PerfectDisk Blog from Raxco.com| Defrag Software

Are you smarter?

                                

"Always-on," background processing defragmentation is great in theory. And in some cases, it's great in practice. For users that have periods of activity on their PCs and laptops along with times when their computer is not in use, it can make a lot of sense. The same can be said for servers. Although, when you get to heavy-use, 24x7, mission-critical, non-stop use servers, finding any meaningful idle time - or any idle time at all - can be a fruitless venture. That's why PerfectDisk provides the flexibility to schedule the defrag of drives when background scheduling is not an option. And there are plenty of times when it is not an option.

But you know that.

You also know that background defragmentation does take some resources. It's doing something. So that takes some of your computer's resources. But even when "automatic," background processing makes sense, it doesn't make sense to keep using these "idle" resources when there's nothing to really accomplish. After all the leaves in your yard are raked, you don't keep raking do you? Well, you might if you weren't disposing the leaves but just raking them back and forth all over your yard...

         

What if your defragmentation software was smart enough to just stop background defragmentation when a drive was completely defragmented and free space consolidated. Of course, that would only be achieved if there was an optimization strategy in the first place, so there was the largest piece of contiguous free space possible.

Work done. Take a rest. No more resources used, invisible or not. Yard raked, nothing but green grass. Sit back and have that beer or lemonade.

                             

Sometimes invisible is good. Sometimes it's better to be smarter.

It's a Perfect 10. Coming soon.

             

Related Posts:

• Virtual awareness
• Analyze this
• Our best ever is coming
• Obama or McCain
• 2009 tech trends

Obama or McCain, red or blue -- you're covered in 2009

                           

The big race finally comes to a conclusion a week from tomorrow. No endorsement or recommendation here - that will be left to the newspapers, TV pundits and every other voice around the world that is chiming in like never before this year. For the purposes of this space, I'm going with "New in 2009." Out with foreclosures, job losses, and inflation. Whatever direction the US electorate takes a week from tomorrow, it's going to be looking for change.

As are we here, with PerfectDisk. There will be some "stay the course." We're not going to do away with things like defrag thoroughness, total free space consolidation, and unparalleled scheduling flexibility - all the smart stuff our users expect. But there will also be change - not for just for the sake of it, but for a better user experience. Faster. Enhanced usability. More information. More automation. More virtualization. More of what our users have asked for.

2009 is coming. Change is on the way. 

        

2009 tech trends -- Gartner misses a little, eWeek hits it...PerfectDisk plays

   It's that time of the year -- 4th quarter -- when the pundits and analysts are rolling out their predictions for what will be the big technology trends in 2009. Industry analyst giant Gartner analyst group weighed in with its top 10 strategic technologies for 2009:

• virtualization
• cloud computing
• servers
• enterprise mashups
• specialized systems
• social software
• social networks
• unified communications
• business intelligence
• green IT.

It's hard to argue with Gartner's list -- all highly visible and important issues. Many dubbed 2008 the year of virtualization. I think 2009 is going to go after that title as well. Our virtualization solutions have been well-received out of the box in early 2008 and have continued to pick up steam throughout the year. Developers and administrators both see the value. In line with Gartner, our server business has also been thriving this year. Servers are running all aspects of business, are crucial, and need to perform flawlessly and optimally.

Yet despite Gartner's nice list, in this week's edition of eWeek magazine, Eric Lundquist, editor in chief, has put together The 10 techs Gartner missed, that acknowldges Gartner's strong list but also points out some other very important ones. I'm with Eric - he definitely hits on some key ones that I see evidence of here in our somewhat smaller world view that is disk defragmentation.

                            

Number 3 on Lundquist's list is "Tune-up." He says "look, 2009 is going to be tough on the budget. Companies are going to want to extend systems through overhauls and tune-ups rather than through new purchases." Choir here, Eric - nice sermon! Indeed, we've actually seen increased activity across our business lines since the economic meltdown over the last several weeks. The IT adminsitrators and managers in the trenches understand that the money for a bunch of new shiny hardware isn't coming through. But by spending a little bit on software that can extend their existing PCs, laptops, and servers lives as well as boost their performance to make their users more productive and happy, they can be literally heroes in their organization. Same thing for small businesses and same for consumers. They are looking to get the most our of what they have. Enter good ol' tried and true, boring defragmentation. Like every other recession.

                                                           

Number 10 on Lundquist's list is "New green." He's not talking about marketing hype that is everywhere these days. Lundquist says "the biggest cost savings is the system that is turned off..." That's doable with PerfectDisk's flexible scheduling options that allow for completely defragmenting your entire drives and completely consolidating free space...and shutting off your machine. Other not-so-smart solutions might never get the job done if you actually turned them off to save some energy.

There's also going to be a lot from us in 2009. For the latest, follow PerfectDisk on Twitter.

Twitter tweets for PerfectDisk

Add Twitter as another way that we are trying to stay connected to our users. This blog, the PerfectDisk Pro Users Community, our Keep Your PC Healthy and Optimize Now newsletters, the PerfectDisk group on and Facebook are all ways we're trying to keep in touch with you. 

I'm new to Twitter, but see it as another way to let you know what's going on here at Raxco, and for you to talk to me. And with PerfectDisk 2009 on the horizon, it just may be a way for you to keep in the loop even more.

I'm PerfectDisk on Twitter. If you use it, let's talk.

                      

What's cookin' in the lab -- is that PerfectDisk 2009?

             

Just opened up my Inbox a few minutes ago to a fresh copy of a pre-Alpha version of PerfectDisk 2009 from the PerfectDisk lab. Fired it up to take my first look and I can say this -- the engineers are on their way to pushing the envelope again. Now before you get too excited - or anxious or impatient...:) - I need to tell you it's still a few months away. But it's nice to get that first look out of the lab. And I just did a defrag with it - speedy...and a few other surprises.

It's on its way.