PerfectDisk 8.0
Price: £20
($39.99: Single Licence); £93 ($179.99: 5 Licence Pack); £165 ($319: 10 Licence Pack)
Supplier:
Raxco Software
Web:
http://www.raxco.com
System
Requirements:
Windows
2000, XP, 2003,Vista, 32-bit x64 and Itanium platform; 64MB RAM (128MB
recommended); 20MB Disk Space; FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS file system
One major
contributor to the downgrade in PC performance is disk fragmentation. Put
simply when files on your hard drive are not stored contiguously the drive
heads have to work harder trying to locate the individual file components;
this, inevitably, results in delays and consequently the requested file is
not delivered to the desktop as fast as it could be.
Files
stored contiguously, on the other hand, have each portion of the file
following on from the other, therefore, the drive heads are not bouncing
over different parts of the hard drive platter desperately trying to seek
the file’s component parts.
Incontiguously stored files are said to be fragmented and in order to
restore the files to their original contiguous order the drive needs to be
defragmented. While Windows has its own built in defragmentation software
this, unfortunately, is only a ‘light’ version. For a full and professional
optimisation of the hard drive you need the heavyweight defragmenting power
of PerfectDisk 8.0
Effortless Defragmenting
While
PerfectDisk can boast both Single and Enterprise users the interface is
surprisingly user friendly. As standard PerfectDisk ships with a client
interface, however, for Enterprise customers there is a free Command Center
Management Module that enables an administrator to see at a glance a summary
of fragmentation issues on managed computers.
Think
Smart
To ensure
perfect optimisation PerfectDisk
uses the SMARTPlacement™ optimisation strategy. This effectively places
files on the hard disk according to the user’s unique usage pattern. By
using this strategy both time and resources on future defragmentation
runs are greatly reduced. While many
defragmenters simply move all of the files on the hard drive around during
the defragmentation process, PerfectDisk only moves the files that do not
conform to the user’s usage pattern, consequently resulting in faster
defragmentation of the hard drive.
Lost
In Space
A valuable asset of PerfectDisk is its Consolidate Free Space defragmentation option. This allows the user to not only defragment the part of the disk containing files, but also to defragment the free space on the hard disk too, thus creating the largest piece of contiguous space.
Fig: 2 To defragment free space use the Consolidate Free Space option
This
option can be particularly useful prior to re-sizing partitions or, in an
Enterprise, when compressing virtual hard drives in a virtual machine
environment.
Offline
With most defragmentation software, Windows’ own defragmenter being a case in point, files such as Page file, Hibernation file and files that are currently being used are never touched.
With PerfectDisk's Offline Defragmentation option PerfectDisk will first try to unmount the drive. If this is not possible then you will be prompted to schedule an offline defragmentation pass the next time you boot your PC. The defragmentation of these files will then take place in the pre-Windows environment (DOS environment).
PerfectDisk can also be scheduled to run
this offline defragmentation
on a
regular basis every time you boot the PC.
Power
to the People
With
PerfectDisk’s new Power Management feature you don’t even have to worry
about running the system on battery power. PerfectDisk can instantly detect
whether the system is running on battery power and can decide for itself
whether to start defragmentation or, if defragmentation has started when
battery power kicks in, whether to stop the defragmentation process to save
battery power.
This
option is a God send for those users with laptops or Enterprise users who
rely upon Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) batteries during power outage.
Verdict
PerfectDisk requires around 5% free space to operate and can defragment a
hard drive using a single pass. Because PerfectDisk is capable of
defragmenting the Master File table, page file, hibernation file and all
metadata no file or directory is left unfragmented.
CPU usage
is extremely low, with PerfectDisk able to automatically detect if the drive
is busy and adjust the I/O usage accordingly, so defragmenting in the
background doesn’t then impact upon other applications you may have running.
Disk
defragmentation is a fact of life, but it needn’t be a burden. PerfectDisk
is a feature rich defragmenting application and regular use will not only
keep your file system in tip-top condition, but will also keep your PC
running at optimum performance.
Of all the
defragmenting software I’ve used PerfectDisk is by far the best. So much
better that it is simply Brilliant!
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Ease Of use: 10.0
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Features: 10.0
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Value for Money: 10.0
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Overall: 10.0