Diskeeper 10 Server Enterprise review

Diskeeper has always maintained the top spot as the disk defragmenter of choice, and this latest version brings several new and useful features to the table. The entire family of products has been refreshed, and the Server Enterprise version on review includes the grandly named IFAAST (intelligent file access acceleration sequencing technology). This aims to monitor how a hard disk is used. Then, armed with this information, it will target and optimise the most frequently used files.

Diskeeper's disk fragmentation analysis and reports have always been extremely detailed, but have been enhanced even further with a historical feature that shows over time just how useful regular defrags are to performance. The I/O Smart capability has also been improved, as it will keep an eye on drive usage during a defrag job and make sure its manipulations don't interfere with general system performance. Each release has always seen a main interface redesign, and Diskeeper 10 is no exception, with the improvements designed to make it even more intuitive, but also to make schedule creation easier.

Installation is a simple process, but larger sites can take advantage of the Administrator tool, which can centrally manage multiple installations of Diskeeper. Administrator has had a bumpy ride, though. When version 8 was first launched, we reported back enough bugs to have it withdrawn from sale for a couple of months. Several issues weren't resolved until version 9 appeared, and the only new feature in version 10 is the collective facelift.

The console has been revamped significantly over its predecessor, with easier access afforded to all the functions. All volumes are displayed, and each one can then be analysed and defragmented, as required. Set It and Forget It is one of the older features in Diskeeper, but it has its uses, as it can schedule jobs to run in the background. The Smart Scheduler determines the best interval, since it keeps track of the number of files moved each time Diskeeper is run and dynamically alters the schedule, as required.

IFAAST can be activated on all or selected volumes, and runs a bench test and analysis first on each one to see what performance gains can be made. It then runs in tandem with background defrag jobs and moves frequently used files around so that they can be accessed more easily. The company reckons up to 80% improvements can be made, with averages of 10-20%. But on our test server, the best savings we could find on any of the three volumes was an estimated improvement of 4%.

General defrag performance is superior to the standard Windows tool: not surprising since it's merely a cut-down of an older version of this software. We ran Diskeeper on a heavily fragmented volume, where it took 11.5 minutes to tidy it up. We reinstated the volume from a disk image and watched the Windows tool take more than 15 minutes to complete the same task.

Diskeeper has always had little competition, with Winternal's Defrag Manager being one of the few that can stand up to it. For defrag performance, the latter is slightly better, but Diskeeper holds all the aces for the number of features on offer.

Author: Dave Mitchell