If participating in these pre-release quality tests is of interest to you (it will really help us out) please email our Quality Control group at qtesting@diskeeper.com. Please add "SSD Tester" in the subject line and also let them know, in the body of the email, what operating system(s) you will be able to test on.
We expect the field test to start early next week and run for 1-2 weeks, so act quickly if you want to participate.
PS: We also have a white paper on the subject (testing done by 3D Professor) that we'll publish in September.
]]>Here's the full Q&A on the subject:
Can you wipe an entire drive with SecureDelete 2.0? In other words, you plan to give the computer away, say as a donation, but want NONE of your former data on it. So can you wipe the entire drive clean? Not just the free space?
Yes, Undelete's new SecureDelete 2.0 supports this. Here's how:
First, you'll need to delete remove all the files off the drive you intend to wipe of data - a quick reformat* is a fast way to do this. Then you can use the Wipe Free Space feature of SecureDelete. If you want the wiping process to complete quickly, I recommend launching this manually as it will complete faster than the Automatic mode, which will is designed to operate invisibly using only unused system resources (via InvisiTasking). Note that wiping can be a time consuming process as every single cluster has to be "scrubbed". The good thing is that you can walk away once you start it, no need to babysit.
*Of course to reformat or delete all the files off the drive, it cannot be your system drive, so you'll have to attach the drive to be wiped to a computer that has a working operating system and Undelete 2009 installed.
]]>NEW! InvisiTasking technology - enables Undelete tasks to operate in the background with zero overhead.
NEW! SecureDelete 2.0 - provides the option to SecureDelete all files immediately rather than waiting for the Recovery Bin to be purged.
NEW! Wipe Free Space - overwrites any free space on the selected volume making it impossible to recover any files that previously occupied the now unused disk space. (note, not available on Windows 2000 systems)
NEW! Automatic Resizing of the Recovery Bin - automatically detect and reduce the size of the Recovery Bin based on available free space.
NEW! Support for 64 bit operating systems (except for Undelete Home edition).
NEW! Support for Windows Server 2008 operating systems (with Undelete Server edition).
NEW! Undelete 2009 Server edition now includes 10 Desktop Client Devices.
NEW! Improved performance on high traffic systems (e.g. busy file servers).
NEW! No reboot required for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems
Recovery Bin - captures and protects all deleted files (from: applications, command line, across the network). Using an "Explorer-like" window, clients/administrators can view deleted files and folders and instantly recover data.
Search Recovery Bin - search by location, file type, date created or deleted, as well as by file owner or the user who actually deleted the file.
Version Protection for Microsoft Office Files - "rollback" to an earlier version of a file. Version Protection automatically protects Word, Excel and PowerPoint files for all versions of Office. You recover previous versions in an intuitive Explorer-like window.
Emergency Undelete - Recover files deleted prior to installing Undelete 2009.
Remote Installation - "PushInstall" in Undelete 2009 Server edition allows system administrators to remotely install licensed Undelete 2009 software across the network.
]]>Oddly enough, fragmentation was actually introduced to solve a major problem.
In the slim chance ;-) you are actually interested as to why fragmentation was "invented", you can check out these couple of pages. The e-book is old, but accurate.
]]>If participating in these pre-release quality tests is of interest to you (it will really help us out and speed up getting this update officially released to everyone) please email our Quality Control group at qtesting@diskeeper.com. Please add "Boot-time Defrag Tester" in the subject line and also let them know, in the body of the email, what operating system(s) you will be able to test on.
We expect the field test to start early next week and run for 1-2 weeks, so act quickly if you want to participate.
]]>When companies are prosperous and want to take all measures to get every drop of performance out of their systems, they look to Diskeeper. When companies are looking to cut costs and make the best use of existing assets (i.e. keep hardware in use for a longer period of time) they can again look to Diskeeper. Due to the various benefits, it could be called 'recession-proof' software.
For all the talk/speculation of an economic downturn in many parts of the world, Diskeeper Corporation continues to grow and is ahead of pace for another record setting year. We attribute that success, in large part, to the software's ability to help out companies experiencing lean times, by saving them energy, lengthening their PC life cycle by 6 months or a year, and facilitating initiatives to virtualize servers and desktops.
