Perfect Disk 10 for Windows Home Server Review

Andrew Edney
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14

pd logo

Raxco Software have been around for quite a while now and have produced many different versions of their disk defragmentation software, including previous versions for Windows Home Server.

This review concentrates on the latest version Perfect Disk 10 for Windows Home Server, which was released earlier this year. It has won a number of awards, including PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice award and WindowsITPro Reader’s Choice award. The review will cover why you need it, some of it’s key features, how to install it and the conclusions.

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.

So, are you convinced that you might benefit from defragmentation software? If so, one thing that is very important to understand is that no matter what software you use, it MUST be Windows Home Server aware because of the way that Drive Extender works in WHS.

KEY FEATURES

So, what are some of the key features of Perfect Disk 10 for Windows Home Server I hear you ask? Well, even if you didn’t ask I am going to tell you!

SMARTPlacement is a feature that identifies the files that you use most and then organises them according to your own usage patterns. What this basically means is that the process is specific to you and how you operate. This speeds up subsequent defragmentation which also reduces any performance hits on the computer.

Single-pass defrag means that your drives are defragmented on a single pass, and not multiple passes like on previous versions.

AutoPilot Scheduling means that you can set the defragmentation up to take place at a time that is convenient for you and how you work.

There are quite a few other features – if you want to read all about them, click here.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

There are two different licence options for Perfect Disk 10 for Windows Home Server.

The first is a Single Licence, which covers your Windows Home Server and a single PC. This costs $49.99 or $24.99 to upgrade if you have a previous version.

There is also a Site Licence, which also covers your Windows Home Server and up to 10 PCs, which as you may recall is the maximum number of PCs that WHS supports. This costs $99.99 or $49.99 to upgrade if you have a previous version.

TRY IT FOR FREE:

If you would like to try it for free, for 30 days, you can do so by clicking here.

INSTALLATION & CONFIGURATION

To install Perfect Disk 10 for WHS once you have obtained the program file, perform the following steps on the computer you downloaded it to (this assumes that you have the WHS Connector software installed as well) :

Double click the PD10_WHS.exe file to start the installation process.

pd1

Click Next to continue.

Choose the location to install the files – you may as well just leave the default location.

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The installation will commence and when it is completed you will see the Perfect Disk menu.

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At this point you can just close the menu by clicking Exit and follow these instructions:

Right-click the WHS tray icon and click on Shared Folders.

sharedfolders

Double click the Software folder and copy the c:\Program Files\Raxco\PerfectDisk10Install\PerfectDisk10_Home_Server folder to it.

software share

The next part of the process may be new to you – you need to actually install the software on your Windows Home Server – and to do that you need to be on the actual WHS desktop itself. To do this you can either use the Remote Desktop Connection software that comes installed with Windows if your WHS is headless (for example an HP MediaSmart server) or you can just log into your WHS if you have a mouse, keyboard and monitor attached (for example if you built one yourself).

Start the Remote Desktop Connection software on your computer – it can be found at Start, Programs, Accessories, Remote Desktop Connection (if you are running Vista) or Start, Programs, Accessories, Communications, Remote Desktop Connection (if you are running XP).

RDC

Type in the name of your Windows Home Server and when prompted type in the Administrator password. This will launch the Remote Desktop Connection and you should then see your WHS desktop once you have closed Internet Explorer – remember to be very careful here!

Double click on the Shared Folders on Server icon and then double click on the Software folder.

You should see the PerfectDisk10_Home_Server folder you copied earlier – double click it to open it.

shared2

Double click PerfectDisk_x86.msi to start the installation.

pdi1

Click Next to continue. You will need to read the License Agreement, click on the I accept… radio button and then click Next to continue.

pdi2

You will be prompt to chose an installation directory, you may as well leave the default choice, and also if you want to place an icon on the WHS Desktop, again, you may as well leave this. Then just click Next to continue.

pdi3

Select the Setup Type from here – you should choose Complete, then click Next to continue.

pdi4

On the Ready to Install screen, just click Install to continue.

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At this point the installation will commence – it literally only takes a moment or two so don’t go anywhere! After it completes you have the option to check for updates, this is always a good idea and is checked by default. Just click Finish.

pdi6

If there are any updates they will be downloaded for you, but it is very likely you will be told that you are running the latest version.

pdi7

All you need to do now is close down the Remote Desktop Connection – and you can do this simply by clicking the X in the top right corner of the screen.

During the installation, PerfectDisk will create a weekly schedule to defragment all the drives at 6.00pm every Sunday. Also, the Firewall will be changed to allow remote access to PerfectDisk.

