Keep Vista Running at Top Speed

Many changes have been built into Microsoft's Windows Vista OS: a security upgrade, new user interface (UI), added media features, and more. But many new problems are being documented by early Vista adopters, too. Among them: a lack of drivers, confusing networking options, and inexplicable lock-ups and shut-downs.

If you're upgrading systems to Vista, there's yet another troublesome aspect you should be aware of. This one concerns Microsoft's new methodology for optimizing disk space. In fact, shortcomings in Vista's defragmentation (or "defrag" for short) utility has forced some users to start looking for third-party tools.

Help is on the way. In this recipe, I'll explain the rationale behind changes in Vista's built-in defrag. I'll also help you decide whether the utility will do the job for you. Finally, I'll also provide a hard look at the new crop of third-party defrag tools. These can boost Vista's performance across a full range of PCs, from the smallest desktop to commercial server farms.

ALL ABOUT DATA FRAGMENTATION

Let's start off with some background on what data fragmentation is, and how it's impacting Vista's performance.

Who hasn't had this experience: The system that was blisteringly fast on Day One has now been slowed to a crawl, thanks to the clutter created over time by a phenomenon called data fragmentation.

Since Microsoft's first OS, PC owners have been plagued with this progressive and perplexing performance headache. From the very first client's panic call, builders and technicians have had to rely on defrag utilities—usually the default Microsoft tool—to realign data when disks become fragmented and slow. So why does data become fragmented in the first place?

PCs operating systems like Windows XP or Vista organize data on the hard disk in chunks called clusters. On XP, those clusters are roughly 4 Kbytes in size. So to store a file of 4 KB or less, XP needs one cluster on the disk. Even 1 byte over that, and the disk requires another cluster, even if most of the second cluster is empty.

As a result, most files require multiple disk clusters. And here's where it gets tricky: For top performance, a single file's clusters should be located adjacent to each other in one long, unbroken chain. With all of the clusters in a line, files can be read more quickly, since the drive's read-write heads don't need to move too far to find the next cluster of data.

In the real world, however, files are often stored in clusters that are scattered across the drive. That's a result of disk space not being available in contiguous clusters. In fact, the more crowded the disk becomes, the more likely that new data clusters will be scattered as the drive tries to find available space. The result: degraded system performance that only gets worse over time, as files become increasingly fragmented and the system grinds away.

The only way to regain system performance is to reorganize all the clusters. At that point, it's like a Rubik's cube—a big job to set straight.

All operating systems must deal with data fragmentation in one way or another. In Windows XP, Microsoft provided the Disk Defragmenter utility in its System Tools folder. This application could be used to analyze and clean up a badly fragmented disk. But because Disk Defragmenter didn't run automatically, it typically isn't run by users until system performance has become unbearably slow.

WHAT'S NEW WITH VISTA'S DEFRAG?

When Microsoft built Vista, the company did what all successful software companies should do when creating a new product: The company listened to its advanced users.

What Microsoft heard was that Windows users didn't want to worry about defragging disks to keep their systems running at peak performance. Users also complained they didn't like the complicated look-and-feel of the user interface of XP's default defrag utility. So Microsoft responded with a new defrag methodology for Vista, and a new look-and-feel.

According to early user reports, Vista's new built-in defrag does work well for some users—typically, home users. But for others with business and advanced IT requirements, the new defrag appears to be seriously lacking.

In fact, the reaction of many system builders to Vista's new defrag has been anything but positive. Why? For starters, Vista's built-in defrag utility doesn't let the user track the defragger's progress, the way XP's defragger did. This is true across all versions of Vista.

Further, Vista's defragmenter does not provide an estimate of the time required to complete the process or time remaining to complete. Again, this is a feature that XP's defragger did provide.

Without an informative UI, the user has no idea of the actions being performed or progressing in the defrag operation. Worse, some users have been shocked by a message the Vista defragger sends to the screen: "This may take a few minutes to a few hours." I know my clients would not like to hear me utter that phrase!

The screen-shot of the Vista defrag screen, displayed below, shows just how little information you get. There's no progress bar, and no indication of elapsed or remaining time. Further, there's no information on the degree of data fragmentation or which files are fragmented. Finally, the user no longer has the option of excluding specific files from the defragmentation process.

To be fair, Vista's defrag methodology may be helpful to some. That's because the main idea behind the new defrag UI is to completely eliminate the need to be concerned about the inherent complexity of defragging. Vista's defrag runs at low CPU priority and uses low-priority input-output (I/O), which ensures minimal impact and high responsiveness for the rest of the system.

That's a big benefit over XP's defrag, which, by contrast, could make the overall system practically unusable during its operation. Also, Vista's defrag, unlike XP's, is schedulable. Without the user needing to know much about defragging, the program defaults to running on a weekly basis.

Though scheduled defrag may keep some moderate users out of trouble, scheduled disk organization is subject to obvious problems: What should the defragger do if the PC is in shut-down mode during a scheduled run time? Will it wait until the next week (when the PC might be off again), or will it run as one more hefty application at the next start-up?

Despite those concerns, there is some additional good news. Vista power users who would like detailed information and more options for defrag can still use the command line tool, defrag.exe. But as with previous Microsoft operating systems, serious users and technicians will want more. For them, third-party solutions will be the answer.