]]>Given that hard drives use considerable energy, the theory was that fragmentation might cause a hard drive to expend more energy accessing fragmented files. The results of the tests were fairly substantial; a relatively heavily used workstation (a high-end system built with some of the most recent eco-friendly hardware) with only mild fragmentation could save 12% on power costs. Over the course of a 'business year' that equals over $20 USD. A conservative estimate for the average desktop or laptop, while probably more fragmented than the test case, can very likely save $10-$15+ in energy costs a year. Combined with the increased performance and reliability that defrag offers, you can save some green while being green.
The second paper goes in to details on how fragmentation applies to new storage technologies/systems. A few sections of this paper have been posted in the blog over the past few months, so some of it may be familiar.
Both papers are available on the Diskeeper Knowledge Center. The link is on the top left side of this page.
]]>Diskeeper Corporation has worked closely with Microsoft to fully support Hyper-V from early on. That technology alliance includes the recent Microsoft announcement that Diskeeper was one of the first three software vendors to certify their software for Hyper-V (the other software vendors were IBM and Symantec). In the coming months it will culminate in advanced Diskeeper performance functionality announced by Microsoft several years back.
As a long time Microsoft Gold partner, we believe that Microsoft is providing an excellent option for corporation's looking to save power and space, ease provisioning efforts, and achieve full hardware utlilization through virtualization.
Also around the bend is the RTM for a new 2009 iteration of a Diskeeper software release - broadly available in late July/early August. Keep an eye open for the official release!
]]>A question we get on occasion is what the two bar graphs in the Access Time section represent. The graph labels tell you what is measured, Fragmented Files or All Files, but how does this relate to performance?
The first graph is probably best viewed as a "Worst Case" scenario. That graph shows how long it takes to access all the fragmented files, and only those fragmented files. As you can imagine that probably almost never happens. One case where this might apply is a database volume that contains only those small handful of potentially all-fragmented database files.
The second graph shows how long it takes to read all the files on the volume, both fragmented and contiguous. This is likely closer to a "Best Case" scenario. Unlike the Worst Case scenario, this has a bit more real-world applicability. One such example is running an anti-virus/spyware scan or a volume file backup, as those processes read the entire volume.
Typically you'll find a performance gain somewhere in between the two graphs. As fragmentation affects the files you use (read/write/delete) you will likely be accessing/writing a good percentage of fragmented files, relative to all the files on a volume.
Keep in mind that the Access Times are good general indicators, but aren't designed to watch exactly how you (or your users) use the PC/Server.
]]>"Diskeeper Corporation has come to China to help businesses, educational institutions and governments achieve their goals. Our Diskeeper product will restore all organizational computers to like-new performance, make them more reliable and extend their useful lives one to two years. Yet the return on investment for a Diskeeper purchase is measured in weeks, not months. With millions of customers worldwide and an Asian distribution network already in place, we have opened a representative office in Hong Kong to ensure the very best service to our customers throughout the greater China region." - Craig Jensen, Chairman and Founder, Diskeeper Corporation
During the opening ceremony, General Manager of Diskeeper Corporation China Limited, Mr. Lawrence Cheung said, "It is a milestone for Diskeeper Corporation to expand the market of Diskeeper and develop the company's core strength of defragmentation software, particularly in the burgeoning market of China."
The company marked its official opening by organizing a Grand Opening celebration at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.
The event was attended by CEO, Diskeeper Corporation, Lisa Terrenzi, officials from Invest HK, and the company's management and employees among many other invitees.
Diskeeper Corporation China Limited:
21st Floor, ICBC Tower, Citibank Plaza
No. 3 Garden Road, Central, Hong Kong
Tel: 852-2273-5146
Fax: 852-2273-5999
Web: www.diskeeper.com
More recently, the NTFS file system added and fully supports disk/file encryption as evidenced by EFS (Encrypting File System), and Microsoft products such as Windows Bit Locker.
It is fairly well known that Windows also ships with a native defragmenter (a product initially provided by Diskeeper for the Windows 2000 platform). It then stands to reason that Microsoft has a vested interest in maintaining continuing compatibility with defragmentation and, minimally, their own drive/file encryption solutions, and this is certainly the case.
Over the years our vast install base (10 million+) has brought to our attention rare and temporary incompatibilities that other products have had with the Microsoft MoveFile API.
Disk Encryption is becoming and increasingly more popular security measure undertaken in corporate enterprise - and even home use. Limitations in Windows provided tools, often drives IT professionals to seek out advanced third party disk encryption solutions (much as they do with disk defragmentation). In past years, as this technology grew from infancy in the Windows arena, a few disk encryption applications had temporary issues with the MoveFile API.
