Computers should benefit from a defragmentation at least once a week. This operation will improve the hard disk's read/write speed as the seek time will be greatly reduced. There are tools to perform this task all over the Internet. The user can choose the defragmentation tool that most appeals to him/her. But you should know that not all the instruments designed to keep your disk(s) running properly are good.

Diskeeper, the most awarded defragmentation tool up to now, is capable of doing all there is necessary in terms of defragmentation in order to bring your computer to its initial performance. The more you use your hard drive the more fragmented the stored files become, leading to increased seek time. Windows XP comes equipped with a Disk Defragmenter that is designed specially for the task, but many specialists agree that it cannot do much of a job, as defragmenting the system paging file is impossible for this tool.

Coming with a $29.95 price tag, the 2007 Home Edition from Executive Software is not integrated with all the gear available in the heftier versions of the product (Administrator, Professional and Server) but it will not fail in analyzing and defragmenting or running in battery saving mode (for notebooks).

The interface is as easy to use as ever and the intuitive icons and structured display of options and features assure fast configuration for home users. The docking windows of the menu are located on the left side of the application window, in the Quick Launch side bar.

A new technology is introduced with this new version. InvisiTasking guarantees using computer resources that are not in use by other processes. This way the activity of other softwares is not at all hindered and they will be able to run normally.

Boot-Time defragmentation feature will assure the movement of the files that cannot be safely moved while Windows is running. It can be set to take place at the next boot of the computer or based on a scheduled reboot of the machine. A series of options come to complement the feature, like enabling "CHKDSK" utility to run before defragmentation thus ensuring that the files will not be moved in bad sectors.

Analyze and Defragment Now option has three steps to complete. Manual Defragmentation Job Properties lets you enable or disable Disk Priority (it should be enabled to throttle the defrag process on all the jobs when the disk I/O activity is detected on a disk that is being defragmented). The next step is choosing the drive that you need to be optimized. Analyzing the volume displays the volume map with two views: file performance and file structure. The colors let you know about the state of the stored files. But Job Report is where you really want to take a look if you are a beginner. Job Report is the translation of volume map view and presents the recommendations for the actions to be taken, tells if the volume is healthy, displays the access time and the statistics (volume size, fragmentation percentage, MFT fragmentation etc.). The last step is Manually Defragment which is actually the defragmentation process itself.

Diskeeper Configuration Properties contains all the options for setting up the utility. The flexibility of the tool lets the user exclude some of the files and folders from the defragmentation jobs ran on the computer. A very useful feature is New Volume Detection. If enabled, this will make sure that Diskeeper will start Automatic Defragmentation when new volumes are detected.

Power Management option is dedicated to notebooks and it can be a life savior sometimes as it can turn off the application when the computer is running on battery power. This way, the computer will run longer and you will not be prompted with the "low battery" warning in the middle of your work.

If you need to be informed all the time about the activity of Diskeeper you can set it to record general information in the Windows Event Log. This way, the user will know when the service and defragmentation starts and stops, volume information after the process is complete, file information, paging file information, or MFT info.

The Good

Diskeeper 2007 Home Edition has a very intuitive interface and the display of tips for each option helps the user better understand the full power of the software.

The InvisiTasking technology guarantees the normal running of all the other processes. Boot_time defragmentation feature will move all the files that could not be moved while Windows is running at the next boot. As a caution measure, you can enable CHKDSK so that the files will not be moved in bad sectors of the drive.

The Bad

Even the price is very attractive.

The Truth

Diskeeper is one of the best defragmenting instruments I have seen up to now. The introduction of InvisiTasking feature makes it even more appealing as it will silently run in the background, not hindering the running of all the other processes (usually during defragmentation one should have all the programs closed).

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:


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