"Not only does Diskeeper's software attempt to prevent fragmentation from ever occurring, but it cuts power consumption and unnecessary I/O operations."

"IT administrators who turn frequently to disk defragmentation tools should have a look at Diskeeper 2010." 

- Jason Brooks, eWeek

eWeek ran some tests to see if IntelliWrite really lived up to the promise and, no surprise to us, it clearly did. Their tests, done with Windows XP guests running on VMware vShpere 4, found IntelliWrite prevented 87% of fragmentation. Invisitasking quickly cleaned up the few pieces that slipped through.

Read the full article here.

A cure for cancer it is not, but in the category of performance (defrag) software, IntelliWrite is quite the bold, unorthodox step forward. Like many things new and revolutionary it is to be questioned, critiqued and qualified.

When we created IntelliWrite we had to first question the old way of doing things. Same goes for you, the user. You also need to form your own opinion on whether a new approach to eliminating fragmentation is warranted and worthwhile.

Now of course new does not necesarrily mean better, but new can, when done right change the way of things... for the better.

Our customers are our best and favorites critics. We hope we have provided you value and have earned your approval.

IntelliWrite technology is, as the name would imply, smart. Not only is it a better solution to removing fragmentation (it prevents fragmentation), but it actually self-learns; i.e. it gets smarter over time. Or perhaps more simply as one customer, who per his company policy must remain anonymous :-(, said, "crazy smart".

IntelliWrite learns how the various different applications on your system write data, much like advanced heuristic anti-virus solutions that learn "patterns" and can then proactively block new, as yet unreported, malware. IntelliWrite adapts to the applications on your system and how they write, and thereby fragment your files. That adaptive learning makes IntelliWrite increasingly more effective on your computer.  

Another part of the technology is an awareness of its surroundings. IntelliWrite automatically detects conditions where it might affect system performance and backs off, thus providing the best balance for performance – improves performance when fragmentation can be prevented and does not impact free space fragmentation when it might matter (i.e. when the available space is very low). One such easy-to-demonstrate case is on volumes with less than 2GB free space; IntelliWrite disables itself.

We began the process of securing the intellectual property rights to this revolutionary innovation prior to the release. You don't have to be a crazy Irishman to know that if you're looking for "The only way to prevent fragmentation before it happens(tm)", you've come to the right place.

The update to Undelete 2009 to support Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008r2 is available. It also includes some general fixes.

I recommend going to your Account Page and downloading from there.

The Undelete update that adds support for Win7 and Server 2008r2 has certified internally. It's now a matter of routing and uploading the software. Expect it to be available on your Diskeeper Account page early next week.

Diskeeper 2010 Administrator is now complete and available for broad use. You can download trialware from here. For customers previously using the Release Candidate (RC), you can go to your Diskeeper Account page and download your full licensed version. We made numerous user experience enhancements from the RC.

One improved UI example is the new start page:

The new major feature in Diskeeper 2010 Administrator is the “at-a-glance” network-wide overview of disk performance and system health. This network performance dashboard includes access for more details on noted issues and ability to directly initiate tasks such as remote control, deployment, and configuration to quickly remedy the situation. The Dashboard provides important customizable alerts on systems that have:

• Low free space

• Severe file fragmentation

• Extreme paging file or meta data fragmentation

• Failures to defragment or where Diskeeper is not operational

• Product activation expiration

• Diskeeper updates available for installation

The "alerts" are now available for both computers with Diskeeper and those without it. As with prior versions of Diskeeper Administrator, "reports" continue to be available for both systems without and without Diskeeper.

Ops Manager (both MOM and SCOM) Management Packs are included with the Diskeeper Administrator full version. If you require a trial of this solution, please contact our Corporate Sales dept.

I'll post more about this joint webinar (i.e. date/time, links) as we get closer to the date: 

“Windows 7 and Solid State Drives: Performance Myths and Facts

Presented by Microsoft & Diskeeper Corp.

What are the benefits of SSDs, above and beyond traditional hard drives? What are the myths around performance? Do file and free space fragmentation affect SSDs? How accurate are available benchmarking tools? How can you successfully work SSDs into your current customer offerings?  Join technical engineers from Microsoft and Diskeeper Corporation for this informative webinar.”

It is interesting to see the varying degrees of effort beta testers undertake. Some just kick the tires and make sure nothing obvious breaks. Others may run benchmark tools, test compatibility with production apps in production-recreated labs. Some even on production systems. Then there those, like Yu-Ji Hosokawa. Mr Hosokawa is a senior software engineer from Tokyo, Japan. When Diskeeper 2010 was in beta last fall, he decided to run side by side comparison tests to validate IntelliWrite, and he wrote a software program to automate it.

