Well, here it is: The last several versions of Diskeeper have left me a little bit disappointed. First off, let me be clear: Diskeeper is still a fine product and I had no technical problems or corruptions, or anything like that. My biggest issue with Diskeeper is graphical. The latest UI design left me a bit confused and I longed for the older interface because I knew where everything was. Also, Diskeeper long ago removed the disk mapping graphics, which show the clusters on a given partition as individual cells, and in even older versions, you could "walk the map" and see the layout of individual files and how they might contribute to fragmentation. Mostly, that display wasn't necessary, and I'll acknowledge that. But I liked it because it allowed me to get my geek fix, and then Diskeeper removed it.
The overhanging question in all this is of course, "do we still need to defrag?" It's a valid question, especially in today's increasingly ubiquitous SSD climate, where defragging is neither needed nor a good practice. Personally, I am on the cusp at this time due to the sheer amount of data that I have. But a good decision could be made by going either way, and in the future, maybe I won't need a defragger either! However, I do still maintain several spinning hard drive partitions (currently only on one physical HDD), and some of them still get updated on a semi-frequent basis. Eventually I just used my good judgement and gut feeling to decide that "this time", I'd like to still use a defragger for this machine.
So I got the Diskeeper (15?) Trial about a month ago and started using it. I was actually not very excited by it; it has been so oversimplified in the last several versions, and this latest one was like a toy version of the product. My personal corruption as an end-user really began with a few idle Google searches, and I saw Raxco's Perfect Disk. So when my Diskeeper trial ended, I didn't do what I always used to do which was buy an upgrade license without really thinking about it. This time, I remembered Raxco and I decided to check it out. I de-installed the Diskeeper trial and I've been using Perfect Disk for about a week now.
Here's what I like:
1. PD doesn't force me into the generic end-user category by hiding the scheduling options and making up for it by saying "oh our product is so resource friendly you can just set and forget". PD actually allows me to set a schedule. Thank you for letting me fit this product in with my usage patterns and my backup strategy!
2. PD also has a walk-map. Yay! I probably won't use it very often but I like having it there, dammit!
3. PD has the other stuff that Diskeeper has. A facility to allow files to be written/re-written without being fragmented. An easy way to just analyze drives. A clear way to see the status of my drives (including SMART information), and an easy way to take one out of my defrag strategy, such as the recovery partition on my SSD or the 3 TB drive I use for my Macrium Reflect backups.
4. The documentation is well laid out, and Raxco actually provides a bit more detail regarding their defragging methodologies. This impressed me.
There are other features that I don't use, such as a duplicate file-finder and a recycle bin management tool, but it's easy to just leave those turned off, and it's nice to know they're there.
I haven't yet found anything I don't like, but then I've only just begun the trial. Only today did I finally figure out how to set the scheduler correctly (Duh!), so it will be a few weeks yet before I make a decision. But so far so good.
Disclaimer: I am not and never have been affiliated with either Raxco or Condusiv or their products. I'm just a mildly dissatisfied partially geeky end-user who gets annoyed when new software is either dumbed down or when useful features are mysteriously removed.