Now that PerfectDisk is installed, you can go to the Windows Home Server Console to use it.

Just launch the WHS Console as usual and you will see a new tab called PerfectDisk 10. Just click it to be taken to the license screen.

liencee

From here you can either enter your License key or you can continue for a 20 day trial.

You now have to configure PerfectDisk and then click Finish when you are done. You might want to consider checking the Do not show this wizard again box otherwise you will have to go through this every time.

console3

You will now see the PerfectDisk tab in all its glory.

console4

The first tab you are in is the Defragmentation tab, and from here you can analyse your drives and start a defragmentation of those drives.

Select a drive by clicking on it and then click the Analyze button to start.

I have to say that this is one of the parts of the software that I am not very happy with. You cannot see more than the C drive without having to scroll down and you only have a single line view so it can be a little fiddly. But after a while you do get used to it! You can actually get around this by launching the Perfect Disk 10 console from the WHS Desktop, although that does involve you having to once again use the Remote Desktop Connection software or being in front of your WHS just to see more than a single line.

Depending on the size of your drive, this may take a few minutes.

analyse

When it is complete, you will be provided with a report, as shown below.

report

Once you have read through the report, if you want to go ahead and perform the suggested actions, all you have to do is click on the Start button. You can then watch the process if you want or go off and do something else.

When it is all finished you will again see a report. This was very simple and only involved me click the Start button – so basically anyone can do it, you don’t need any special understanding or skill.

defrag complete

One the tabs is Space Management, and this tab shows you each disk and how much free space you have available.

spacemanagement

As you can see from the screenshot, there must be a bug here as according to this, I have 561% free space on my D drive!

Another tab is AutoPilot Scheduling which enables you to set when you want the defragmentation to happen.

autopitlot

The final tab is the Product Resources tab. This tab shows you information on the number of files defragmented along with the amount of free space reclaimed. You can also check for updates, view the logs, change settings and more.

resources

Each of the tabs have multiple other tabs and buttons within them for very fine tunin
g and setting changes, so chances are, if there is something you want to do or change, there is a way to do it.

CONCLUSION

So, in conclusion, Perfect Disk 10 for Windows Home Server is a very easy to install and easy to use product that once you have installed you can pretty much just leave it there running in the background. You may want to make a few tweaks, such as when the defragmentation happens, but again, it is very simple to do with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Again, if you think back to the start of the article, I mentioned that there are two camps when it comes to defragmentation software. I am still convinced that defrag is a necessity on any computer. I didn’t notice any performance hit from running Perfect Disk, even when I performed the initial analysis and defragmentation. In fact, to try and stress it a little more, I even performed a backup on a machine that had never been backed up at the same time as that initial defragmentation – without any problems.

Given the fact you can try it for free for 30 days, why not give it a go and see what it can do for you? And if you want to buy it, the cost is very small and even the cheapest licence also gives you a copy for one of your PCs as well.

For more information on Perfect Disk 10 and Raxco, click here.

WOULD YOU LIKE A FREE COPY?

So, would you like a free, fully licensed copy of Perfect Disk 10 for Windows Home Server?

Our friends at Raxco have given us 3 full licences of Perfect Disk 10 for Windows Home Server to give away to you lucky readers.

To win a copy, all you need to do is send an email to giveaways @ usingwhs.com (remembering to remove the spaces) with the title Perfect Disk 10 Giveaway, and tell us your name and where you are located, and a suggestion to improve UsingWindowsHomeServer.com by Friday 27th March 2009. Winners will be picked at random and announced on the site on Saturday 28th March. Good luck!

Events Page Now Live

Andrew Edney
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0

Just a quick post to say that the Events page is now live.

If you have an event you would like us to list, email andrew @ usingwhs.com (removing the spaces) and let us know all the details.

To view the Events page, click here.

Internet Explorer 8 Released Today

Andrew Edney
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2

IE8

Later today see’s the launch of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 browser. IE8 has been available as a beta for quite a while now, but today it’s finally moved to a released version and it is available in 25 different languages.

Some of the new features of IE8 include:

Accelerators. Accelerators make it faster and easier to perform common tasks online by making Web-based services such as ESPN.com, Live Search and Sina available for use directly from the page people are viewing. Users can simply right-click a word or phrase and instantly map, e-mail, or share it.

Web Slices. Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 makes favourite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo! Mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available wherever someone goes on the Web.

Visual search suggestions. The Instant Search Box in Internet Explorer 8 enables rich, real-time search from sites such as The New York Times, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as sites from people’s own Favourites and History, complete with visuals and detailed information that saves time.

