SpeedDisk vs. Diskeeper

I have been using Norton SpeedDisk v6.03.36a to defragment my HD for
some time now and have been mostly satisfied with it. Taking the
suggestion to give Executive Software Diskeeper v9.0.515 a try for
fragmenting my HD, I installed it for a test run.

I found out that both Norton SpeedDisk and Diskeeper do not agree on
what a defragmented HD is. Example: I run SpeedDisk and it tells me
that I am defragmented and I let it take the time it needs to defrag
the HD. It has a GUI that shows via colors the fragmentation and you
can see the files being moved and the colors starting to line up, thus
fragmentation being taken care of. I then run Diskeeper right after
SpeedDisk has finished defragging the HD and it says that I am 30%-40%
fragmented and I let it take the time to defragment the HD. It also
has a GUI that lets me see what is going on. Right after letting
Diskeeper finish doing its thing, I run SpeedDisk again and it says
that I am fragmented all to hell and shows me the fragmentation via
the GUI.

So, both programs seem to have a different opinion as to the
fragmentation of the HD. Looks to me that a fragmented HD is like a
pregnant woman… Either it is or it ain’t! So why does Diskeeper and
SpeedDisk seem to have a problem agreeing on if it is or not and which
one is telling the truth and which on is telling a lie if either one
actually knows in the first place.

Thanks in advance & Regards,

For whatever it might be worth I normally run the defragmenter that came
with WindowsXP and Norton agrees that the resulting drive is 100% defragged.
Who knows?
(The WinXP version runs about 3 times as fast as the Norton version ergo I
use it.)

".@." [email protected] wrote in message
news
I have been using Norton SpeedDisk v6.03.36a to defragment my HD for
some time now and have been mostly satisfied with it. Taking the
suggestion to give Executive Software Diskeeper v9.0.515 a try for
fragmenting my HD, I installed it for a test run.

I found out that both Norton SpeedDisk and Diskeeper do not agree on
what a defragmented HD is. Example: I run SpeedDisk and it tells me
that I am defragmented and I let it take the time it needs to defrag
the HD. It has a GUI that shows via colors the fragmentation and you
can see the files being moved and the colors starting to line up, thus
fragmentation being taken care of. I then run Diskeeper right after
SpeedDisk has finished defragging the HD and it says that I am 30%-40%
fragmented and I let it take the time to defragment the HD. It also
has a GUI that lets me see what is going on. Right after letting
Diskeeper finish doing its thing, I run SpeedDisk again and it says
that I am fragmented all to hell and shows me the fragmentation via
the GUI.

So, both programs seem to have a different opinion as to the
fragmentation of the HD. Looks to me that a fragmented HD is like a
pregnant woman. Either it is or it ain't! So why does Diskeeper and
SpeedDisk seem to have a problem agreeing on if it is or not and which
one is telling the truth and which on is telling a lie if either one
actually knows in the first place.

Thanks in advance & Regards,

The Windows XP defragger, a crippled Diskeeper in poor disguise, is truly
crippled though. A real defragger shoves all the files to one end of the hard
drive to speed up disk accesses further. The Windows XP defragger apparently
does defragment most of the files though, altho you can never tell with
Micro$oft. Files in use by the system cannot be defragmented, so boot in safe
mode for a better defragging experience. Sysutils has a free page file
defragger on its web site, to take care of page file defragmentation... Ben
Myers

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 15:24:14 -0700, "Tom Clydesdale"
wrote:

For whatever it might be worth I normally run the defragmenter that came
with WindowsXP and Norton agrees that the resulting drive is 100% defragged.
Who knows?
(The WinXP version runs about 3 times as fast as the Norton version ergo I
use it.)

".@." [email protected] wrote in message
news
I have been using Norton SpeedDisk v6.03.36a to defragment my HD for
some time now and have been mostly satisfied with it. Taking the
suggestion to give Executive Software Diskeeper v9.0.515 a try for
fragmenting my HD, I installed it for a test run.

I found out that both Norton SpeedDisk and Diskeeper do not agree on
what a defragmented HD is. Example: I run SpeedDisk and it tells me
that I am defragmented and I let it take the time it needs to defrag
the HD. It has a GUI that shows via colors the fragmentation and you
can see the files being moved and the colors starting to line up, thus
fragmentation being taken care of. I then run Diskeeper right after
SpeedDisk has finished defragging the HD and it says that I am 30%-40%
fragmented and I let it take the time to defragment the HD. It also
has a GUI that lets me see what is going on. Right after letting
Diskeeper finish doing its thing, I run SpeedDisk again and it says
that I am fragmented all to hell and shows me the fragmentation via
the GUI.

