Yes, it’s based on Diskeeper Lite but it does do an automatic boot optimization if you don’t go in and disable that. It only does it if the machine is idle for a period of time.
Quoted from http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1786009,00.asp
Windows XP includes a boot defragmenter but it is a little tricky to get it to run. By default, it is run only in the background and cannot be started directly by a user. After your computer has been idle for some time between 5 and 30 minutes, the system will read the prefetcher’s boot data and start the defrag. The system defrag is run in the background and is invisible to the user. Eventually, if you leave your computer on long enough, it will be defragment the boot files
Microsoft has a very talented team working for them and they even took into consideration that often your system boot changes. For example, you might install an updated device driver or add new hardware. To solve this problem, the system will re-defragment the boot files every three days.
Tip:
Windows keeps track of the last time it optimized the boot file so that it can calculate how often it should run the boot defrag. If you are interesting in finding when the last time was that the boot defrag was run, open up regedit and navigate to: “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Prefetcher” and then look for the key named “LastDiskLayoutTimeString”.
You can’t compare PerfectDisk to Auslogics defrag. One is payware and the other freeware. It would make more sense to compare to some other freeware defrag tool. PD is a much more advanced tool and is as far as i am aware the only defrag that can really defrag it all. All metadata files get defragged, usn journal, mft, swap file, hibernation file etc. etc. The vast majority of those are defragged during an online defrag and those that don’t, get defragged during a an offline defrag(or boot-time defrag whatever you want to call it). You can also customize directory & file placement to your own needs or choose from a few default presets. There are so so many things that PD does that Auslogics doesn’t that it really is pointless to compare these two. This is like comparing Mercedes S class to Fiat Punto.
Trust me all you said is only good for their marketing.
MFT Zone should not get fragmented, because it’s not kind of active like Windows File, Page File is a pre-reserved space, so it don’t get fragmented too, Same goes for Hibernate file too.
I’ve tested PerfectDisk for long time and all I’ve seen is a lot of background windows service, very very slow defragment and making windows unstable and slow (instead of Defragment to speed up!). for paid Defragment, go for Diskeeper.
All what a Windows user need is something quickly defragment system files to help windows load files faster and also make it easier for recovery data after a HDD crash.
Sorry Omid but i don’t believe a word you just said, running PD for years over here and on different configs. It works brilliant, the only defrag that always worked for me no matter what. Unless you have any proof to substantiate your claims(which of course you don’t) i just cant take what you say seriously.
If you want to google reviews on PD 11, go right ahead. You’ll only find out what i allready said, PD is a far superior product to any freeware defrag out there. IHMO it is also the best defrag tool out of all.
I don’t know where you get your info about the MFT, but it can get fragmented also. As the information on your hard disk grows, so too will the MFT size. The MFT data has to be stored on your hard disk in exactly the same way as a file, it occupies hard disk space and that has to be registered so it can be accessed.
Just look at the windows defrag analysis on my C: and E: partitions for the MFT. Puran also reports this fragmentation, so it isn’t just the windows defrag tool reporting it.
The problem with the MFT is that you can’t defrag it from within windows as it is always active and required, but it most certainly can get fragmented.
Page Files/Pagefile.sys can get fragmented too it depends how you use it, it have mine set to a fixed size so that can’t get fragmented, but if it is a variable, then it can get fragmented.
Hi there thanks again for sharing all your expert opinions.
Can the hard drive be affected adversely if Puran is set to defrag boot time at every reboot & online every 3hours along with Auslogics scheduled to defrag daily once & auto defrag when idle for approx 30mins?
Boot time on Vista takes ages if all options are checked.
Or do you suggest some other defrag plans…so as to MFT, Page file don’t get fragmented & least excess Meta data?
There really is little value in defragging on such a regular/daily basis, a waste of time. On modern hard disks and systems fragmentation is less of an issue, with fast hard disks and CPUs even 20% or higher will hardly be noticeable to the user.
I have just done a boot-time defrag earlier as a test to see what it is like and on my system I didn’t sit round to watch it all the way through, but it was done blisteringly fast and all I noticed was it doing the chkdisk function that I also had it run after the defrag.
This it isn’t something I would even consider doing every boot, pointless unless there is something that you can’t defrag during normal windows operation. And my test was to see how it would handle the fragmented MFT and it reduced that from 4 fragments before the boot-time defrag to 2 after, why it didn’t manage to get it to just 1 non-fragmented MFT I don’t know.
There are defrag tools that run all the time defragmenting on the fly so to speak, so your system remains relatively fragmentation free. I can’t remember if this is an option in the paid version of Puran.
As I said, PerfectDisk should be renamed ImperfectDisk. It does okay as long as you just defrag and don’t run the optimization routines. In optimization, when it runs up against an immovable file such as your pagefile, it will write around it with a large file, leaving part of the file in front and the rest in back. This results in you having more fragmentation after “optimization” than you did before. One time I tried it, I had no fragments before optimizing and over 100 afterwards. Auslogics does not do any of that and also is faster. When you choose “Defrag and Optimize” that is exactly what you get. A better analogy to compare the 2 to cars is that Auslogics is a Honda while PerfectDisk is a Toyota.
