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Stephanie Diamond of Digital Media Works recently sat down with Raxco Software's president and CEO Bob Nolan. Bob touched on the market reaction to PerfectDisk 10, PerfectDisk's impact on consumers and businesses in the current economic environment, the challenges of defragmentation in a virtual environment, and more.
You can listen to the interview here.
Lewis Allard, from Colorado Springs, is a 25-year old programmer for a major defense contractor. While at his job he gets programming performance boosts from PerfectDisk, I'm writing today about the performance improvements his systems get while playing video games. Lewis plays a wide variety of games, with World of Warcraft probably being his favorite.
WoW is big -- it takes up 15GB for the game and another 1.5GB for patches, which Lewis keeps on hand in case he needs to reinstall and repatch. As he says, "even by today's standards, it is a HUGE game." Another of Lewis' favorites, Fallout 3, takes up another 6GB. Lewis originally purchased PerfectDisk to increase his framerate in WoW's most populous areas, such as major cities and player versus player battlegrounds. Not only did PerfectDisk help improve his game's frames per second (FPS), it also improved the time it takes to load World of Warcraft (and other games). Lewis points out that "obviously some factors of loading into the game are out of control of the computer due to the games online connectivity, but the overall time was significantly lower than previous logins without PerfectDisk. 
When Lewis moved to the Windows 7 Beta, he knew he would need the same firepower he had previously to keep on top of his games. He found that "on Windows 7, logged into WoW sitting in Dalaran (the game's most populous city), I could get roughly 20-45 FPS, depending on the time of day. Those aren't bad frames on a game that runs 11 million-plus people worldwide, but I felt I could do better with PerfectDisk." Sure enough, he got to 35-50 FPS in the same situations.
Just ask Lewis...if you're going to take on the world, you better have the best tools.
Related posts:
Writing at the Help Desk Geek web site, which covers "Computer Tips for IT Pros," systems analyst Aseem Kishore discusses the technical merits of defragmenting, while acknowledging the ongoing debate about its worthiness. Following his investigations and research, he summarizes that "PerfectDisk has made me a believer in defragmenting again and I think it will make a big difference if you are a heavy PC user. It's great for IT environments." You can read the entire post here.
If Aseem doesn't make you a believer, surely Shrek can...or at least put you in a good mood.
The second live webinar of our 3-part series is tomorrow, Tuesday, at noon (9:00 a.m. PDT). This one is entitled Defragmentation in the Corporate World and goes into the PerfectDisk 10 client in detail. The webinar will be about 30 minutes in length.
You can register here, where you can also register for May 5th's webinar on Defragmentation in a Virtual Environment.
From time to time, I've saluted Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals), recognizing the invaluable service they provide to the Microsoft user community in numerous categories. Having an MVP on staff here has only deepened my appreciation for what they do. Of course, I have to admit it's nice to know and makes us proud that PerfectDisk is the preferred defragmenter of choice of MVPs around the world.
I love hearing their stories, which are relayed to us frequently. Keith Elder is a Microsoft MV and INETA speaker, and runs the popular, informative and entertaining Deep Fried Bytes technology podcast as well as his blog, Words of Wisdom from the Elder. Keith is a big fan of the PerfectDisk base product, but also has experienced huge benefits from PerfectDisk 10 for VMware.
Actually, his story starts out with the prior version, PerfectDisk 2008 for VMware. Keith had a virtual machine that would not boot. He kept receiving an error message and it appeared to him that the disk was somewhat corrupted. Keith says he "ran PerfectDisk on it and after it was done it fixed the problem, and I'm still developing in this VM right now. Had it not been for PerfectDisk's integration with VMware, I honestly don't know what I would have done next. Probably would have had to resort to recovering off site backups."
How do you defrag VMware?
As the world commemorates Earth Day 2009 and the entire global community moves environmental discussions to the forefront, it's the perfect opportunity to look at the defragmentation issue from an environmental perspective. Industry reports abound about the tough time PC makers are going through now, with netbook sales doing well, but other PC shipments suffering along with the rest of the economy. As families and businesses do everything they can to squeeze dollars and resources wherever and however they can, a new computer is turning into one thing that gets delayed. And a good defrag helps extend computer life.
With fewer PCs being purchased, fewer are being discarded and recycled. But what about the computer you're running? With a single-pass defrag strategy that in essence "shrinks" the drive, PerfectDisk users save on the computing resources they use. This is in contrast to typical multi-pass defraggers that need to churn and churn away at the problem. You won't want to turn your PC off at night or any other time with a multi-pass defragmenter, because chances are good you won't have a completely defragged drive. And if you've got just one big, nasty fragmented file, PerfectDisk users can quickly and easily defragment that one file and then move on to their other business.
