you). The product can also “pause” the offline defrag after it has finished so that you can see the results. Active Directory (AD) integration lets you not only deploy the software but also configure it through Group Policy.

Results
All three of these disk-defrag products installed flawlessly and worked as advertised. Each defragmented the very full test hard disk completely, except for a large 3.5GB file with 19 fragments. All the products struggled with that file, partially because there was little free space to work with. PerfectDisk struggled a bit more than the others on disks with little free space. The products did equally well on the disk with lots of free space, each removing all defragmentation in about 20 minutes.

I was impressed by Diskeeper’s innovative approach to keeping the hard disk constantly defragged. Diskeeper claims that although you can manually defrag and even run the tool under a set schedule, it isn’t necessary because the application constantly defrags in the background. Diskeeper cruised through the manual defrag but left half the fragments of the large file. The product’s high sticker price, along with the equally high price of the add-on Administrator tool, keeps Diskeeper from attaining the Editor’s Choice distinction.

O&O Defrag’s poor online and over-thephone support infrastructure damages the tool’s overall effectiveness. The company needs to implement a phone number that’s easier to call from North America, and it needs to enhance its support Web site. O&O Defrag also had trouble defragmenting the large file, actually raising the number of fragments.

Unlike Diskeeper’s continuous defragging, PerfectDisk uses a manual/scheduled defrag routine that’s similar to that of O&O Defrag, so you’ll have to schedule defrags. Although it’s the slowest of the three products, PerfectDisk does the best job of defragging the hard disk. The extremely low price—combined with its full feature set and free, forthcoming Command Center—sets it apart from the competition and earns PerfectDisk our Editor’s Choice award.

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