He ran tests on Windows XP and Windows 7 (below), preventing 99% of fragmentation and completing the benchmark 2-3x faster in many cases. Granted, this  environment is artificially created, but the results are compelling nevertheless. Real world results are quite similar (stay tuned for future blogs with more test routines).

Here are his results:

For those interested in duplicating these tests. Mr Hosokawa was kind enough to provide the software he wrote, including the source code! You can find it here.

The program is called IntelliWriteBench.exe. It also requires SysInternals Contig,exe program which can be found here. Contig.exe muct be located in the same directory as IntelliWriteBench.exe.  

IntelliWriteBench.exe parameters are;  

--workers

      # of parallel thread  

--file

      # of test files  

--bytes

      size of data for one file  

--total

      # of writing times for one file  

--directory

      directory for testing  

--verbose

      show status  

The default (if no parameters are selected) is: IntelliWriteBench.exe --workers 3 --files 10 --bytes 4096 --total 10000 --directory .\

Disclaimer: the software referenced on this page (with exception to Diskeeper with IntelliWrite) is not provided, guaranteed, or supported by Diskeeper Corp. Use at your own risk.

Rumack: Fragmentation slows down SD Card performance!

Striker: Surely you can't be serious.

Rumack: I am serious... and don't call me Shirley.    

The word is slowly [but surely :-)] getting out that fragmentation affects NAND Flash storage - specifically free space fragmentation. The SD Association website is a great resource for edification and development resources. On their page describing the SD Card Speed Classes, they even discuss fragmentation.

Fragmentation and Speed

The memory of a card is divided into minimum memory units. The host writes data onto memory units where no data is already stored. As available memory becomes divided into smaller units through normal use, this leads to an increase in non-linear, or fragmented storage. The amount of fragmentation can reduce write speeds so higher SD card speeds help compensate for fragmentation.

There are several methods to address this issue. One is, as mentioned, buy better performing storage and hope your requirements never exceed the cards ability to deliver on your needs (though fragmentation will still limit the storage's peak performance). However, a better approach is to fix the root issue, and there are two ways to do that.

1. Defragment the free space (e.g. HyperFast, Diskeeper)

2. Copy all the data off the SD Card and reformat the card

The best approach is likely to be determined by the device in which the SD Card is used. If it's from your digital camera, option 2 is probably pretty easy to undertake. If pulling all the data off the card is not feasible, optimize it.

The only other question then might be "how often do I run optimization?". I did a blog post on that, including some performance tests, a few years ago, Read that Here or Here.

Lastly, I thought I'd include a recent personal success from an IT professional who happens to also use Diskeeper at work:

"Happy new year!! I made an interesting test over the holidays using Diskeeper 2010. I was updating my GPS with new maps and discovered that my Garmin unit uses Fat32 file system so I figured I would run your software on it just for fun and see the results. I was able to defragment a large part of the files and it more than doubled the speed of the unit. The images render faster with less stutter, routes are recalculated almost instantly now and it finds points of interest much faster. I did the same test on 2 other GPS`s and got the same results." Regards, Carlo

As of December 31st, Diskeeper 2010 is certified. 

On the heels of a prior update comes a new incremental build. This update resolves rare cases the Terabyte Volume Engine (TVE) process may fail, and a second unrelated issue where Diskeeper does does not start (i.e. defragmenting) after the initial installation due to licensing. As usual, if you are not experiencing these issues, there is no need to update.

Here is the ReadMe note from the update:

D.  CHANGES IN THIS RELEASE
===========================

1. Fixed issue where defragmentation operation failed to start.

This is a reposting of a prior (and popular) blog entry that unfortunately was "chopped" when we migrated to our new platform. Here it is in full:  

Preface: this article refers to making direct edits to the Windows Registry. If you are not experienced with this subject, ask your company's IT Administrator or a computer-expert friend/neighbor for help.

Our Tech Support group has seen a few reports of this error (Program not found - skipping AUTOCHECK) from customers when running Diskeeper's bootime defrag. The error starts early in the boot process while the Session Manager process (smss.exe) is busy getting the system up and running. Smss.exe is critical to loading the paging file, initializing the registry and loading kernel components. But, before it does any of that it looks to a registry key called BootExecute. At that location it launches any applications listed. Session Manager then looks to the Windows system32 folder for particular executables it has been instructed to launch. By default there is only one program listed here - autochk.exe, the boot-time version of chkdsk, which will run if there are any file system inconsistency flags detected (i.e. volume dirty bit is set).

Read on for the solution...

