Benchmarks*: Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier 11.0.698.0

The review of Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier is here, and I have uploaded the results of the benchmark tests in a spreadsheet. A quick summary of the results: the $99 Diskeeper 2007 doesn't always work as well as the free Windows Disk Defragmenter (WDD) supplied with Windows XP. I am at a loss to explain why only one of the tests achieved a result 2.4% better than WDD, or why the final I-FAAST test caused a slower result.
The graph shows Diskeeper 2007 Pro Premier (DK) in dark blue, and the results from Windows XP in light blue. The first test is at the bottom, and shorter lines mean faster times.

• "Basic XP" refers to the standard install, without Office 2007, so there are only 710 files to be tested.
• "Defrag" refers to the read times of the same 710 files, after several defrag passes using the DK program, with no "Optimize Files" or "Optimize Boot" options enabled. Only 8.7% performance improvement is measured.
  
• "Defrag+Auto" refers to the read time after enabling "Optimize Boot" functions in Windows, and the I-FAAST option in Diskeeper. An improvement of 11.5% is recorded.
  
• "XP+Auto" is the result obtained after enabling both "Optimize Files" and "Optimize Boot" functions in Windows, and then running WDD, i.e. the best that Windows XP can manage.
  
• "Basic Office" refers to the read time of all 802 test files, where no defragmentation has been done whatsoever, after the installation of Microsoft Office 2007 Professional (Trial).
• "Full Defrag" refers to the read time of all 802 test files after several reboots and several passes using the DK program, with no I-FAAST or "Optimize Boot" options enabled. A 29.6% performance improvement has been measured, the best result so far, but only 2.4% better than "Office Auto" below.
• "I-FAAST+Auto" is the result obtained after enabling and "Optimize Boot" functions in Windows, and then running DK with I-FAAST enabled . This performance improvement of 14.4% is not as good as was expected, and slower than "Office Auto".
  
• "Office Auto" is the result obtained by allowing Windows XP to do its own defrag after enabling both "Optimize Files" and "Optimize Boot" functions.

The performance improvement ranges between 8% and 29%, with better results obtained when the built-in Windows functions are employed; "Optimize Boot" is enabled by default. The only advantage is that DK2007 allows for automatic defragmentation. Still, an average 16% performance improvement over no defrag at all isn't bad, but I expected much better from a program that costs $99. Disabling I-FAAST provides the equivalent functionality of the $49 Diskeeper 2007 Professional, but even so this is one of the most expensive defrag packages available.

The DK2007 display shows how the "InvisiTasking" operation works when not much processing is going on. I used the Windows Performance Monitor to monitor % hard drive activity (not shown above), shown below as a red line, while the % processor time is shown in green.
Even though this is a "background" task it can keep the hard drive pretty busy while it runs.
I enabled most options in DK 2007, including directory consolidation, InvisiTasking, statistics collection, and so on. The very top graphic shows the end result of all the tests, but the directories are still scattered around and the large clump of files at the end is presumably the result of I-FAAST moving older files to the end.
I did not enable the "Optimize Files" option because I didn't want it to clash with or degrade the I-FAAST facility, which represents half the cost of DK2007 Pro Premier. The next tests will be Diskeeper 2008 Pro Premier. Hopefully a better result can be obtained.

Diskeeper 2007 review | How Fast is I-FAAST?
*See: Benchmarks*: Why the Asterisk?