14 DAY TRIAL // Since we're on performance improvement chapter, I thought I could talk about a defragmentation tool that I've recently used.
It's called Vopt Xp, and it's an alternative to Windows' own Disk Defragmenter.
Supposedly you have a 10 Mb hard disk and you copy three 2 MB files on it, and then delete the second one. When you want to copy a 3 MB file, even though you will see it as a single file, on your hard drive the file is divided in two fragments: a 2 Mb one that's stored on the space that you've freed up, and another for the remaining 1 Mb, placed right after the third file from the first group. It takes the hard disk, of course, more time to read this file, since it will read two different locations.
What it does
This program will take each file and relocate it, so that there is no more disk fragmentation, and there are no more gaps between the files on your disk.
The interface is simple to use, but doesn't have that professional look that the System Defragmenter and other software on the market has.
You do, however, have a much more graphical look on your hard drives (you can also work on floppy disks), that gives a panoramic view on your fragmentation level.
Working with the program
According to the producer, the analyze and defragment operations take little time. After testing it on my hdd, I have noticed that it really is fast doing these operations, but right after it finishes, it stumbles in an idle state for quite some time (longer than it takes to analyze the disk), and it stops responding to any command. All you can do is wait for it to finish whatever it's doing.
I've found out from the help menu that the program's constant freezes might be due to antivirus programs, and after following their instructions I have to confess that a performance improvement from the program was noticeable.
In order to help you maximize performance, the program has a "close all applications" feature that will do just that.
It also has a task management function, allowing you to view and close the current processes that are running.
After analyzing a partition or drive I would expect to see a report, and maybe even a suggestion whether it's time to defragment or not. But none of these happen. There is though an option that allows you to view the fragmented, fixed and excluded files from the operation. If you run this command a new analysis will be made, and then you will get the results.
The main window is centered on the disk you want to optimize, having a drive section, where you can select the one you want to operate on, an action section (where you can choose to analyze, list information or defragment), an information section where you see a pie view of your drive and the level of fragmentation, and a thorough, matrix-like view of your disk, each dot containing a certain number of clusters (the same matrix is used for all disks you analyze, so the numbers of clusters that are assigned to a dot depends on the size of the disk you're studying).
Should you click on such a dot you will get a window that shows what files are using the correspondent clusters.
The only word I can find for this is "cool", since there's no real use for this feature; maybe, if the program would allow you to defragment only a part of your drive, we would have had some potential use for it. Nevertheless, I still like it, just for the fun I had!
There's no disk that, when you delete some of the files, can move all the remaining ones so that you will not end up having to deal with defragmentation anymore. But you can schedule a defragmentation, which is the next best thing. VoptXP has this feature, and you can select between daily, weekly or never.
The Good
The program is easy to work with, does its job and has a new way of looking at things than the default defragmentation tool that Windows provides.
The Bad
When I've performed analyzes or defragmentations, more often than not the program came to a halt and sometimes froze the whole system. The design is functional enough so that you won't get confused, but still needs some work. Also, this is a 30 days trial and if you want the full version, you'll have to pay $40 to get it.
The Truth
It's fun to work with, and has some features that you will enjoy. It does work slower if you have several applications running, but if you want good results you'll have to comply and close all of them. Even though the interface isn't the best one I've seen, the functionality makes up for it, and the job will be done! Before the file fragments are linked together, the program builds a back-up copy of your information, so that should anything bad happen while you perform a defragment action you won't lose any information. Also, the batch defrag option allows you to select multiple drives for defragmentation, so that you can leave the application working and not worry about anything.
In brief: download it and see for yourself!
Check out the screenshots below:
