jgutteri Posted August 25, 2009 Share Posted August 25, 2009 Hi, I just got an email from the guys at O&O telling me about the impending release of Defrag 12. The key difference between 11 is this thing called Zone Filing. Apparently it makes things really quick. Could someone please explain its use, and whether it's worth the upgrade - especially for use with FSX? Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim_A Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 Wondering the same thing - especially as the special offer price expires at the end of the month. But I guess nobody knows until someone buys it and trys it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkemp Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 These software makers love new high falluting names for things just to make people think they are doing something pretty special and con people into buying it. There is no information in a name, what they need to do is try to explain it so that potential buyers can understand what it does. O&O have a thing called CleverCache which I reckon is just a con like those memory defraggers or memory optimisers. I saw tests on them which exposed them as useless. Bernie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgutteri Posted August 27, 2009 Author Share Posted August 27, 2009 Okay so I went ahead and downloaded the trial version, and the zone filing system is actually quite simple. Essentially it divides your hard drive into 3 areas, depending on what part of the drive is quickest. The fastest section is allocated to Windows and applications, the middle section for documents and music, and the third section for files that are rarely used (eg install files) and are over 500gb. The best bit is you can tell it where to put certain files that you know would be useless in certain sections. It works it out very well on its own though. I haven't tried FSX yet, but will report back soon . I did notice that Word 07 loads quite quickly now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Webb Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 Sounds like functionality already in Ultimate Defrag where you can mark files/folders as either "High performance" or "Archive". Default puts it in the middle. I still prefer Ultimate Defrag. Runs much faster on my PC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkemp Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 Hard drives are naturally faster at the beginning of the drive because it is closest to the centre of the disk where the circumference is smallest so it takes less time to find the files because the distances between the bits are less and the heads don't have to move so much. I use this fact when I set up the page file. I put it on a small 5GB partition right at the beginning of the drive (not the same drive as the system drive C: which ensures fast paging. Some defraggers monitor programme use and intelligently place the most frequently used programmes at the beginning and least used at the end. Perfect Disk does this. If you, like me divide your HDDs into several partitions then you should use a partition at the beginning for most used files, one in the middle for sometimes used files and one at the end for infrequently used files such as disk images and CD/DVD isos. Bernie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingblind Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 Been running 11 for a while and very happy with it so when i received the same email i took the upgrade option AUS$31 and installed 12. Not too sure if it did a great deal but my back up drive took a fair while to reorganise. After that took FSX for a spin and it does feel a little quicker, cant give frame rates as I'm trying to not get too focused on that kind of thing and just enjoy the Sim. So until someone posts hard and fast figures then whats the harm at $31? It is a bit more friendly on W7 than 11 though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butch Posted September 20, 2009 Share Posted September 20, 2009 Hard drives are naturally faster at the beginning of the drive because it is closest to the centre of the disk where the circumference is smallest so it takes less time to find the files because the distances between the bits are less and the heads don't have to move so much. I use this fact when I set up the page file. I put it on a small 5GB partition right at the beginning of the drive (not the same drive as the system drive C: which ensures fast paging. Some defraggers monitor programme use and intelligently place the most frequently used programmes at the beginning and least used at the end. Perfect Disk does this. If you, like me divide your HDDs into several partitions then you should use a partition at the beginning for most used files, one in the middle for sometimes used files and one at the end for infrequently used files such as disk images and CD/DVD isos. Bernie Hi Bernie, I think you've got that the other way around. The 'fastest' part of a drive is at the outside because the rotational speed of a disk increases as you move further away from the centre. Thats why 10k rpm drives are so fast and why the even exist. Cheers Butch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterhayes Posted September 20, 2009 Share Posted September 20, 2009 Butch You said: "Thats why 10k rpm drives are so fast and why the even exist." Would that still hold true if you had 200GB of FSX files on a 300GB 10K drive as opposed to 200GB FSX files on the latest 2TB 7.2K HDD? I would back the latter. PeterH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skypilot Posted September 20, 2009 Share Posted September 20, 2009 Hard drives are naturally faster at the beginning of the drive because it is closest to the centre of the disk where the circumference is smallest so it takes less time to find the files because the distances between the bits are less and the heads don't have to move so much. [snip] Bernie Except where you have partitions on the drive? All the partitions cannot be close to the centre? I know where I have 4 partitions one defrag program gave me a graphical representation of each partition placing files near the centre which is not the case? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butch Posted September 21, 2009 Share Posted September 21, 2009 Gents, Stated another way... The faster a disk rotates means the heads travel over more sectors over time which translates into greater data throughput. Data density is another way to increase throughput without increasing the rpm, ie packing in more data into a smaller space on the disk platter. The drawback is the heads need to be more accurate in their placement over the sector, I believe that is why 10K drives aren't in the terabyte size yet. (that I know of at least) Which one is faster? I don't know... given that 10k rpm drives cost substantially more than those of 7.2k variety it would indicate there is some benefit over the slower drives particularly when they are a lot smaller in capcity. A clue perhaps... Cheers Butch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ananda Posted September 21, 2009 Share Posted September 21, 2009 The 'fastest' part of a drive is at the outside because the rotational speed of a disk increases as you move further away from the centre.So you are saying that the rotational speed nearer the centre is 3000rpm and at the outside is 10000rpm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davenicoll Posted September 21, 2009 Share Posted September 21, 2009 Hey guys, I was going to put windows 7 on it's own drive when it was released and then go for 10,000 drives but a respected computer buff told me the following... 10,0000rpm drives are a smaller storage capacity..therefore you may fill all of it or at least a large part of it up..making some data at the centre... with a large drive...and lets face it even 1.5 tb is not to expensive nowadays at 7,200rpm... a lot of data will be on the edge....where it is read from...therefore less seek time..or at least negates the difference...and then there is the cost... he did mention also that 32mb cache would be more beneficial as well... just my twopennyworth, i will be going to normal large drives me thinks... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butch Posted September 21, 2009 Share Posted September 21, 2009 Not sure what the speed eventually ends up at... but yes it is less than that of the outermost part of the drive. (which incidentally also hold the most data). This really isn't new... it applies to all things that rotate in a circle. The blade tips of rotors and propellers typically reach supersonic speeds while the rest of the blade is subsonic. The Texan is a perfect example of an aircraft that 'suffers' from supersonic prop tips. Have you seen a marching band? When they execute a turn the person at the inside of the turn almost has to 'march in place' while the person on the outermost part of the turn moves at full pace. @ Dave - the largest amount that can be stored on a single platter (as far as I can recall) is 500gig, that's the top and bottom of the platter. In a 1.5tb drive that would mean 3 platters, unless you can specifically place your data on the outer tracks of each of those three platters... food for thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeronauta Posted September 21, 2009 Share Posted September 21, 2009 The disk platter rotates (for a given rpm) with a constant angular velocity at any point of its surface. The velocity of a point at any point in the surface is directly proportional to the radius of that point ( V=angVelocity w x r radius). The HDD write clock varies frequency accross the surface of the platter to maintain data density (thus using the platter efficiently) as the amount of surface in the outer tracks is larger (again in direct proportion to the radius ) there will be more data in the outer tracks than the inner ones. Today the only thing that affects data transfer speed is rotational speed and seek speed. As there is less seeking per amount of accesible data in the outer tracks , the more data you put there the better. Again partitioning requires more seeks..therefore lesser performance, it is better to have 2 drives than a partitioned one. regards Jorge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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