PerfectDisk 2008 Professional Worth a Try
Having been a huge fan of Diskeeper for years, it was very hard to try another software because I was always comparing to Diskeeper. I had purchased Diskeeper and then switched over to 64-bit Vista and couldn’t run the Home version that I had purchased. I wasn’t about ready to spend even more money to buy the version that supported 64-bit.
PerfectDisk 2008 Professional supports 64-bit, so I thought it was definitely worth a try, especially when I don’t currently run anything to defragment my system. Diskeeper and PerfectDisk are almost similar in functionality. They don’t look exactly the same, but there are some features that do remind me of Diskeeper, which is a good thing because it made me feel comfortable using it.
One feature I look for in most software is the “set it and forget it”. I don’t have time to worry about my system running fast and working right, so that is a must-have feature that PerfectDisk has.
After changing a default setting, I was able to see and schedule my external USB drive to be defragmented.
The defragmentation took quite a while to complete since I modify, add and remove files almost daily on it. I found the process to be slightly slower than Diskeeper, but that could very well mean it is more thorough. Since defragmenting usually occurs when I’m not using my computer (using the idle feature), it’s not really that big of a deal. Defragmenting my main hard drive didn’t take as long even though it is slightly larger; it has a lot more free space on it.
For those of you concerned about how large of a hard drive you have, PerfectDisk does not have a size limitation like Diskeeper does. You are allowed to have multi-terabyte hard drives with PerfectDisk – no need to worry about spending more money on a version that supports larger hard drives. It also allows you to defrag with as little as 1% free space available!
PerfectDisk performs file defragmentation in a single-pass unlike other software which helps improvement of drive performance. It also does a single-pass defragmentation of free space.
PerfectDisk 2008’s patented SMARTPlacement™ optimization is paired with its exclusive single-pass defragmentation and Space Restoration Technology™ to maximize PC and laptop performance.
My favorite PerfectDisk feature is that it also defragments the hibernate file. Since using PerfectDisk, I noticed that Vista resumes from hibernation noticeably faster than it did prior to using the software.
PerfectDisk has also helped Photoshop load faster and while editing several (10-20) large images for work, I don’t notice it lagging like it used to. I have always hated opening Photoshop because of how slow it was and now I can actually enjoy using it. Diskeeper has never done this much of an improvement on my system.
PerfectDisk is easy to use for anyone, very thorough and will keep your system running smooth! I recommend trying it out. Check out the comparison charts.
I am still a huge fan of Diskeeper due to its speed, but PerfectDisk has definitely improved my system in a shorter amount of time than Diskeeper has. PerfectDisk gets my vote for the amount of improvements.
Click on screenshots below:
If you use PerfectDisk 2008 Professional or older versions, I’d love to hear what you thought of it in the comments!
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RavenFlight on October 21st, 2008
That’s a nicely written review :)
A couple of months ago,I downloaded and checked out the evaluation versions of both these defragmenters on my XP Pro (SP3) machine that I use for gaming and photoediting (CS3, hundreds of 14mp raw files and 16-bit tiffs in each folder). I ended up getting Diskeeper 2008 finally because I liked the way it ran and the results it produced. Diskeeper was truly set and forget it, and it defragmented the drives quietly in the background without fuss..all automatically! Results were excellent- Bridge and ACR were fast, particularly thumbnail generation in Bridge. Despite the work it was doing, I never noticed DK running in the background, which is the way i liked it.
PD’s defrag was not bad at all, but i was not comfortable with its interface, speed and resource usage compared to DK, especially it’s need for 2 processes to run in the background. I guess it just boils down to personal preference regarding how you want a certain program to run and is expected of it in terms of results. Choice is always good :)
Greg/Raxco Support on October 23rd, 2008
Regarding resource usage, PerfectDisk provides a lot of ways to defragment your system – Screen saver mode (only when screen saver is active), defined schedule (every Sunday at 8:00pm), StealthPatrol (when system is “idle”) or manual. Diskeeper provides 2 methods (manual and continously running in the background).
You can configure PerfectDisk to run at a idle CPU priority and to throttle disk I/O. That way, when PerfectDisk runs (screen saver, defined schedule, manual), it will use as little system resources as possible. With StealthPatrol, PerfectDisk detects if your system is “idle” and only defragments then – you’ll likely not even notice it is running.
Mentioned was the 2 PerfectDisk processes that run in the background (compared to the 1 Diskeeper process that runs in the background). For a description of these processes/services, please see http://www.raxco.com/Support/kb_detail.cfm?action=faq&prod=1&ver=2008#kb756. If you are ONLY running PerfectDisk manually (not screen saver, not StealthPatrol, not defined schedule) and don’t want PerfectDisk to automatically check for program updates, you can set the PDAgent service to manual instead of Automatic. However, just as Diskeeper uses a service/process that runs in the background to automatically defragment, if you want PerfectDisk to automatically defragment your computer (Screen Saver, StealthPatrol, defined schedule), the PDAgent service needs to remain running.
- Greg/Raxco Software
Microsoft MVP 2003-2007
Windows File Systems
Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk – a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.
Alisha on October 27th, 2008
Thank you for your comment. I also really like Diskeeper, but don’t like the idea of having to spend a lot more so I can run a deframenter on a 64-bit OS after I already purchased one version.