I got a chance to test drive the second edition of Executive Softwares popular desktop optimizing utility, Diskeeper 7.0, earlier this month. Based on my tests, Id recommend Second Edition for sites that want to maximize disk performance in their servers or desktop clients.
The revamped optimizer gains new management capabilities and better performance with a faster defrag engine. There is also a new PushInstaller that enables IT managers to deploy the software to client desktops over the network.
Diskeeper 7.0 Second Edition comes in two versions: Workstation and Server. The $50 Workstation edition, which I tested, runs on Windows 2000/XP Professional, Windows NT Workstation and Windows ME/9x. The $250 Server version runs on Windows 2000/NT Server, Windows 2000 and Windows 2000/XP Professional and can manage all installed Diskeeper 6.0 or 7.0 systems over the network.
When I installed Diskeeper Workstation on a Windows XP Professional desktop, the interface looked almost identical to the built-in Diskeeper within Windows, but the differences became apparent once I started running the software. I ran Diskeeper to analyze the system disk volume and found the disk volume to be heavily fragmented. Despite this, Diskeeper defragmented the entire volume in a mere 7 minutes.
For more information, go to www.diskeeper.com.