There are also a number of security enhancements in IE8, including:

InPrivate. InPrivate helps to protect people’s data and privacy from being retained locally on the PC they are using. This protects against third parties who might be in a position to track a consumers’ online activities. Consumers have the ability to use either of the features (InPrivate Blocking or InPrivate Filtering) independently.

InPrivate Browsing. When activated, InPrivate Browsing helps ensure that History, temporary Internet files and cookies are not recorded on a PC after browsing. When in InPrivate Browsing, toolbars and extensions are automatically disabled, and browsing History is automatically deleted when the browser is closed.

InPrivate Filtering. InPrivate Filtering helps protect privacy by enabling the consumer to filter content coming from third parties that are in a position to track and aggregate their online behavior. Users are provided with notice, choice and control of which third parties to allow and which ones to filter.

I have been using the beta of IE8 now since the middle of last year and while some of the earlier beta releases had problems, I have to say that I actually do like it. There are some websites that it has problems with, but there is this Compatibility View which you can choose to show those websites instead.

To download Internet Explorer 8 today, click here.

Note: If you are one of those people, like myself, who is running Windows 7 in beta as well, you cannot upgrade to IE8 at this time, you will need to wait for the release candidate of Windows 7.

Windows Home Server on TechNet and MSDN – Not Quite Yet

Andrew Edney
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0

Further to yesterday’s post, it appears that Windows Home Server is not quite yet ready to be on TechNet and MSDN and that it was just a test of the system.

Don’t worry though, it is coming….. stayed tuned, there will be an announcement very very soon 🙂

Windows Home Server Finally Available on TechNet and MSDN

Andrew Edney
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1

Phil over at MSWHS.com is reporting that Windows Home Server is finally available on both TechNet and MSDN.

This is great news and has been a very long time coming. I’m not going to get into all the details as to why it has taken so long, but what I will say is that the guys in the Windows Home Server team have been working very hard for a very long time to make this happen. Well done guys!

And just to prove it is there, I took this from my Subscription page 2 minutes ago 🙂

WHS TechNet

The 2008 Engadget Awards – Voting Now Open

Andrew Edney
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2

Engadget awards

The 2008 Engadget Awards are now accepting votes for the technologies that you loved in 2008. The categories include Best, and Worst, Gadget of the Year, but also you will notice that the HP MediaSmart Server ex487 is listed as a finalist in the Storage Device or Technology of the Year category. That is great news that a WIndows Home Server is listed. So go and vote for it 🙂

Engadget awards 2

To cast your votes, click here by March 25th 2009 at 11.59pm.

Building an Astaro Personal Firewall with Spare or Low End Parts – Part Two now available

Andrew Edney
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1

Last week I posted that my friend, and fellow MVP Pete Stagman had just published the first in a series of articles on how you can build your own Astaro Personal Firewall with either spare or low end parts, and no other cost.

Well this week he has posted part two which includes how to connect your new Astaro firewall to your network, an explanation on IP addressing and subnet masks, and even information on if you want to run a Web server or a Windows Home Server on the network.

To read part two, click here.

New Windows Home Server Article in the Sydney Morning Herald

Andrew Edney
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1

Today’s Sydney Morning Herald newspaper has an article on Home Servers in their Digital Life section under the Buyer’s Guide called Are you being served?

The article is relatively short and in fact, Windows Home Server only gets a mention at the end of the article, but its worth a quick read to see what else is out there.

To read the full article click here.

UK Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server Usergroup Event

Andrew Edney
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0

April 21st 2009 will see the first UK Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server Usergroup Event taking place at the Aston Science Park in Birmingham.

Ian Dixon of the Digital Lifestyle.com has organised this event and it should be a great day.

I am presenting a session on Windows Home Server, so why not come along and support me / heckle me (delete as appropriate). I’m still not sure how Ian roped me into doing it, but I think it may have been something to do with the Digital Lifestyle.com t-shirt he gave me at CES 🙂

More details on the event will be available in the next few days, but for now go and register for the user group by clicking here.

Upgrading Windows Home Server to a gigabit network on a Friday night

Timothy Daleo
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9

Equipment required:

Gigabit capable Windows Home Server and at least one other gigabit capable computer

Gigabit router and switches

Cat 6 Cables of various lengths

4 Beers (2 of which are optional)

Windows Media Center playing your favorite party mix

7,246 zip ties

Background

In my home office for the last six years I have been growing a 100 Mbps network. I water half an inch twice a week in partial shade for best results . The current network is comprised of a cable modem connected to a WRT54G Linksys wireless router with two Netgear 100 Mbps switches. I have four Dell laptops on docking stations, two Dell desktops, a fax, multiple NAS devices, a HP3600 printer, one beer (as shown in the picture) and WHS running on a Dell SC440 PowerEdge. One office, two people, seven computers and nine LCD screens. The ratio sounds about right.

