Diskeeper 9 Professional

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Diskeeper 9 Professional: Perhaps the Ultimate Defragmenter

Diskeeper 9 Professional and its clean interface. The big changes are the features and the ease of use.

Diskeeper 9 Professional,  Executive Software 

Executive Software’s Diskeeper has been around a while. Known for its ability to defragment a hard drive faster than most utilities, their latest version, Diskeeper 9 Professional, adds a few bells and whistles that make this a worthwhile upgrade for existing users, and an enticing incentive for new comers.

The big new things here are a defragmenter for the Master File Table and a file performance mode that allows you to allocate just how much CPU time Diskeeper is permitted. 

If disk fragmentation and Master File Tables and such sound like so much techno speak, the purpose of Diskeeper has always been to keep it pretty simple.  In fact, Executive software has a real knack for keeping things from getting too complex. 

Not unlike an automobile, computers, unfortunately, have not reached a state where they can just run and run without a little maintance. In fact, your average PC needs a number of utilities around just to keep it from running into sluggishness, inconsistence and even data loss.   

What Diskeeper basically does is defragment your hard drive and with version 9 system files that load before windows that contain valuable data about your hard drive that require defragmenting are addressed.  

In sharp contrast to system suites, Executive Software has not turned Diskeeper into an entire system utility. It does not do back ups, offer a firewall, or perform any other functions. The focus of Diskeeper is purely on keeping your hard drive and important system files from fragmenting. 

Built on the same engine that Microsoft uses in their built in defragmenter for windows, in fact Diskeeper 9 Professional replaces it when installed, Executive Software’s more elaborate one offers faster scanning, more efficient scanning the ability to configure how defragmentation takes place and offers up a load of extras that are not present in the standard defragmenter that ships with various flavors of windows. 

Common to all versions of Diskeeper are the “Set It and Forget It “ functionality that allows you to automatically defragment , Multi Pass Defragmentation, which allows for maximum Pc performance with no waits or slow downs,  NEW I/O Smart, an intelligent monitor that allows other programs to have access to the drive, Screen Saver mode that defrags during an idle time, Power Management to conserve power for lap tops and a 30 day money back guarantee. 

The big features in the upper tier versions of Diskeeper 9, there are six versions in all features the following: 

Boot Time Mode – This allows the program to defragment the MFT and Paging File which cannot be fully defragmented while windows is running. This feature allows for defragmenting of these system files outside of  Windows. 

Frag Shield works on the defragmentation of delicate and essential system files. 

Two Scheduled times for defragmentation 

File Performance and defragmentation Mode, this allows for the program to get to the most problemed files first that cause the most defragmentation. 

Fragmentation occurs when your hard drive places files here and there.  When a hard drive writes files to disk, it does not always place them conveniently next to each other. When a file needs to be read, part of it could be in one place, the other somewhere else. Over time, this means the hard drive has to look harder and longer to find files.  

What defraging does is put files that need to be closer together in closer proximity so as to reduce the time the hard drive needs to hunt for files. 

In the older days of computing this was not an issue. With video files being huge, digital image editing reaching hundreds or megs, defraging has become an issue. 

Thankfully, Executive software is here to help save the day. 

Summation 

With the bevy of features in the pro version, I can’t really imagine not having them after install them. Even if you have a full featured utility installed, Diskeeper is that little extra bit of prevenation that is great if you can have it around. 

Although Diskeeper 9 looks nearly identical to Diskeeper 8, it is the under the hood features that make this a compelling upgrade for long time users. Naturally, I would advise care in defraging. I have known people to go Defrag happy and run them too often.  I would suggest running one when suggested, or if you install and uninstall programs frequently. 

As part of a full featured utility suite, this is one worth keeping around.