The Great Defrag Shootout

[Raziaar]

I'm in the market for a better disk defragmentation program, and I found this article.

I'm going to be reading it, and am providing the link in this forum for anybody interested. I saw it on another forum and they said it was a great article.

http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2007/04/great-defrag-shootout-part-1.html


EDIT: Hmm, not quite sure what to think of the article. I don't think it takes the traditional professional approach of reviewing products, but still the guy seems to think like I do, and so it's nice reading what he thinks of each one in a way that I might.

In the end, I found out about a free disk defragmentation program called JkDefrag that he raves about, and it seems that other people also love it for it's simplicity, speed, performance and all sorts of good stuff.

 

[Nemesis6]

I just use Diskeeper. It works, it says it does things differently than the normal one, and it works better, so that's evidence enough for me. But I will try JkDefrag since it's free.

 

[Raziaar]

I just use Diskeeper. It works, it says it does things differently than the normal one, and it works better, so that's evidence enough for me.

I've been using Diskeeper previously as well, but I've grown quite dissatisfied with it. I un-installed it and am now using JkDefrag. The first defrag is going to take a long time supposedly, but will be super fast once everything is squared away neatly and intelligently.

 

[Nemesis6]

Ok, now I'm wondering: This "fix up" stage - What does that do? By the way - A brilliant find, that article! :thumbs:

 

[Raziaar]

Ok, now I'm wondering: This "fix up" stage - What does that do? By the way - A brilliant find, that article! :thumbs:

I searched the forums, and it seems that 'fixup' is moving files up, and 'optimize' is moving files down in the list. Since jkdefrag uses an opposite approach of most defrag programs, and the beginning of the disk is at the bottom left(or right? I think left) rather than top left. Fixup moves less important files up to areas that are slower, while optimize moves files that need to be optimized down to the areas that have shorter disk read times.

Here's part of the Jkdefrag page found here: http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/index.html

Phase 1: Analyze

JkDefrag has to scan all the files on the disk to determine if they are fragmented and where they are. A second step inside this phase will apply the exclude masks and determine which files are SpaceHogs.

Phase 2: Defragment

All fragmented files are defragmented, simply by moving them to the first gap on the disk that is big enough. If there is no gap big enough then the defragmenter will reduce the number of fragments in the file by moving as much of the file as possible into the largest gaps available.

Phase 3: Optimize

* On most harddisks the beginning of the harddisk is considerably faster than the end, sometimes by as much as 200 percent! See the link to "HD Tune" in the "See Also" chapter for a nice little free program to measure your disk. The default JkDefrag optimization strategy therefore moves all files to the beginning of the volume. It is intended for daily use and will simply fill gaps with files from above, very quick and with very little data movement.

* JkDefrag classifies files into 3 zones: directories (zone 1), regular files (zone 2), and SpaceHogs (zone 3). Directories are perhaps the most accessed data on disk, so zone 1 is placed at the beginning of the harddisk. After the directories comes a free area (see below), then zone 2 with regular files, another free area, and then zone 3 with SpaceHogs (less important files that take up a lot of space). The beginning and end of the zones is determined automatically, see the "-f" option.

* A running computer will create and delete temporary files like there is no tomorrow. If the harddisk were completely optimized then the only place for new temporary files would be behind all the other data. Which is rather slow. So JkDefrag maintains a free space of 1% of the total disk space between zone 1 (directories) and zone 2 (regular files), and between zone 2 and zone 3 (SpaceHogs).
* Sorting the files on your disk can give you even more speed. There are several sorting strategies to choose from (see the "-a" options). These are all very slow and intended for occasional use only.

* Windows reserves a percentage of the disk for the MFT (Master File Table), but can place normal files there if the rest of the disk is full. The files will remain there, even when there is enough space again. JkDefrag looks for files in the MFT reserved space and moves them to normal diskspace, making the reserved space available again for the MFT.

My disk was completely defragmented according to diskeeper when I un-installed it. I started JkDefrag using parameters of -a 7 which is recommended for first time use, Optimize by sorting all files by name (folder + filename).

It's taking forever, but I intend to let it run, because of all the good things I've been reading about it, how it is so much faster than other programs, especially diskeeper. The first time supposedly can take a real long time, but completely worth it especially since defragging regularly it's really fast.


It's also impressive reading the page for it how customizable it is... able to do stuff with it that diskeeper couldn't even dream of.


The best part is glancing at it occasionally and seeing something like this

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1699/jkdbefore807c94jy9.png

be turned into something like this

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/5756/jkdafter80c0f0ss0.png

Though of course mine looks much different, as will yours. This is what mine looks like currently as it is moving all the stuff around.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/441/razifrages2.jpg









EDIT 2: Apparently there's a GUI made for the program. I don't know anything about it though. Website here. http://www.emro.nl/freeware/

 

[ailevation]

How do I get JkDefrag to analyze and defrag my other drives? Once I start it up it automatically does my C drive first.

I am using v3.32 btw.

 

[joule]

I've been using Defraggler, from the same people who brought you CCleaner. Give it a shot.

