DkSwitch

There's plenty of quality defrag software available. Diskeeper, however, sets itself apart with its highly sophisticated automatic defragmentation algorithms. The DkSwitch application was designed to be a small tool that provides you with an interface through which you can quickly and easily turn Diskeeper off/back on. It works with Diskeeper service, which it can stop/start or disable.

Why would you switch Diskeeper off? Perhaps you need to copy a large amount of data onto your hard drive, do something with it for a while and then delete it, e.g. download a bunch of video files, convert them from mp4 to avi and burn them on dvds. Those files are not here to stay, but Diskeeper doesn't know that. It starts analyzing them and planning how to rearrange them most efficiently.

After a while, it will begin the actual processing, especially if you're "takin' it slow" with your project and leave the computer idle. Diskeeper is intelligent in a sense that it keeps long-term track of file access pattern/frequency and bases decisions on statistical analyses, so the files in question will not receive high optimization priority, nevertheless, some processing will be in order. Personally, I would rather have those files ignored, knowing they will soon be gone.

There are ways of achieving that without stopping the service. The first and obvious one is to turn off automatic defragmentation through Diskeeper interface. But if you do it often, DkSwitch becomes a more practical alternative. Besides, if defrag is off, you don't need the service running anyway. It is also possible to designate folders which will be excluded from defragmentation and keep your temporary projects in such a folder.

But this only means that those files are not moved, it doesn't mean there's a defrag-free area on the drive. Excluded files can be scattered all over the drive; Diskeeper defrags everything but those files and when it does, it has to take them into account, i.e. it has to defrag "around" them, thus, they still have impact on file system layout.

Another reason for turning Diskeeper off is an arguable one: increasing performance (acute performance, that is, because in the long run, Diskeeper definitely increases system performance). Diskeeper features InvisiTasking, a technology which ensures that system resources are only used when they're not needed elsewhere.   From various reviews and from my personal experience, InvisiTasking justifies its name and does the job properly. Nevertheless, I can imagine that serious gamers will take no chances and shut down Diskeeper while they play.

Truth be told, Diskeeper supports command line operation and you can easily write a batch file that stops automatic defragmentation, just as you can write a batch file that stops the service. But DkSwitch is nicer.