So, both programs seem to have a different opinion as to the
fragmentation of the HD. Looks to me that a fragmented HD is like a
pregnant woman. Either it is or it ain't! So why does Diskeeper and
SpeedDisk seem to have a problem agreeing on if it is or not and which
one is telling the truth and which on is telling a lie if either one
actually knows in the first place.

Thanks in advance & Regards,

Ben is right. The MSFT defrag is a crippled Diskeeper. Personally, I ahve
not used verion 9.0, but I have used v. 7 and 8. On my kids PC, which is
Win98 and hence Fat 32, I use Norton. For my XP and Win2K boxes, I use
Diskeeper (love their boot-time defrag). In short, Norton seems to do a
better job on Fat 32 partitions, while Diskeeper is the choice for NTFS
partitions. I've also heard good things about Raxco's PerfectDisk, but I
have never tired it. I believe that they offer a free trial as well.

--
"Hurricane" Andrew
Milford, Delaware

".@." [email protected] wrote in message
news
I have been using Norton SpeedDisk v6.03.36a to defragment my HD for
some time now and have been mostly satisfied with it. Taking the
suggestion to give Executive Software Diskeeper v9.0.515 a try for
fragmenting my HD, I installed it for a test run.

I found out that both Norton SpeedDisk and Diskeeper do not agree on
what a defragmented HD is. Example: I run SpeedDisk and it tells me
that I am defragmented and I let it take the time it needs to defrag
the HD. It has a GUI that shows via colors the fragmentation and you
can see the files being moved and the colors starting to line up, thus
fragmentation being taken care of. I then run Diskeeper right after
SpeedDisk has finished defragging the HD and it says that I am 30%-40%
fragmented and I let it take the time to defragment the HD. It also
has a GUI that lets me see what is going on. Right after letting
Diskeeper finish doing its thing, I run SpeedDisk again and it says
that I am fragmented all to hell and shows me the fragmentation via
the GUI.

So, both programs seem to have a different opinion as to the
fragmentation of the HD. Looks to me that a fragmented HD is like a
pregnant woman. Either it is or it ain't! So why does Diskeeper and
SpeedDisk seem to have a problem agreeing on if it is or not and which
one is telling the truth and which on is telling a lie if either one
actually knows in the first place.

Thanks in advance & Regards,

Just one quick note: There is a difference between "defragmenting" and
"compacting." Norton compacts the disk while it is defragmenting. That is
why Norton seems to, actually, does, take longer than Diskeeper. Diskeeper
defragments the files but does not move them to one end of the disk, i.e.,
compact them.

I have used both Diskeeper 8 and 9 and Norton SpeedDisk. I like each for
what it does. Why you have the discrepancy, I cannot answer. I mostly use
Diskeeper because I like its "Set it and Forget it" option of defragging.
But when I want the HD completely "defragged" and have the time, I call
upon Norton's SpeedDisk to compact and defrag.

Regards,

Turner


".@." [email protected] wrote in message
news
I have been using Norton SpeedDisk v6.03.36a to defragment my HD for
some time now and have been mostly satisfied with it. Taking the
suggestion to give Executive Software Diskeeper v9.0.515 a try for
fragmenting my HD, I installed it for a test run.

I found out that both Norton SpeedDisk and Diskeeper do not agree on
what a defragmented HD is. Example: I run SpeedDisk and it tells me
that I am defragmented and I let it take the time it needs to defrag
the HD. It has a GUI that shows via colors the fragmentation and you
can see the files being moved and the colors starting to line up, thus
fragmentation being taken care of. I then run Diskeeper right after
SpeedDisk has finished defragging the HD and it says that I am 30%-40%
fragmented and I let it take the time to defragment the HD. It also
has a GUI that lets me see what is going on. Right after letting
Diskeeper finish doing its thing, I run SpeedDisk again and it says
that I am fragmented all to hell and shows me the fragmentation via
the GUI.

