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ketxxx

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Posts posted by ketxxx

  1. since I got tired of the resource hog “Diskeeper” became

     

    I'm sorry, but that is totally false. You are aware you can set things like CPU priority with Diskeeper right? I've used\use both Diskeeper and SM4 and neither uses much more resources than the other really and theres no question the defrag routines with Diskeeper are better than what SM4 uses, I'm actually still waiting on some of the things I suggested back around page 9\10 I think it is to get added to SM4 as SM4 ticks all the right boxes but it definitely requires some refinements and I'm not talking relatively pointless UI changes as long as SM4 doesn't go the Diskeeper 2012 UI route its safe.

     

    I would suggest you download Regcleaner and check out its startup tab I'm willing to bet you have a crapload of processes starting up with Windows that don't need to, they are what would be slowing your system down, unless you just have a really old outdated system.

     

  2. Hi ketxxx,

     

    Thanks for your detailed reply and suggestion.

     

    I will report your suggestions to our product team for consideration.

     

    Welcome more suggestions and feedbacks fo Smart Defrag v4. We will continue to make improvements according to your feedbacks.

     

    Have a nice day.:-)

     

     

    No problem, I'll look forward to testing a new version of smart defrag :) If any clarification on my term "straggler data" is needed let me know and I'll get a screenshot and better describe what I'm talking about.

  3.  

    Hi ketxxx

    Welcome to the Forum.

    Thank you for your indepth feedback and suggestions. I am sure it will be of great interest to both users and Iobit.

     

    With regard to Boot time Defrag.....the user has the option to turn off boot time defrag in the UI. The users can then run Boot time Defrag at a time oh their choosing rather than the provided options. | would agree that it would be nice to have a dynamic user scheduling facility which would allow user to set their own user schedule.

     

    With regard to the suggestion to remove all but the last 3 restore points.....I would prefer that an option be given as to how many restore points a user would like to retain. With a lot of software automatically creating restore points, 3 restore points may only constitute one days data, which would not be much help if a system failure occurred. I personally keep at least 2 weeks restore points and this has save my bacon many times.

     

     

    Thanks :)

     

    I see the option now to turn off boot time defragging, I'm not sure how I missed that. I get what you mean with restore points, I've just always found 3 restore points enough. I don't let my software auto update though if I get a problem I update things myself as its a much more controlled environment that way ;)

     

    The interface is really problematic. Switching between parts of it take away other parts -- such as hitting "finish" after a defrag takes you away from the ability to view the drive and the status/results with no way to return without re-running defrag or analysis. The launching of a browser to show results is very annoying as well. It feels like about eight different applications with an overlay shell to switch between them. Un-intuitive and frustrating.

     

    The reporting opening in a web browser instead of a built-in analysis window is a bit disjointed granted but its not that bad. Especially if you have had to get used to the terrible Diskeeper 2012 UI.

     

  4. Hi, I signed up specifically to be able to give feedback on Smart Defrag, as a I.T. engineer I'm well placed to give comparisons and detailed analysis feedback.

     

    Comparison software: Diskeeper Professional 2011 (PC) & 2012 (Laptop)

    Smart Defrag version: v4.0 Beta 2

     

    Some of you may be wondering why I'm comparing Smart Defrag to such premium software like Diskeeper, the reason for that is very simple, I can't go advising clients or even friends to go spending the big pricetag of Diskeeper Professional ($65) to maintain their HDDs \ SSDs so I look for the very best free alternatives to recommend. To that end Smart Defrag ticks all the right boxes on paper but the end result needs some improvement.

     

    To start with I analysed the 1TB Toshiba drive in my laptop with Diskeeper Pro and Smart Defrag, both applications showed roughly the same drive mapping, a good start. Defragmentation routines of Smart Defrag, while not terrible, aren't exactly much better than the default Windows defragger which is why I ditched it in the first place for Diskeeper and is why I'm always on the lookout for a excellent free alternative to recommend to clients.

     

    I'll start with my biggest concerns and work my way down, this is what I've noticed with Smart Defrag using the "Disk Defrag" tab;

     

     

    1. Smart Defrag lumps all "rarely" used data toward the end of the drive \ drive partition.

     

    Why is this bad? It increases execution times of that software tagged as "rarely" used while also making the drive seek much further than it needs to increasing read times (opening \ launching of these programs \ files etc) and physical ware on the drive as the needle has to go skitting all the way across the disk platter to access the data, increasing the likelyhood of a physical drive failure through physical ware. This problem is compounded even more if the drive is large or isn't partitioned into smaller segments to artificially prevent Smart Defrag from lumping all the "rarely" used data at the end of the drive to prevent needless seeking all the way to the end of the platter(s) and back. The only time Smart Defrags current defragmentation routine sort of makes sense is on a large drive or partition that is very full (70% or more).

     

    Therefore it would be extremely pleasing to see a different defragmentation algorithm used for drives that are not almost full, a algorithm that defragments data and consolidates all of it into the nearest available block on the drive is much more efficient in cases where the drive or partition isn't almost full. How something like this would be implemented obviously isn't up to me but giving the user the choice of which defragmentation algorithm to use would be preferable.

     

     

    2. Smart Defrag currently does a poor job of consolidating "straggler" data into the nearest available block

     

    As the point says really, I gave Smart Defrag three chances to catch this "straggler" data, twice with "Defrag and fully optimise" and once with "Defrag and prioritise files". It failed every time to catch and consolidate these "stragglers".

     

     

    3. Smart Defrag speed

     

    As a whole Smart Defrag seems to be very lackadaisical about its defragging, no doubt down to it only using a very small percentage of CPU power to get the job done (highest I measured was a meager 20% on my laptop) while I understand this approach I would suggest a option is added so the user can set how much CPU power is dedicated when defragging, personally I would much rather have a defragger that uses most of my CPU power but gets the job done in a fraction of the time.

     

     

    4. Some general observations

     

    I also found some minor things that would make sense to address, or add a option so the user can set things to their preference, those things are;

     

    - Smart Defrag by default analyses all drives \ partitions

    This doesn't make sense, it just wastes the users time if they only want to analyse and defrag one particular drive or partition. I know you can uncheck drives and partitions you don't want analysed, I'm suggesting that by default Smart Defrag only has the primary drive selected for analysing.

     

    - Smart Defrag by default loads automatically with Windows

    As a power user I don't like this at all. I like my laptop and PC to boot as quickly as possible without programs loading in the background slowing the boot process down, if I want or need to defrag my drive I'll do it.

     

     

    Now on to the things I do like :)

     

    1. Smart Defrag UI

     

    I like it, its easy to navigate and find things, its certainly much better than the absolutely horrible UI Diskeeper 2012 is using, the UI of Diskeeper 2011 is far superior to that of 2012. Never use a clunky UI like Diskeeper 2012 is using, I beg you.

     

    2. Boot time defrag

     

    This is a very nice inclusion, Smart Defrag is the only free utility I know of that includes this option. I did note however that there doesn't seem to be a option to only run a boot time defrag at the users request. Putting a option in to only run a boot time defrag when the user schedules it would make a lot of sense.

     

    3. Disk cleanup prior to defrag

     

    This is a great little addition to have and just makes sense. I would like to see this expanded a bit though to include all but the 3 most recent Windows restore points. We all know how Windows loves to gobble up space with restore points ;)

     

    Hopefully this has been helpful. You can contact me any time if you would like me to do some testing and I'll try to keep a eye on this thread. In the meantime I'll look forward to testing any future improved versions of Smart Defrag.

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