A lot of Lotus Notes users are also PerfectDisk users. And one of the biggest reasons these users tell us over and over is because of PerfectDisk's Space Restoration Technology -- total, single-pass free space consolidation.
The Lotus Notes replication function synchs client users' databases with the server database. This results in new information being written to the local disk drive, increasing the size of the Notes database. The Windows file system views the Notes database as a single file. As more data is downloaded due to replication, the file system needs to find more free space to accommodate the growth of the Notes database. If the file system can't find contiguous free space, it will place the new data wherever it can, with the result being a badly fragmented Notes database. Severe Notes fragmentation manifests itself in unacceptable Notes application launch times and slow overall system performance as the fragmentation worsens.
If the free space is consolidated, the file system can allocate large pieces of contiguous space to extend the Notes databases, thereby reducing the total number of fragments and minimizing the adverse impact on performance.
It happens all the time. There's the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical firm (there's a very good change you use something from them; there's virtually no chance you don't know its name) that originally made the wrong choice. They followed the hype and ended up with a defragmenter that was not up to the task. Free space became so fragmented the defragmenter could no longer function. Then they really studied the issue, brought in PerfectDisk, and now have fast-running systems all the time.
You can read more details about disk defragmentation in a Lotus Notes environment and the pharmaceutical company in this white paper.
Notes without free space consolidation? Better take some aspirin.
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