So, both programs seem to have a different opinion as to the
fragmentation of the HD. Looks to me that a fragmented HD is like a
pregnant woman. Either it is or it ain't! So why does Diskeeper and
SpeedDisk seem to have a problem agreeing on if it is or not and which
one is telling the truth and which on is telling a lie if either one
actually knows in the first place.

Thanks in advance & Regards,

Way back when, in the dark prehistoric days of DOS, all the competing disk
defraggers (Norton, PC Tools and others) compacted and defragged. This has
created the expectation in my own mind and in the minds of others that a good
thorough defragging including compacting the hard drive. Some of the old
defraggers even got really scientific with little real effect, allowing you to
sort folders, place EXE and COM files at the beginning of a folder, etc etc.

The Microsoft-licensed Diskeeper shipped as part of Windows 2000 does both
defragging and compacting of files. I'll bet that Diskeeper sales fell through
the floor when Windows 2000 came out, so Executive Software undoubtedly made a
deal with Microsoft to include the cripped version with XPee... Ben Myers

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:17:37 -0500, "Turner Morgan"
wrote:

Just one quick note: There is a difference between "defragmenting" and
"compacting." Norton compacts the disk while it is defragmenting. That is
why Norton seems to, actually, does, take longer than Diskeeper. Diskeeper
defragments the files but does not move them to one end of the disk, i.e.,
compact them.

I have used both Diskeeper 8 and 9 and Norton SpeedDisk. I like each for
what it does. Why you have the discrepancy, I cannot answer. I mostly use
Diskeeper because I like its "Set it and Forget it" option of defragging.
But when I want the HD completely "defragged" and have the time, I call
upon Norton's SpeedDisk to compact and defrag.

Regards,

Turner


".@." [email protected] wrote in message
news
I have been using Norton SpeedDisk v6.03.36a to defragment my HD for
some time now and have been mostly satisfied with it. Taking the
suggestion to give Executive Software Diskeeper v9.0.515 a try for
fragmenting my HD, I installed it for a test run.

I found out that both Norton SpeedDisk and Diskeeper do not agree on
what a defragmented HD is. Example: I run SpeedDisk and it tells me
that I am defragmented and I let it take the time it needs to defrag
the HD. It has a GUI that shows via colors the fragmentation and you
can see the files being moved and the colors starting to line up, thus
fragmentation being taken care of. I then run Diskeeper right after
SpeedDisk has finished defragging the HD and it says that I am 30%-40%
fragmented and I let it take the time to defragment the HD. It also
has a GUI that lets me see what is going on. Right after letting
Diskeeper finish doing its thing, I run SpeedDisk again and it says
that I am fragmented all to hell and shows me the fragmentation via
the GUI.

So, both programs seem to have a different opinion as to the
fragmentation of the HD. Looks to me that a fragmented HD is like a
pregnant woman. Either it is or it ain't! So why does Diskeeper and
SpeedDisk seem to have a problem agreeing on if it is or not and which
one is telling the truth and which on is telling a lie if either one
actually knows in the first place.

Thanks in advance & Regards,

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:17:37 -0500, "Turner Morgan"
wrote:

Norton compacts the disk while it is defragmenting.
Diskeeper defragments the files but does not move them to one end of the
disk, i.e., compact them.

Okay, I see where you are coming from. Well, it seems to me that if
you defrag but don't compact then you will fragment back up a lot
faster because of all those "Holes" left behind by not compressing.
In other words, you add a bunch of new files, they will start filling
up the holes left behind, thus those new files being fragmented from
the very first.

Why you have the discrepancy, I cannot answer.

Well, according to what you said above, I guess the discrepancy is not
so much that they disagree on the amount of fragmentation but that
they disagree on the amount of free space in the middle of all those
used spaces left behind (one compressing and the other not).

Again, if all this is true, I don't see the need to defragment if you
are not going to compress and get all those holes filled up. All you
are doing is leaving holes for everything to fragment into more
quickly than you would without those holes.

Am I looking at this right?

Regards,



"We have no intention of shipping another bloated OS and shoving it
down the throats of our users." -- Paul Maritz, Microsoft group vice
president

You've got it almost 100% right. Yes, the drive fragments up faster with all
the holes of unused disk space. Yes, it is still worth defragging, because
individual programs and files will load faster from the hard drive compared to
their fragmented state.

