Auslogics Disk Defrag
It’s free and fast but doesn’t improve system performance
Diskeeper 2008
For all its options, Diskeeper did nothing to increase our rig’s performance
60 | MAXIMUMPC | JUN 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
A
uslogics’s Disk Defrag (free, http://www.
auslogics.com) is a no-frills entry point
into the world of defragmentation. It
off ers just what the name implies: a disk de-
fragger, plain and simple. From a drop-down
menu you select the drive you want to defrag
and then press a button to start the proce-
dure. (An upcoming version of the app will
reportedly feature a scheduler, as well.)
We love the program’s graphical analysis of
the drive’s fragmentation level—it’s interest-
ing to see what’s being done to your computer
(which allows you to estimate how long the
procedure will take). Disk Defrag doesn’t come
with a pre-defragmentation analysis tool,
though a results screen following the defrag
shows what the program “improved”; still, it
wasn’t clear to us in our benchmarking that
Disk Defrag actually did anything.
The program quoted an initial fragmenta-
tion level of 4.21 percent, the lowest fi gure
of the four programs we tested. That said,Disk Defrag still took two hours, 45 minutes
to complete its run on our drive. Our test rig’s
shutdown time improved by three seconds
compared to the shutdown time aft er a
Vista defrag (although it was still slower than
pre-defrag), but this was off set by a dramatic
45-second increase in our startup time.
Stranger still, we saw a 5 percent drop in
performance as measured by our PCMark Van-
tage benchmark. There were no noticeable neg-
ative eff ects during normal usage, but we didn’t
see a benefi t from running the defragmentation
either. The only true positive this program off ers
is speed—it completed the defrag process 45
minutes faster than the built-in Vista client.D
iskeeper 2008 ($30, http://www.diskeeper.
com) comes with a few features that
are above and beyond anything you’ll
fi nd in a free defragmentation application.
For starters, the utility’s built-in automatic
defragmentation option negates the need to
ever run a manual defragmentation of any
sort. The program makes full use of underused
resources on your computer by defragmenting
your drive in the background. You can let the
program fi gure out your typical computer use
and run accordingly or dictate when you want
the full use of your processing capabilities.
Since Diskeeper runs inside the operating
system, it includes a boot-time defragmenta-
tion option which manipulates fi les that would
otherwise be locked by Vista. The program will
even lock off your master fi le tables and paging
fi les to prevent any future fragmentation, a
feature unique to Diskeeper. Considering these
would be handled by a boot-time defragmenta-
tion, it’s nice to see the program making even
its own workload easier.Diskeeper reported a fragmentation level
of 14 percent on our test drive, the highest
of any program we tested. Of the third-party
programs, Diskeeper took the longest to fi n-
ish its defragmentation routine, but at two
hours, 48 minutes it still took less time than
Vista’s built-in program. However, we saw no
improvement whatsoever in Vista’s startup or
shutdown times. In fact, it took an additional
minute for the computer to boot compared
to boot times aft er Vista’s defragger ran. Our
PCMark Vantage test showed a negligible
loss of performance, and we didn’t’ see any
diff erences in speeds when running common
Vista-based tasks.Auslogics’s Disk Defrag
skimps on features, but
it still offers more than
Vista’s native defragmen-
tation client—including a
graphical interface.Diskeeper’s drive analysis
provides plenty of informa-
tion about the fragmented
status of your drive, but no
estimate of how long the
defragmentation will take.Best scores are bolded.BENCHMARKS(^) Vista Drive Fragmented Fragmented Fragmented Vista Drive Vista Defrag Windows Windows Windows Vista Defrag Disk DefragAuslogics Disk DefragAuslogics Auslogics
PCMark Overall 3,114 3,162 2,979
Startup (sec) 172 133 176
Shutdown (sec) 20 34 31
Best scores are bolded.
BENCHMARKS
(^) Vista Drive Fragmented Fragmented Fragmented Vista Drive Vista Defrag Windows Windows Windows Vista Defrag 2008 DefragDiskeeper 2008 DefragDiskeeper Diskeeper
PCMark Overall 3,114 3,162 3,102
Startup (sec) 172 133 186
Shutdown (sec) 20 34 36
THE DISK
DEFRAG
DIFFERENCE