 

[Raziaar]

How do I get JkDefrag to analyze and defrag my other drives? Once I start it up it automatically does my C drive first.

I am using v3.32 btw.

Read the website. Make a shortcut of the file, right click the properties, and add some parameters.

items

The items to be defragmented and optimized, such as a file, directory, disk, mount point, or volume, including removable media such as floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and other volumes that behave like a harddisk. Wildcards '*' and '?' are allowed to select a set of files. If the item contains a space then it must be enclosed in double-quotes. Some examples:

JkDefrag C: D:
JkDefrag f:\*.log D:\MySQL\Data\*

So if you want to defragment say... E drive, right click it, go to properties... substitute your file structure in place of mine... and add any other parameters you want unless you want default.

"C:\Program Files\JkDefrag\JkDefrag.exe" E:

So basically, if you only want default settings and defrag your E drive, just add E: at the end of the target as I have shown in the properties of the shortcut.

 

[ailevation]

Read the website. Make a shortcut of the file, right click the properties, and add some parameters.




So if you want to defragment say... E drive, right click it, go to properties... substitute your file structure in place of mine... and add any other parameters you want unless you want default.

"C:\Program Files\JkDefrag\JkDefrag.exe" E:

So basically, if you only want default settings and defrag your E drive, just add E: at the end of the target as I have shown in the properties of the shortcut.

gotcha, another question regarding the command -a, if I put the command line -a 7, will it defrag AND optimize by sorting all files by name? Or will it just optimize by sorting all files by name then I have to add a separate command line such as -a 2 to make it defrag?

 

[Raziaar]

gotcha, another question regarding the command -a, if I put the command line -a 7, will it defrag AND optimize by sorting all files by name? Or will it just optimize by sorting all files by name then I have to add a separate command line such as -a 2 to make it defrag?

Good question. I don't know. I completed my option 7, and it created a lot of fragmented files in the process. I then did option 3 a few times until it took only 20 seconds or so to complete each time afterwards. I'm now going to go ahead and do option 7 again to see if it makes things even more improved, since doing option 3 after the first option 7, it kind of spaced things out a bit differently again, but still pretty good.

I'm still learning about it myself. They do have support forums on their site.

 

[VirusType2]

I've got a 750 GB drive that is roughly half filled with games. Is it possible with JkDefrag to choose what games (or games in general) to put at the beginning of my drive? For example, I'd put brand new games at the beginning of the drive, since they have the highest requirements.

Actually now that I think about it, I'm not sure what is really going on, because I'm sure I have several disc platters in there. Each disc platter has a beginning, which offers faster access. I doubt there is anyway to choose to put games at the beginnings of the disc platters.

I've got one of the new WD drives that has really fast sequential data read/seek, but random access times it is slightly slower than conventional hard drives.

Any advice?

I've just been using Contig defrag utility with the GUI add on. It's ****in great.

 

[Raziaar]

I've got a 750 GB drive that is roughly half filled with games. Is it possible with JkDefrag to choose what games (or games in general) to put at the beginning of my drive? For example, I'd put brand new games at the beginning of the drive, since they have the highest requirements.

http://www.kessels.com/forum/index.php?topic=692.0

 

[VirusType2]

http://www.kessels.com/forum/index.php?topic=692.0

interesting. Thanks Raziaar. I'll have to download the utility and do that sometime. I copied the text from that link for later reference.

 

[Stonewall]

I use Diskeeper too, but I am happy with it's performance. It keeps my drives defragged nicely and is fast and reliable, so i don't feel the need to switch despite that blog authors' rants.

However, I am curious about the file placement strategy and benefits from the jkdefrag app. Moving all the files to the beginning of the disk will be useful only if the entire drive is a single partition is it not? And what about windows? If you move windows files to the middle of the drive to make way for games, wont it slow down booting?

If the physical drive has multiple partitions, then how is it going to speed up performance, except in the case of the first partition?

Also, even for a single partition drive, how useful is it really to move all the GBs of data back and forth for (what i think are) minimal performance gains? Seems like a lot of work...

Currently my OS is on the first partition of physical HDD 0, programs on the first partition of physical HDD 1, and swap file on the first partition of physical HDD 2. Runs fast, and I don't see how jkdefrag can improve upon this. Someone enlighten me.

 

[Raziaar]

Is there anything that actually puts this JKDefrag program ahead of PerfectDisk and other alternatives, save for price?

I don't know. I've seen lots of reviews out there by people who have switched from programs like Diskeeper to JkDefrag, and some from perfectdisk, but in that article the guy says the two are both very good, and if you have perfectdisk, I don't see any reason to switch out unless you want to try JkDefrag, since they're both apparently really good.

 

[Andrew LB]

I didn't read the article but I've always used O&O Defrag. It's the best one i've used so far.

 

[Sedako]

I recently switched from O&O to Diskeeper, and I have to say, I am very impressed with how fast it is. It has some nice other features too.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

I'am using PerfectDisk 8.0 is that any good?