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Ive heard from dozens of readers in response to my July 1 column, describing my search for a complete disk defragmentation solution for my Windows NT and Windows 2000 machines. Executive Software Internationals DiskKeeper (www.executive.com) was most often mentioned, with its boot-time options to deal with problems on startup that cant be addressed once the operating system is fully awake.
Self-interested or not, Executive Software has commissioned startling research on the effects of fragmentation on application performance. Theyre not pretty. (You can get the whole story via www.eweek.com/links.)
Also praised by its users was the less well-known, but perhaps even more capable, PerfectDisk 2000 from Raxco Software (www.raxco.com), whose claims include more complete treatment of FAT partitions than DiskKeeper provides. But there are new releases all the time, so time-of-purchase investigation is always a good idea. Ive seen DiskKeeper but havent adopted it for personal use; PerfectDisk 2000 is new to me, and I hope to have observations to share soon.
If I dont seem delighted to be told about not one, but two, products that do what Symantecs knowledge base suggested was no longer possible, its because the promise of boot-time defragmentation makes me wonder, “Why would I want to reboot?” I dont want to reboot, ever. I want my systems up and running, 24-by-7, so I can check a fact or receive e-mail or process a digital photo as the need arises. I hardly need add that servers should certainly be running around the clock, without interruption for any normal (or even most abnormal) maintenance.
Ive seen enough operating systems with dynamic loading and unloading facilities to believe that any normal operation that requires a reboot should be barred from any future operating system design. But until I can get an uptime-all-the-time operating system, Ill be using paired disks in the same way that the original LISP machines used memory: When half my storage gets full or otherwise degrades, Ill copy what I want to the other half and wipe the first half down to bare metal.
And Ill do it on my schedule, not at the convenience of something that wants to take control of my machine while Id rather be working.
Tell me how you keep them running at peter_coffee@ziffdavis.com.