DSC_0023_stitch

I would like to say thank you to my wife for always letting me go free range and another thank you to Microsoft and the Image Composite Editor for creating the above panoramic.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ICE/

Mental Note: That little girl on the MS commercial totally smoked me on the quality of the panoramic picture of her fort. Loser.

Why am I upgrading to Gigabit?

In the last few months I have expanded my network out of the office to the living room with a HP Media Connect and Netflix Roku. In addition, five of the seven Dells have underutilized gigabit controllers and my Roku and HP are just screaming to get off of wireless G. Now, while I only get 10 Mbps from Charter out of the modem, I am constantly battling slow speeds inside the house during file transfer, streaming and backup. I like HD content through Miro downloads and WMC and have been waiting for 1000 Mbps to come down in price. Apparently, this week was the price point for which I have been waiting. Sorry wife, this might hurt a little. Remember prom?

My shopping list was the following:

  • D-link DGS-2205 5-Port Switch for $24.99 after rebate
  • D-link DGS-2208 8-Port Switch for $34.99 after rebate
  • D-link DIR-655 Wireless-N Router for $92.99
  • 15 Cat 6 patch cables ranging from 1-50 feet for $58.00
  • 12 pack of Taurino from Fresh and Easy for $6.99

Total for this upgrade is $217.96 plus tax.

100_2561

I have always been a Linksys man but the latest performance statistics for a new gigabit network led me down a different path. You should choose your own equipment based on need, price point and coolness factor. All of my network is hidden under the desk so I do not care what it looks like. For performance I referenced the site below to get speed ratings for all of the equipment I purchased.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

This website tests almost every piece of network hardware you can imagine. The menu bar at the top of their website directs you to all of their tests. This website also did a review of the HP MSS a few weeks ago that was very comprehensive. There are other sites out there so find at least one to research before you shop.

So back to my Friday night…

Installation

Every installation will be different and I will suggest one thing: Replace your router/wireless (gateway) first, and then the rest of the cables and switches. I changed my router first and once everything was working again I started on the remaining network changeover. The last thing you want to do is gut your network, have a problem and then try and troubleshoot the whole system. Do not do it. Seriously.

I upgraded from the WRT54G to the new DIR-655 and it is working well. I will have to adjust the settings and reconnect all of the wireless devices after the install.

I am going to skip the narration of the equipment change out and cabling runs. I will say that all of my existing 100 Mbps Cat 5 cable is blue and I went out of my way to order yellow Cat 6. The color change will always keep me from mixing up cables in the future. I have also finished running the cables and everything looks good.

100_2564

This is the underside of my IKEA desk. The one white cable is the one that I used to connect to the other switch in the server closet. The router LEDs change color based on 100 or 1000 Mbps speed.

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I have my printer and server on the switch shown above.

While I was down on the floor I cleaned up the APC for each of my five power groups and moved the NAS boxes (will hook up again someday) to the closet. NAS? Oh really? I mentioned that earlier. I, probably like you, started out with an external hard drive, then moved up to a NAS (or two or three) and then realized that I could have spent the same amount I paid for multiple NAS boxes on a home-built WHS. Lets join together and stop others from making our mistakes. Seriously. Viva WHS. Viva WHS. Viva WHS.

Testing

Now that everything is connected, and the network is up and running again, let’s see if it was worth the $217.96 plus tax. I will need a significant increase in speed if I am going to continue to justify future expenses to the wife.

For testing the new network speed I am going to do two tests. I am going to copy the first episode of Star Trek Voyager which is 952MB to the server and one folder with 973 MB (240 SLR pictures) from our hiking trip last weekend. My purely scientific timing method goes like this:

  1. Right eye looking at the sidebar clock through the bottom of my full Taurino bottle. Left eye on the progress bar.
  2. Start file upload and start drinking.
  3. If I complete the file transfer before I finish the beer then we have a successful test.
  4. Document the results in Windows Live Writer (to qualify these results as “scientific”).