In every case to date, where it has ever even been an issue, the manufacturer of that Encryption software program has recognized this issue and corrected it, or offered workarounds. Those workarounds may require specific functionality in a third party defragmenter such as Diskeeper's File Exclusion feature, as the native defragmenter that ships with Windows lacks this. In those cases, depending on the technology implemented by the Encryption software vendor, a specific file (called a boot loader file) should not be moved.
In fact, with Diskeeper's technology and market leadership, we have worked closely with engineers and support staff from Encryption manufactures to ensure their products work perfectly for our customers.
For any current or future Diskeeper Corporation customers looking to employ a disk encryption program, we recommend checking the Encryption ISV's (Independent Software Vendors) Knowledge Base, Help files, or directly contacting the support staff to determine if any special measures are necessary. Based on our experience we also recommend choosing a mature and established vendor in this arena - sound advice for any company looking to deploy a large volume of licenses of any application. As always, you should make sure you are using the most recent version for any encryption solution, such as Guardian Edge EPHD 7.2, Utimaco (SafeGuard Easy) 4.20.x - 4.40.2 with their hotfix SGEflt.sys, or PointSec 6.3.1.
In summary, there are no known issues with running both disk encryption software and disk defragmentation software. Combining Diskeeper and data encryption software with provide users with a secure and optimized computing experience.
]]>To start the sign-up process, please email qtesting@diskeeper.com, and provide your contact information (name, phone, email address) as well as how many Servers you will be able to test on.
This final test phase will be starting in the next few days, so please act quickly if you'd like to participate. Your help is appreciated!
]]>Derek explains how fragmentation is becoming increasingly vital to maintaining technology already in use (antivirus scans and backup), and to adopting new disruptive technology.
If you're interested, check out the interview here.
PS: Keep a look out for new technology in Diskeeper later this year, on these specific topics.
]]>"Being a long term user (since the offering of Diskeeper as the ONLY product able to defrag Server NTFS partitions back in NT4) I have had significant experience with Diskeeper. While the driving factor for our purchase of Diskeeper was the name recognition and reliability of the product, much to my surprise (and total glee!) Diskeeper is as revolutionary today, as it was in my past. With the addition of automation (instead of scheduled defrags, it now does it on the fly) Diskeeper has repositioned the bar...again.
The overall stability of the servers has stabilized - across 8 servers, I have a mean realization of 5% improvement - this is covering the spectrum from an SQL server realizing only 3% improvement to a File server realizing over 14% improvement in file handling, speed of requests being filled. The biggest measure has been that we have not had to maintain the monthly allocation of 4 hours to server maintenance. This 4 hours is the only acceptable downtime for our production servers, to be rebooted, disk-cleaned and defragged - not to include that this is the only time for hardware upgrades, major server software upgrades, etc. There were times prior to my installation of Diskeeper, that the maintenance window would come and go, with only 80% of the defrags completed, 60% of the servers rebooted - and a laundry list of application updates, which would have to be rescheduled to occur during production time.
After the first 2 months of allowing Diskeeper to do its job, I no longer had to manually defrag - it was done! I now get every action item scheduled for that maintenance window completed, with time to spare! If NOTHING else, anyone who maintains an aggressive server maintenance program will reap big rewards in the time saved over this process alone... "
Paul Parker
Houston, TX
If you need to install the update to multiple computers, you can download the software from here.
Here is a list of main changes in build 12.0.781:
1. Fixed a flaw that caused a minor error message when the Diskeeper Service was shutdown (e.g. when shutting down the system). This error did not stop Diskeeper from functioning. (introduced in build 770)
2. Improvement to I-FAAST to better process files in the same folder, that are frequently deleted and recreated under the same file name.
3. Included support for correctly processing wildcards in the Diskeeper file exclusion list. Also fixed a couple of minor bugs related to file exclusion list.
4. Made enhancements to the News and Information feature to send info more appropriate to the user's location and the product edition used.
5. Removed displaying an error message when News and Information feature is unable to connect to a Diskeeper News Server. A message is now logged in the Event Log when this occurs. (introduced in build 770). This error did not stop Diskeeper from functioning.
6. Boot-time defragmentation is disabled in Windows Vista SP1 and Windows 2008, due to a feature incompatibility on those operating systems / service packs. A correction in a future update will re-enable the feature.