Software vendors who need exclusive access to a volume (such as a defragmenter) will name proprietary executables at this registry location (and place the programs in the Windows system32 folder). Using this system is how Diskeeper is able to safely defragment files that could not be defragmented when the system is up and running.

However, malware creators have also used this BootExecute location to load their spyware/virus crap.

If you uninstall a legitimate program that has written into this BootExecute registry you may see this message. The uninstall will typically delete the executable from the system32 program, but not edit the registry. In most cases, the registry change is only a temporary one. For example: if you set Diskeeper to run a Bootime defrag "on next reboot" but uninstall it before the reboot, you can create the same issue. Once the Diskeeper Bootime defrag completes, it removes this string from the registry. Other applications are likely to behave similarly. It is also possible that a program, during install, writes data into this key, but then does not remove it on uninstall.

Another possibility is if you have run an anti-malware program that has removed the referenced executable from the system32 folder, but not changed the BootExecute registry to remove the "pointer" to that file. In that case you will also see this message.

When the program named is from a removed third-party vendor, the message is harmless. You should only be concerned if the default autochk program itself does not run.

If you do get this error and want to clean it up, here's what you need to do:

Look in the registry at:

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager" and remove the string [the name referenced in the message on system startup] from the BootExecute value.

Under normal circumstances only the following would be present:

autocheck autochk *

This is what it might look like with added values:

autocheck autochk * autocheck stera

You can change the value back to the default (as shown in the first example above), but understand that it may possibly impact a legitimate program listed here.

Stera.exe is part of an adware program that pretends to be an anti-adware program!

As always, you need to be very careful editing the registry. If you see anything else listed here other than the executable named in the error message, look at named file's properties in the system32 folder or do a web search on it. A legitimate vendor can advise you on what to do to avoid potential conflict.

For Diskeeper it would look like:
autocheck autochk * autocheck AUTONTFS E: PAGE=KEEP DIRS=NONE MFT=MIN

(where E: represents the drive letter on which to run the bootime).

You can also reset it back to the default (autocheck autochk *) without issue. That is the safest bet with Diskeeper. You'll simply need to go back into Diskeeper and reset the Bootime job.

Diskeeper customers are always welcome to contact our support team for assistance.

A new build is available for Diskeeper 2010 users. It addresses the SQL Server CHECKDB false-positive reported previously. If you aren't using SQL Server, then you won't need to update at this time.

Here is the ReadMe text (noting the only change):

D.  CHANGES IN THIS RELEASE
===========================

1.  Fixed issue where Diskeeper was conflicting with SQL database
    consistency check resulting in errors in the event log.

Our products have largely been built from customers (and trialware users) telling us what they need and want in new products and new versions of existing solutions. We get mountains of valuable user feedback through our employees who work directly with customers including; our sales reps, our customer service staff, and our tech support team. That all channels back to product management, and eventually over to the developers to build into new technologies.

If you have ideas or requests you'd like to see us build for you in the future there is an easily accessible way to tell us. 

A few versions back, we introduced a feature in Diskeeper. You can access it from the Menu Bar [Action - Diskeeper Feedback].

That selection will take you to our online feedback form:

There are a few drop down selection to help categorize your suggestion, and then some open fields to share your idea(s). Everyone is welcome to submit, and all ideas are reviewed.

Please do keep in mind that this is for feedback for future development, and is not a support line for assistance. Please use the standard support lines if you need immediate help.

We look forward to hearing from you. 

For SQL DBA's (only):

Diskeeper 2010 with IntelliWrite currently has an issue where Database Consistency Check (DBCC) commands report problems with the database (though no actual problems exist). I guess it could be described as a "false positive" or "false alarm".

The issue is specifically that IntelliWrite's timing in expanding a file changed what the consistency check was expecting. Thereby DBCC incorrectly reports consistency errors. Turning off IntelliWrite makes the alerts go away. Then running DBCC confirms that no errors actually occurred.

So while the issue is very minor (no actual problem) major "problem indicators" do get set off, making for a potentially very unpleasant experience for a DBA. Something we apologize for. 

On a positive note, we've repro'ed the issue and already have a fix. We're starting a field test tomorrow (on Friday, Dec. 10th). The fix should be broadly available later next week or early the following week (depending on how quickly the field test completes). If anyone is interested in testing this patch, you can contact Diskeeper at fieldtest@diskeeper.com.

Until the fix is available, disabling IntelliWrite on a SQL database volume corrects the false alarms.

Lastly, I do want to add that this is the only common reported issue we have seen with IntelliWrite - it is an extremely stable and reliable technology. The software update that will come only needs to fix the issue discussed in this post.

Since the ground breaking release of Diskeeper 2010 I've seen comments that other defragmenters prevent fragmentation.

