Introduction: What is this?!

This is the start of a rather lengthy, time wise, process I am performing to figure out what the perfect fit for myself and for what I feel people with my background would look for in a defragmentation program. This primer is in no way the review of each product and my conclusion as well as the reviews for each product will be broken into different parts throughout this week.

Part 1 – The Primer this article.

Part 2 – Review of Perfect Disk 12 by Raxco

Part 3 – Review of Ultimate Defrag 3 by Disktrix

Part 4 - Wrap Up with Conclusions and Opinion

I was offered a chance to review PerfectDisk 12 and Ultimate Defrag 3 after letting it be known I wanted to perform a “Shoot out” or “roundup” as some websites call it to see what would be the best choice for me to use in my media making, gaming, text editing, media center,  and networked environment. Whew,  that’s a mouth full, however I think it will make sense why I list those things as I go through the reviews.

I’ve used both Ultimate Defrag and Perfect Disk in one form of another over the past years as well as a bevy of other software to perform the job and feel I have a good enough understanding of what a defrag engine and application does and does not do to be able to configure and perform what I feel is necessary on my machines to gain the most performance out of each machine I own.

Evaluation: How will you quantify your results?

I have what I would consider an older mainstream setup. Nothing to shake off but obviously not current edge modern. This type of system is what a lot of companies and gamers currently still use and would be the typical system I would go out to checkup on that would ideally need a product such as Perfect Disk 12 or Ultimate Defrag 3. This is because they either haven’t been maintained correctly over the years or not at all.(This happens more than I care to count!)

System Specifications:

Main Computer

• CPU – Intel Core2Quad q9650 @ 3.0Ghz
• Motherboard – Asus Rampage Formula x48
• Memory – 8GB Mushkin Blackline DDr2-1066
• Hard Drive – 74Gb Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM (Side checked with 500GB Western Digital RE3 7200 RPM)

Server

• CPU – Intel Core2Duo e8400 @ 3.0Ghz
• Motherboard – Standard Intel P55
• Memory – 4Gb Mushkin Blackline DDr2-800
• Hard Drives – 2x 500GB Western Digital Caviar Blues 5200-7200RPM, 2X 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM

Testing Tools:

• HD Tune Professional 4.0
• Restart-Timer.vbs (Times how long it take a machine to restart more reliable than alternate methods)
• Personal feel – Overall speed of a machine is the best way to judge, unfortunately it’s hard to justify of quantify what you feel other than describing it.
• Defrag Method Used: I will run each as it’s most aggressive setting twice back to back before performing any tests.

Products Being Reviewed: What, Where, and How Much?

Perfect Disk 12 Professional – $39.99 Website

Perfect Disk 12 Server – $99.99 Website

Ultimate Defrag 3 – $29.95 Website

Primer Wrap Up

At this point in time I am putting some of the glazing touches onto the Perfect Disk 12 review and plan to release it on Tuesday following this primer article, and the Ultimate Defrag 3 review on Wednesday or Thursday. The Wrap up and conclusions between both products should arrive on Friday granted my working schedule doesn’t get too frantic hence the reason all these dates are extremely tentative.  So stay tuned to this space!