Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Contig Saves the Day

Getting fed up with Diskeeper was the best thing that has happened to my hard drive in ages. I uninstalled it in disgust, because it simply wasn't working properly any more.
A quick search on Google helped me find Sysinternals Contig, one of the most useful command-line utilities you could ever use. Unfortunately, Microsoft also found it, and bought the company. So there is no telling how long it will be around. As a safety precaution it is now included "as is" in the full install of Zippy because it is so useful to include in the zip.bat file used by Zippy.
I have been testing DIRMS, which stands for "Do It Right Microsoft", a cheeky enough name, except that the software, already in version 2, is very rough around the edges, and I'm not even sure if it is doing its job properly. So the jury is out on that one.
I have also tried Raxco PerfectDisk 7.0, and its the closest thing to the good old Norton Speed Disk that I have found. It costs US$ 39.99, which is halfway between the Diskeeper Home Edition $29.99 and the Professional edition $49.95. The difference is that PerfectDisk gives far better results than Diskeeper, so unless DIRMS can actully come up with the goods and start working properly, PerfectDisk is going to get another customer.
The Great Defrag Shootout: Part I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII | XIV | XV | all

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