Ok, so let's technically dissect "how" such a claim may come about...

Does consolidating free space reduce future fragmentation? Yes it helps your odds, but reducing fragmentation and preventing fragmentation are not the same. If you are relying on consolidated free space to offset re-fragmentation you need some luck that the big, or closely located, chunk of free space is where the file(s) being written are going to be placed.

Only ONE free space segment means only ONE place for a file write to go, hence no fragmentation. - That is a true statement, but...

Windows is a robust and dynamic OS. There is a constant and infinite stream of background file writes, modifications and deletions, not to mention all the user generated activity from applications. That makes for a tremendous amount of change in the files and file locations on a volume. Understanding this relentless activity is important because it belies the concept of creating a singular massive chunk of free space as the solution to prevent fragmentation. Any "pretty disk" that gets created (i.e. all files in one area and all the space in another) may look nice in a visual display, but it just doesn't last for more than a few seconds.

You can imagine that attempts to maintain that one massive singular free space area would make for a defragmenter that has to always pack gigabytes of non-fragmented files together with every background deletion/creation event. Busy, busy, busy defragmenter. But hey, a lot of a shiny colors and smiley face emoticons. Yay! 

Now, are there specific benefits to large free space chunks? Absolutely (e.g. shrinking a volume), and Diskeeper provides this too. The key in efforts to consolidate free space into a handful of larger chunks needs to be balanced so that the cost (power usage, wear and tear, system resources, etc...) does not outweigh the benefit (performance). Again, this is the perspective that Diskeeper applies as it optimizes your Windows file systems.   

Now speaking theoretically, if ALL free space were in ONE big chunk, you would be forced to write a file in ONE piece. It couldn't possibly fragment, right? Wrong... 

The bigger issue isn't even about trying to keep some singular giant free space chunk available, because even if you did, there is a more significant obstacle. Windows can write numerous files from numerous processes simultaneously, or more accurately, under the impression of being simultaneous. In reality it is commonplace that some files (File A below) will continue to be held open for writing more data, all the while newer files (Files B & C) start and complete writing all their data. As the first file, which has not yet been "closed", is still being expanded, it has to be written "around" the newer placed files. This causes that first file to fragment around those more recent files that were placed in the way.

This happens ALL the time - your browsers download of a website's many associated files is a perfect example.  

In summary:

Reducing fragmentation is a passive act. Preventing fragmentation requires more than neatly ordered files and free space, it requires a truly intelligent and advanced design that dictates HOW files are written. Only Diskeeper 2010 with IntelliWrite technology offers fragmentation prevention.

So, if you prefer to not leave eliminating fragmentation to chance, given you are spending your hard earned money, and "you wanna play rough [with fragmentation] ok, say hello to our little friend", Diskeeper Twenty-Ten.

Diskeeper 2010 was just reviewed by Portuguese tech/gadget site reviews.com.pt. As of this posting, the review is still linked on the front page of the website.

The review focuses on the new IntelliWrite technology, and the performance gains it provides by preventing fragmentation from occurring in the first place.

You can read the review from the direct link here. And here, is the English (Google translated) link.

Chip Magazine (www.chip.de) is a premier technology publication in Germany, and much of Europe for that matter. They recently completed a defrag head-to-head comparison of 6 various defragmenters, including the Windows Vista built-in product (which also happens to be very similar to Windows 7 built-in).

The timing worked out that we were able to submit Diskeeper 2010 beta software into their challenge.

And...

We're excited to announce Diskeeper took 1st place based on their rigorous technical testing process. Ausgezeichnet!

Here's a screen shot of the points awarded (only Diskeeper received the max 5) and placement of the entrants (only Diskeeper ranked in the top class). I removed the other product names to protect the "guilty" :-).

If you're a subscriber, you can read the whole 4 page review (in German mind you).

In the past, we've licensed or distributed our technologies via major OEMs such as Lenovo, Sony, HP, Intel, and Dell - many of them for years. We learned from these numerous relationships with existing, and potential future partners, that boot times were a major pain for their customers - even brand new systems. So, HyperBoot (HB) was initially targeted to these system builders/OEMs of laptops and netbooks with Windows 7. 

To further support those HB efforts we decided to publish some facts about our test results (to ComputerWorld and other major media organizations) via videos and demo routines. The "corporate" response has been overwhelming. We've had numerous major Fortune 500 corporations write in, unsolicited, requesting access to this amazing software.

Needless to say, we are acknowledging these requests and seeking (via involved dialogue) to assist in any way we can to address the slow boot up issues many corporations find themseves stuck with (aging XP clients).

Porting HyperBoot to Windows XP is in progress, with field testing running in parallel.