Let’s set this pig on fire…

Download Before

Download After

Upload Before

Upload After
952 MB Video File

1:37

:55

1:31

:44
973 MB Picture Folder

2:12

1:16

2:52

1:04

What the heck? What happened to my pig? Where are my superfast increased speeds?  If I did the math right, I think I went from 78 Mbps to 138 Mbps on the download of Voyager? How can this be? Double the speed is good but I was expecting more. Crap². My upload is 173 Mbps? I was expecting like 600 Mbps. Crap³.

Well, after an hour of searching around to see if I had made some massive mistake, I found an article that I wish I had read before I started this endeavor.

http://on10.net/Blogs/EnglishBloke/how-can-i-speed-up-my-windows-home-server-file-copies/

After reading this article I realize that my speeds were not too bad considering I am using folder duplication, full sharing and have a Seagate Desktop Pro USB drive as part of my WHS storage. Should I be thankful for my transfer speeds? I would not mind a few comments from the readers about their file transfer times. Please make me feel better about this people. Seriously.

Your Mileage Will Vary

I have left out some topics that you might want to address for your specific installation.

  • I am not going to use Jumbo frames (4K or 9K) since I still have some older computers on my network.
  • Flow control should also be researched to see if it can help your network speed (My WHS Flow Control was already disabled and I adjusted each gigabit card accordingly)
  • I did not talk about managed switches and segmenting your network or VLAN. Maybe I can talk about that later in the Friday night series.

You can find detailed information on these topics at:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/blogcategory/22/54/

In addition, if you have VoIP, integrated home security or home automation you may have additional concerns. Our alarm backup plugged back in without any issues.

Conclusion

If you have an existing 100 Mbps network you may want to do you own research and time trials before moving up to gigabit. Upgrading the router was worth it since my extenders use Wireless N. For the switches and cabling, although I did see increases in speed, it was somewhat costly compared to the net change.

See you next Friday.

Windows Home Server Facebook Group

Andrew Edney
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0

facebook

So unless you have been living in a cave for the last couple of years, in which case Welcome, you would probably have heard of Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site that people use to communicate with their friends and colleagues, post pictures and information about themselves, join groups that interest them, and generally just be social.

Did you know that there is a Windows Home Server group on there? Well, actually, there are several Windows Home Server groups on there, but there is only one run by some of the guys in the Windows Home Server team at Microsoft.

This group was actually created on the 5th November 2007 and as of today has 627 “fans”. It has some interesting things on there – you should go have a look.

If you would like to join the largest Windows Home Server Facebook group, click here.

Hacking The HP EX470/475 MediaSmart Servers : Get Your Hack On

Andrew Edney
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3

The other night I posted that Ed Tittel has put together a great post that explained where to get the latest drivers if you happen to own an HP MediaSmart EX470 or EX475 Server.

Ed has now published a much longer article on Tom’s Hardware site that includes this information but also lots more including how to change the processor and also benchmarking your MediaSmart Server.

This is a useful read as this information can be found all in one place, rather than having to search around for it which has been the case up until now.

You can read Ed’s full article here.

Windows Home Server – The Next Version Webcast

Andrew Edney
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5

Microsoft are advertising a webcast for Microsoft Partners called “5W/50 Series – Windows Home Server – The Next Version”. This is a free to attend webcast due to take place on Friday 5th June 2009 at 9am Pacific US time, for an hour.

I am not sure at this stage now much information on “Vail” – the next version of Windows Home Server, will be included, but certainly there will be information on Power Pack 2, and some other things as well, but you will have to wait and see just what that is – I don’t want to spoil the fun.

The event is going to presented by my friends and fellow MVPs Kevin Royalty and Grey Lancaster, and I will also be helping out, so it should be fun.

Spaces are limited for this so make sure if you are interested in attending that you register soon, even though it is not until June!

You need to be registered as a Microsoft Partner to register for and attend the webcast event, but it only takes a few minutes to register if you are not one already, and can be done from the link below.

To register for the webcast (and also to become a Microsoft Partner), click here.

Epson to Release New Windows Home Server

Andrew Edney
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1

According to Akihabaranews in Japan, Epson are going to release a new Windows Home Server called the SV120h.

Epson SV120h Windows Home Server

This machine started life as the Epson ST120 Endeavor and the size is only 75x185x195mm.

There will be a choice between two CPUs, with a Celeron 575 (2GHz) or a Core 2 Duo P8600 (2.4GHz) from 160GB to 2x500GB (1TB) of HDD. By default the SV120h will be powered by an Intel GM45 Express video chipset, have 1GB of RAM (up to 4GB).

The entry price of the SV120h will be around 65,000 Yen for the Celeron version (€520).

No news yet as to release anywhere else outside of Japan – more news when we get it.

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