PerfectDisk is doing its part on the virtualization front as well. As businesses move heavily to the virtual server model, we're helping them get the most out of this setup. As businesses utilize fewer physical servers and look to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprints, PerfectDisk's exclusive Virtual Aware Defrag helps ensure they'll be as efficient as possible. And of course, the same single-pass strategy applies here as well, ensuring the most efficient use of resources.
Here at PerfectDisk headquarters, besides the "easy" things like using all recycled paper and more electronic software distribution over physical, we've reduced our energy consumption over 25%, despite an increase in heating degree days of 78.7%. More virtual machines, fewer physical machines, resulting in less energy consumed and a smaller footprint. Even as we've grown the business and added employees.
We're all aware of our impact on the environment more than ever now. Every little bit helps.
In its own small way, PerfectDisk is as well.
Another day, another 5-star award for PerfectDisk 10. The latest is from ITreviewed.
The ITreviewed states that PerfectDisk is faster, more effective, and offers a lot more features and flexibility than the Windows built-in defragger, and is the best of third-party offerings. The review indicates that PerfectDisk helps users “maintain the best possible hard drive performance,” whether they are novice users, power users, or “network gurus.” ITreviewed says that “using PerfectDisk is a joy and it’s always great fun to see how much space you can recover from your hard drive - PerfectDisk even shows the before and after performance of the drive, the type of files moved, and how frequently modified each file normally is. The software is easy to use, and there are plenty of settings and reporting for advanced users.
“Besides the effectiveness of PerfectDisk, those with older (slower) machines will appreciate the software’s low footprint and the way it allows you to get on with your tasks without dragging your machine to a crawl - it doesn’t overload the CPU and RAM like many utility programs sometimes do. This is an obvious advantage over the typical Windows 7/Vista/XP Defrag, which typically cuts performance horribly.” You can see the entire review here.
ITreviewed....and it knows.
We know that there are always some things that you wish you could do with PerfectDisk, but they just are not built into the application, at least yet. That's why we have a few tips and tricks for you advanced users that can help you do a little more.
Things like turning off the PerfectDisk services or shutting down the operating system after PerfectDisk runs, or modifying the way the PerfectDisk 10 Enterprise Console links to an Active Directory OU.
PerfectDisk 10 Tips and Tricks for the client can be found here. PerfectDisk 10 Tips and Tricks for the Enterprise Console can be found here. And they can both be accessed from the PerfectDisk 10 Updates and Downloads page.
These tools are for advanced users and are provided "as is."
Do a little more.
"I love stuff that works." That's how Alex Webley's blog about business and personal life starts out in a recent post about PerfectDisk. Alex describes himself as a corporate and business coach, life coach and counselor. His "approach to business, as in life, is to seek out and implement best practice" in areas in which he loves, enjoys and excels in. His overriding philosophy? "Life is too short and valuable to do otherwise" and he wants to "help as many people as possible" before he leaves this world.
His is not a technology blog. But in the case of PerfectDisk, Alex has found a tool to help him in all his other pursuits, and feels it will help others in theirs. Alex writes that "because I use computers so much I need top quality applications that enable me to stay productive. Getting bogged down with computer maintenance or technical issues is not good. Running a computer defrag (defragmentation) regularly is a smart thing to do."
He writes that he has tried a number of computer disk defragmentation programs, including Windows own built-in method, over the years. But he's "found one program which met my exacting standards. That program is PerfectDisk which I have been using now since 2004. My research indicated that Perfect Disk is the best Defragger and use has proved it."
He goes on to state that he has spent "enough time on research to ensure that what I obtained was the best for our needs. PerfectDisk was the clear winner by a long way. We especially like the way the software does a high quality defrag while we are working - we therefore suffer no loss of productivity or valuable billable time. The time spent researching to get things right from the start paid off."
He ends his post telling his users to "benefit from the time and effort I spent in getting making the right choice."
On a global scale, we've all seen what the wrong choices can lead to around the world.
Now more than ever, making the right choice is critical. Stuff that works.
Information Week's website reports today that 83% of businesses won't deploy Windows 7 next year, meaning it will be at least 2011 before they start to move. We know the move by consumers will come more quickly, as we already have tens of thousands running PerfectDisk 10 on Windows 7. Still, with the official release of Windows 7 likely to come this year, corporate IT departments are in no rush. They continue to try to squeeze everything they can out of what they have, which is why we see the business world defragmenting more than ever.
But for those consumers that are already using the Windows 7 beta or those who are anxious to get their hands on the gold release, PerfectDisk gives them what they need and can't get from Microsoft today...or with Windows 7. Things like patented optimization. Things like StealthPatrol automatic background and Screen Saver defrag, and the most comprehensive and flexible scheduling available. The most complete free space consolidation possible, along with the ability to pick and choose particular files. And comprehensive Space Management capabilities that gives users not only a detailed view of their drives, but the ability to clean their drives and recover valuable space.
A smarter way to defrag Windows 7.
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