I might just try installing the real defragger in Windows 2000 on an XP system
for kicks, just to see what happens... Ben Myers

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 16:18:44 GMT, ".@." [email protected] wrote:

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:17:37 -0500, "Turner Morgan"
wrote:

Norton compacts the disk while it is defragmenting.
Diskeeper defragments the files but does not move them to one end of the
disk, i.e., compact them.

Okay, I see where you are coming from. Well, it seems to me that if
you defrag but don't compact then you will fragment back up a lot
faster because of all those "Holes" left behind by not compressing.
In other words, you add a bunch of new files, they will start filling
up the holes left behind, thus those new files being fragmented from
the very first.

Why you have the discrepancy, I cannot answer.

Well, according to what you said above, I guess the discrepancy is not
so much that they disagree on the amount of fragmentation but that
they disagree on the amount of free space in the middle of all those
used spaces left behind (one compressing and the other not).

Again, if all this is true, I don't see the need to defragment if you
are not going to compress and get all those holes filled up. All you
are doing is leaving holes for everything to fragment into more
quickly than you would without those holes.

Am I looking at this right?

Regards,



"We have no intention of shipping another bloated OS and shoving it
down the throats of our users." -- Paul Maritz, Microsoft group vice
president

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 20:03:02 GMT, ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net
(Ben Myers) wrote:

Yes, the drive fragments up faster with all
the holes of unused disk space.

With that said, Norton's Speedisk which compresses along with its
defragmenting is the better choice over Diskeeper which only
defragments.

I will be removing Diskeeper from my system and staying with the
Norton for now or until something better comes along. One of the
reasons I was checking other stuff out was because Speedisk takes so
long, even on my 2g speed system. However, the reason it takes so
long was also pointed out to me as being the reason of going the extra
mile and compressing along with defragmenting.

BTW, I am using the speedisk that comes with an older version of
Norton Tools, the 2002 release. It ran real quickly on my older FAT32
systems but since moving to NTFS systems with XP, it has really turned
into a slug. Could another reason for the slowness be that
defragmentation and compressing are done differently on NTFS systems
thus the need to goto a newer version of speedisk?

Regards,



"There won't be anything we won't say to people to try and convince
them that our way is the way to go." -- Bill Gates

I will be removing Diskeeper from my system and staying with the
Norton for now or until something better comes along. One of the
reasons I was checking other stuff out was because Speedisk takes so
long, even on my 2g speed system. However, the reason it takes so
long was also pointed out to me as being the reason of going the extra
mile and compressing along with defragmenting.

I should point out that there is a slight disadvantage to Norton's
compacting. And that is, depending on cluster size (or is it sector size?)
of the disk, when you have to add data to a file that might result in the
new data being added to the end of the "compact" area of the disk, that is,
far away from the parent file. With DiskKeeper's leaving holes between
"compact" areas, the new data could get placed closer to the parent file.
Hence, you could suffer a performance hit, i.e., slower access time to read
all the file's data, with Norton's method. Also, the next time you defrag
and compact with Norton, all those intervening files have to be moved
further "down" the disk to make room for the fragments of new data to be
added to the parent file. With the DiskKeeper method, there may be an empty
space closer to the parent file which would result in faster access to all
the file's pieces plus faster defragmenting because not so many files would
have to be moved to append the new data to the parent file. Confused?

BTW, I am using the speedisk that comes with an older version of
Norton Tools, the 2002 release. It ran real quickly on my older FAT32
systems but since moving to NTFS systems with XP, it has really turned
into a slug. Could another reason for the slowness be that
defragmentation and compressing are done differently on NTFS systems
thus the need to goto a newer version of speedisk?

I can't really comment on this. I'm not terribly familiar with the
differences between FAT32 and NTFS. If just read that NTFS is "better" than
FAT32. And, by the way, most of what I said above applies to FAT32; I
assume it works for NTFS also. Maybe Ben could help out here?

I just know that I have SystemWorks 2005 and when I have Speedisk defrag and
compact the 120Gb drive in my 700XL (only about 1/3 used) I just go into the
hamshack, fire up the transceiver and make a few contacts because I know
Speedisk is going to take some time, usually 1.5 hours, to finish the job.
It couldn't hurt to do the upgrade, but I'm not sure that Symantec made all
that many changes or improvements between the 2004 and 2005 versions. So,
if you can find a copy of SystemWorks 2004 around (the local Staples had the
2004 version still on the shelf just before Christmas), you might save a few
bucks over the 2005 version.

Regards,
Turner