Review of PerfectDisk 12 Home Server for Windows Home Server V1

Earlier in the week we announced the release of PerfectDisk 12, including the Windows Home Server versions. We then reviewed the Windows Home Server 2011 version. Here we review PerfectDisk 12 Home Server for Windows Home Server V1.

● Maximize streaming media performance
● Reduce back-up times
● Eliminate hard drive fragmentation
● Completely consolidate free space
● Bundles include PerfectDisk Professional for connected PCs

The main thing to note about PerfectDisk 12 Home Server for Windows Home Server V1 verses the Windows Home Server 2011 version is that the software is integrated into the Dashboard of WHS V1 (which is what you would expect of a WHS add-in). With Windows Home Server 2011. the PD12 application is a completely separate application so can only be accessed directly or via remote desktop. While this isn’t a major issue, it is just one more step to go through, so I am happy to see that it is integrated into V1!

Who Are Raxco?

From their website:

For over 30 years Raxco Software has developed award-winning defragmentation solutions and performance utilities that improve hard drive and server performance, simplify system administration and help our customers work more efficiently –at home and at the office.

Raxco has consistently been the first to support and receive certification on the latest Windows versions, including Windows 7, Vista, Windows Server 2008, and more. PerfectDisk’s innovations, such as the patented OptiWrite fragmentation prevention, patented SMARTPlacement optimization, Virtual Aware defragmentation for VMware’s vSphere/ESX Server and Microsoft’s Hyper-V, total free space consolidation, large drive support, Active Directory integration, single-pass defrag, and proactive enterprise console alerting and warning, continue to set the bar for the defrag market.

Why Do I Need It?

You might ask yourself why you would want to buy disk defragmentation software. Well the answer is that you may not want to. What do I mean by that? Well, put simply it is a matter of personal preference. Disk defragmentation software is one of those topics that often gets one of two similar responses – either “I must have it” or “I don’t want or need it”.

Personally I must have it. If you don’t know why you might want it, put simply, as files are stored, moved, deleted, updated and so on, over time they can be potentially stored on different areas of the disk rather than in a single block. This is called disk fragmentation. There could be thousands of parts of files scattered all over the disks on your home server. What this means is that it takes longer to read and write those files than it would do if they were all in the same place. That annoying delay waiting for that Word document to open? Could be disk fragmentation.

This is where disk defragmentation software comes into play. The software examines the disk and all of your files, figures out where the parts of the files physically on your drives are and attempts to move them together to make things run faster and smoother. This is a good thing – just imagine having hundreds of gigabytes of files scattered all over the disk.

What’s New?

Preconfigured to automatically optimize your digital life.

Optimize your entire Home Server environment so you can access your photos, music and videos quickly. PerfectDisk 12 Home Server speeds up processing times so your Home Server always runs like new.

Fragmentation Prevention with OptiWrite™

PerfectDisk’s new OptiWrite™ technology prevents most fragmentation on your drive before it occurs, which prevents your system from slowing down. OptiWrite™ detects when Windows is going to fragment files and intelligently redirects I/O to stop the fragmentation from occuring. System performance is maintained and the need to utilize CPU and Disk I/O resources to defragment files is greatly reduced. Because less defragmentation is needed, there is a direct benefit in the form of energy saved in both CPU usage and in the reading and writing to a disk. It saves users both in energy costs and in the time required to defragment a file system.

Intelligent Disk Optimization

For the limited fragmentation that can still occur, PerfectDisk’s patented SMARTPlacement optimization strategy optimizes disk drives according to your unique usage patterns. SMARTPlacement results in the most consolidated free space available, the elimination of most fragmentation before it occurs, and a reduced rate of fragmentation.

SSD Optimize is an optimization method for SSDs that focuses on free space consolidation without defragmentation of files. Solid State Drives are not affected by file fragmentation like traditional electromechanical disk drives. As such, it will leave files in a fragmented state while consolidating free space into large pieces.

Faster Start-Up

Experience faster system start-up times with our proprietary boot file optimization. Improve start-up time by 20% or more.

Auto-Optimization for Complete Unattended Optimization

PerfectDisk’s exclusive StealthPatrol™ tab is used to set automatic fragmentation prevention and optimize your system when it isn’t busy. Auto-optimization affords you the flexibility to optimize your system when it is idle or when the Windows screensaver is active. Auto-optimization provides the flexibility to not run during certain periods of the day or when a user-defined application is running. No other defrag or optimization utility proves this level of flexibility.

Advanced Boot Time Defrag

An important factor in faster PC performance is a thorough boot time defrag. PerfectDisk’s advanced boot time defrag capability is able to defragment files that otherwise would remain fragmented such as the Windows pagefile.sys or the file system’s MFT (Master File Table) and provides the best boot time defrag operation.

Total disk defragmentation and free space consolidation

PerfectDisk offers the most comprehensive solution for defragmentation by optimizing virtually every file on the system, including the Master File Table (MFT), all NTFS metadata files, paging files, directories, and datafiles, and completely consolidating free space. And it does it all in a single pass. There’s also a Selected Files Defrag option that is useful for defragmenting very large files such as video files, rather than defragmenting the entire drive.

S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring

New S.M.A.R.T. monitoring capabilities monitor the status of physical drives. It generates warnings and alerts for hardware performance and reliability, helping you ensure you are aware of any potential hardware problems.

CPU and I/O – control Resource Throttling

Perfectdisk provides resource throttling capabilities to manage resource usage as efficiently as possible. I/O throttling allows PerfectDisk to run on very busy disks without imposing additional load on the disk. CPU throttling allows you to raise or lower the CPU priority at which it runs. PerfectDisk uses very minimal CPU resources in its standard processing.