Create Client Profile Wizard - Defragmentation

Option

Description

Fragmentation %

This percentage controls when PerfectDisk can start defragmenting the drive. For example, if the threshold percentage is set to 5, then PerfectDisk only defragments the drive if the fragmentation level is 5% or higher. The percentage is calculated during the first stage of the defragmentation pass. A log entry is recorded if the defragmentation is skipped due to the percentage setting and a message is displayed.

You can set the value between 0 to 100. The default value is 0, meaning that PerfectDisk always defragments the drive regardless of the level of fragmentation.

SMARTPlacement Settings

This section allows you to configure SMARTPlacement settings for optimization. Refer to SMARTPlacement Settings for PerfectDisk for more information.

Aggressively Consolidate Free Space (requires more run time)

When checked, PerfectDisk tries to eliminate any free space gaps during a SMARTPlacement defragmentation pass. This can sometimes slow the defragmentation process. When unchecked, SMARTPlacement still defragments all the files, however it allows small chunks of free space to remain between files in order to complete the pass faster.

Optimization of Files Needed to Start your Computer

Every three days during system idle periods on Windows (XP,Vista, and 7) the Task Scheduler process organizes a list of files and directories in the order in which the file system accesses them during boot-up or application start, and stores it in a file named %windir%\Prefetch\Layout.ini. The Prefetch folder supports Prefetch (XP) and SuperFetch(Vista and 7) technology used to anticipate what items to load during system startup and speed up that process. PerfectDisk can manage these files, which are part of the layout.ini environment, or it can allow Windows to manage them, or disable their management altogether.

You can specify the following options for file optimization settings needed to restart your computer:

•  PerfectDisk manages boot files (recommended) - The default (and recommended) option is to let PerfectDisk manage all files related to computer startup.  For Windows XP, the files involved are a subset of the files that appear in the layout.ini file, and include only those files needed to boot the operating system itself. On Vista and Windows 7, this also includes startup items loaded after the operating system itself starts up.

• PerfectDisk manages boot and prefetch files- This option instructs PerfectDisk to defragment and position all files listed in the layout.ini file in their order of appearance, therein starting at the beginning of the hard disk.  This includes files needed to boot the operating system as well as applications and services that routinely start within one minute after the Windows Desktop (XP, Vista and 7).

• Windows manages boot and prefetch files - This option applies to Windows XP, Vista and 7.  When you select this option, Windows repositions the layout.ini files automatically during idle periods every three days.  It places these files in the first free space area that can accommodate them.  Note: If the system is never idle long enough to trigger this activity, the layout.ini files will never be repositioned.

• Disable - When selected, neither PerfectDisk nor the operating system will manage the files. This option should only be chosen when you have another third-party tool managing these files.

Boot Time Preferences

This section applies to boot time or offline defragmentation only. In offline defragmentation, system files are optimized only when they are not being used by Windows, that is when the computer is not ON. You can specify the following offline defragmentation settings:

• Master File Table, Metadata - When checked, system files, such as the Master File Table (MFT), and the metadata files are defragmented during Offline defragmentation.

  Metadata is "data about data." It is the file system overhead, so to speak, that is used to keep track of everything about all of the files on the drive. Metadata tells what allocation units make up the data for a given file, what allocation units are free, what allocation units contain bad sectors, and so on. The "contents" of a file, on the other hand, is termed "user data." NTFS protects its metadata through the use of a transaction log. User data is not so protected.

  The NTFS file system contains a file called the master file table, or MFT. There is at least one entry in the MFT for every file on an NTFS drive, including the MFT itself. All information about a file, including its size, time and date stamps, permissions, and data content, is stored either in MFT entries, or in space outside the MFT that is described by MFT entries.

  As files are added to an NTFS drive, more entries are added to the MFT and the MFT increases in size. When files are deleted from an NTFS drive, their MFT entries are marked as free and may be reused. However, disk space that has been allocated for these entries is not reallocated, and the size of the MFT does not decrease.

• Windows Page File - When checked, the paging file (pagefile.sys) is defragmented during Offline defragmentation. If the Pagefile is not resident on this partition, checking this box have no effect.

  This is a virtual memory file (Pagefile.sys). This file is exclusively locked by the operating system and can only be placed by an Offline Defragmentation.

• Defragment the selected system files on EVERY reboot - When this setting is turned ON, PerfectDisk defragments the selected file types during every reboot. This option remains disabled until an offline file type is selected. If this option is disabled, PerfectDisk should not cancel any previously set offline passes.

Redirected I/O Mode

This section only applies for Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVFS) found in Server 2012 and newer.  In order to defragment CSVFS drives, Redirected I/O mode must be enabled on the drive.    PerfectDisk can be configured to turn on Redirected I/O prior to starting a defrag operation and to turn off Redirected I/O after completing a defrag operation.