Perfect Disk 8.0 defrag tool for Vista reviewed
Hard drive fragmentation occurs when files are accessed, saved and placed back on the hard drive, the file is not put back in the same hard drive location it was accessed from thus leading to fragments of the file scattered over the hard drive, over time this degrades system performance. There are several options when it comes do defragging your hard drive in both Vista and XP but this post will concentrate on Vista.
However, most of the same programs still work on XP but are just now being updated to support Vista. Two of the paid options include Diskeeper 2007 and Perfect Disk 8.0, both offering similar features but I recently got the chance to take a look at Perfect Disk 8.0.
Diskeeper offers several versions for Home users and businesses and the like, making it harder to decide on which version to get. Perfect Disk 8.0 only comes in one version for $39.99 or you can try it for 30 days though some advanced features may be disabled.
Diskeeper, in my opinion is harder to use than Perfect Disk, it’s clear that Perfect Disk was designed with the average home user in mind who wants to keep their hard drive in tip top shape. Installation is straight forward so let’s take a look at the main screen.
Here you will see all the hard drives installed in the system and the many options to choose from though not complicated. Analyze will assess your hard drive to see if it needs to be defragmented, if it does the next dialog will present you with a recommended action to take or you can defrag the whole hard drive. There is also an option to defrag all the hard drives in your system at boot, this is not completely necessary but can improve performance, note it will slow boot time considerably.
After the analysis you will see this screen which shows you a chart of your overall file health and how they are used. Perfect Disk will then present you with its recommended course of action.
My hard drive was in relatively good shape except for some metadata and system file fragmentation. Since these files cannot be defragemented while the boot drive is in use, they must be defragmented before the system boots, we’ll see that below. At this dialog, I agreed with its action and clicked “Yes.”
At this dialog you have the option to defrag the Master File table, Metadata and the Hibernation file as well as the paging file and the option to defrag them at every boot, again, this will improve system performance once it is booted but will slow the boot process (I left this option off). Once you are satisfied with the settings, click “OK.”
Here you can see that the system files cannot be defragmented while the boot drive is in use and the system running, it does offer the option of forcing the drive dismount and performing the process anyway. I DO NOT recommend taking that action so it’s best to just click “No” here.
The next dialog shown above will appear and offer to perform the system file defrag run at the next boot, this is the wisest action to take so click “Yes” here.
It will then ask if you want to reboot now, only do so if you have the time to let it finish performing the defrag cycle, depending on how badly the files are fragmented it could take a while, the first diagnostic screen shown at the beginning of this post will tell you. If you do not have the time immediately to allow it to run, just click “No” and whenever the system is rebooted or started, the defrag cycle will run, sometimes after it is finished, it will reboot the system a second time and start normally.
The process described here DID NOT defrag the entire drive per the recommended action section, if your hard drive is in bad enough shape, it will present options for defragging the whole drive and if needed the system files as well which will be the same process as described above, the difference being a bulk of the defragging will take place while the system is running.
Perfect Disk 8.0 was fast, well, as fast as any defrag utility can be and it really depends on the shape of your hard drive, speed of the drive itself and interface (IDE or SATA) that determines how fast it will run and finish and this will vary system to system. I mentioned that Perfect Disk 8.0 was easy to use and it is, just look at all those dialogs, hand holding you through almost every action. Advanced users may hate this but being an advanced user myself, I tend to like this when it comes to things like defragging, some utilities will really mess up your file system but Perfect Disk did not and functioned flawlessly.
It also has a feature called SmartPlacement which learns your usage habits over time and will prevent fragmentation from occurring in your most frequently used files. The parallel feature in Diskeeper 2007 is FragShield.
Dare I say that Perfect Disk 8.0 is a “near perfect” defrag utility for everyone from home users to small and medium businesses. Large businesses and corporations may want to take a look at one of the enterprise solutions offered by Diskeeper but by and large, Perfect Disk 8.0 will fit a majority of your defragging needs.
Perfect Disk 8.0 is by far and large easier to use than Diskeeper 2007, it walks you through almost every process so you know you aren’t going to mess anything up, the “Yes” and “No” dialog boxes will certainly go over with the average consumer better and it offers enough advanced features to keep advanced users happy (though some may be annoyed by the constant confirmation boxes). I didn’t directly compare the speed of Diskeeper 2007 and Perfect Disk 8.0 but in my very unscientific comparison there did not appear to be a significant difference in performance.
I don’t get the chance to review software very often but when I do, I enjoy the experience and testing new things and this was one of the most pleasant defragging experiences I had. I have no problem stamping Perfect Disk 8.0 with a recommendation of “Highly Recommended.”
As I end this review, I would like to personally thank Joe of Raxco Software for providing us with a fully functional evaluation copy of Perfect Disk 8.0. Perfect Disk 8.0 is also a top pick over at Download.com and has won several “readers choice” awards from various publications.
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August 15th, 2007
This is interesting because my experience is diametrically opposite to yours
I would consider myself an intermediate level user and Diskeeper Pro felt like the easier program to use (presently using it for Vista and XP). After a boot time defrag and a manual defrag for all my drives, I simply turned on automatic defrag and left it on. Havent had to defrag after that…it’s been quite a while.
If I recall correctly, in my short hands-on trial with perfectdisk I did not find a parallel function like fully automatic defragmentation.
Both defraggers were good, but I chose Diskeeper because it was simpler to use lol
August 15th, 2007
The feature in Perfect Disk is turned on automatically and works slightly different than the one in Diskeeper, I think that it will prevent fragmentation over time whereas Diskeeper scans your drive immediately and sets it up when you install it.
We’ll see, perhaps I’ll have to use it some more and see if there is any appreciable difference.
August 21st, 2007
Used both products mentioned but Perfect Disk is much faster. Used Diskeeper for 3 years and changed to Perfect Disk after I experienced the fantastic speedup of my system overall after just using their trial download. Have now used it for 2 years and would never switch back to Diskeeper.
September 9th, 2007
I am now using perfect disk 8.0. It is a pretty good software. I do have to say, I think O&O Defrag is considerably better in my opinion. I am not using O&O at the moment because their most current version seemed to be somewhat buggy.
December 19th, 2008
i fucked patrick’s ex!!!!!!!!!!!