For the first time in more than 15 years, I finally admitted to myself that I needed a third-party disk optimizer rather than the disk defragmenting tool that ships with Windows. Diskeeper 10.0, the latest version of the venerable utility that's been around forever, was what convinced me.
Besides being impressively thorough, Diskeeper barely slowed me down as I performed a number of computer-intensive tasks while it ran. The major exception during testing for this column was when I activated my ZoneAlarm Security Suite after starting Diskeeper. (Diskeeper failed to install until I temporarily deactivated ZoneAlarm.) While Diskeeper graciously turns control over to other programs that request disk access, a good security suite checks every disk access. So the two utilities fought back and forth for several minutes.
Like Windows' built-in defragmenter, it's wise to give Diskeeper control of your computer during its initial disk analysis. But after that, unlike its Microsoft counterpart, Diskeeper keeps chugging along while you do productive work.
   Diskeeper's user interface shows the fragmentation status of your hard disk, but it's something you may not see very often if you set the program to run in the background. Click to Enlarge |
Diskeeper comes in a broad range of desktop and server editions. For desktop users, the $29.95 Home edition may be fine for casual family computers. The $49.95 Professional version reviewed here offers more powerful configuration options for SOHOs, commuters, and road warriors. The $99.95 Professional Premier edition offers still more power for those who demand it. Diskeeper Corp. offers trial versions of a variety of its products on its Web site to help you decide the best version for your needs.
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