Welcome to the Diskeeper Blog

This blog will provide technical data and insights into performance and reliability issues surrounding file system performance. We hope to cover all topics related to system performance including defrag whether you are running SANs, NAS, workstations, servers, SSD's or other systems. We will provide interesting anecdotes, white papers, and related story topics on defragmentation and other performance issues. The blog is intended to be personal rather than a formal Diskeeper website. You will read personal viewpoints on our products and where we see the industry and our company going. We are excited to have this opportunity to share our product knowledge and insight, and hope this information helps you. We encourage your comments and look forward to you following this blog.

Another cool IntelliWrite success

by Colleen Toumayan 4. March 2010 09:42

“We have been a Diskeeper customer for several years now and have not had any complaints. Installation is quick and easy with the admin console tool. The application does not have code bloat with each new version. I believe that the traditional hard drive in our environment has lasted longer since the drive heads have to do less work. I have 5 year+ old PCs with the original hard drives in them.  I have been very impressed with the new Intelliwrite prevention technology. I have seen 90% frag prevention on workstations and have a 380gb MS SQL database with 99% prevention. Our Domain Controllers and Fileservers range from 78% to 88%. This average has been done since we have installed the Diskeeper 2010 version in November of 2009.  Attached [below] is a screenshot of Diskeeper 2010 Server running MS Server 2003 R2 X64 with MS SQL. I hope to replace some aging servers with SSD drives and am looking forward to testing Diskeeper with HyperFast” .

Mike L., Information Technology Manager, Ohio Valley Community Credit Union

 

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Happy CoWs use IntelliWrite

by Michael 2. March 2010 11:43

If you live in on the west coast (USA), you may have seen an ad campaign about happy cows coming from California. Given we're a CA-based software company we concur.

OK wait a minute. Why are we talking about cows? What does this have to do with defrag? Maybe you're thinking "Michael's talking bovine, he's had a few too many".

Well maybe yes, but... I do have a point.  

CoW, or "copy on write" refers to a low level technology that looks at block data changes and then takes a particular action. Every time there is a write, a CoW technology would seek to make a copy of just the changes - not the entire new file. That action may be part of inline data dedupe, may be a snapshot, etc. The basic point is that CoW is used to isolate changes to data at a granular level rather than at a file level.

The consideration is that most CoW technologies are unable to distinguish between changes to data or movement of pieces of data, due to a defragmentation job. In other words, if you run a defrag, CoW may think there are actual data changes to files, and then take action to make block-change copies, run a dedupe, etc...

Holy CoW you say!

So, it is possible that a defrag, any kind of defrag, causes a CoW based technology to go into hyperactive mode. That may mean a CDP (continuous data protection)/snapshot program may be triggered in to keeping/taking far more copies that it needs to. It is basically fooled into thinking that a defrag represents actual changes to data, and that they need to process those changes. Now this is a false processing but, because most CoW solutions function underneath the file system layer, they simply cannot differentiate that actions that take place at the file system are not changes to data, but rather data-movement-for-optimization reasons.

So, if we're talking about a CoW solution that takes snapshots, we could see an increase in the amount of copies that a snapshot solution would have to take. That would make for a fairly fat CoW (a lot of extra data storage demands created by not understanding defrag).

CoW based solutions that work at the file system level (NTFS), have the possibility to recognize changes due to defrag and differentiate them from changes due to new actual data to a file. One such CoW solution is Microsft's VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service). However, as noted, most CoW technologies operate at storage layers that are abstracted from the local disk file system - they operate at levels underneath the file system. Again, that means defrag jobs in the file system will not be recognized by these solutions, and a defrag job of any kind, will cause unnecessary copies.

In comes IntelliWrite. Now, it makes sense to think that IntelliWrite was invented as a faster and, perhaps cooler, solution to fragmentation. But, the truth is that solving fragmentation at the source (when it is created) is vital to ensure compatibility with many of the CoW solutions that may be implemented at virtualization host or SAN layer (i.e. underneath and hence, unaware of the file system).

So, in a nutshell, IntelliWrite was very much designed to ensure that defrag offered full compatibility with modern storage technologies. That, we feel, makes for happy CoWs.

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Crazy or Smart? Inside IntelliWrite part II

by Michael 2. February 2010 05:39

A cure for cancer it is not, but in the category of performance (defrag) software, IntelliWrite is quite the bold, unorthodox step forward. Like many things new and revolutionary it is to be questioned, critiqued and qualified.

When we created IntelliWrite we had to first question the old way of doing things. Same goes for you, the user. You also need to form your own opinion on whether a new approach to eliminating fragmentation is warranted and worthwhile.

Now of course new does not necesarrily mean better, but new can, when done right change the way of things... for the better.

Our customers are our best and favorites critics. We hope we have provided you value and have earned your approval.

IntelliWrite technology is, as the name would imply, smart. Not only is it a better solution to removing fragmentation (it prevents fragmentation), but it actually self-learns; i.e. it gets smarter over time. Or perhaps more simply as one customer, who per his company policy must remain anonymous :-(, said, "crazy smart".

 

IntelliWrite learns how the various different applications on your system write data, much like advanced heuristic anti-virus solutions that learn "patterns" and can then proactively block new, as yet unreported, malware. IntelliWrite adapts to the applications on your system and how they write, and thereby fragment your files. That adaptive learning makes IntelliWrite increasingly more effective on your computer.  

Another part of the technology is an awareness of its surroundings. IntelliWrite automatically detects conditions where it might affect system performance and backs off, thus providing the best balance for performance – improves performance when fragmentation can be prevented and does not impact free space fragmentation when it might matter (i.e. when the available space is very low). One such easy-to-demonstrate case is on volumes with less than 2GB free space; IntelliWrite disables itself.

We began the process of securing the intellectual property rights to this revolutionary innovation prior to the release. You don't have to be a crazy Irishman to know that if you're looking for "The only way to prevent fragmentation before it happens(tm)", you've come to the right place.

 

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The Diskeeper Dashboard - IntelliWrite

by Michael 17. December 2009 11:58

We have an online FAQ that I thought I'd post here as well. It provides some valuable insight into what's going on with all those graphs and statistics related to our proprietary new IntelliWrite technology.

IntelliWrite Fragmentation Prevention

 

This section of the Dashboard tab explains that IntelliWrite increases system performance by preventing fragmentation before it happens.

IntelliWrite System Statistics for All Volumes Since the Previous Day

This section of the Dashboard Tab includes statistical information regarding fragmentation prevented by IntelliWrite, fragmentation eliminated by Automatic Defragmentation, and a sum of the two numbers since the previous day.

It is important to note that the amount of fragmentation prevented is an estimation determined by a large number of factors and extensive testing. The IntelliWrite graphs are designed to approximate fragments prevented across a wide range of applications and must incorporate various types of file writes and modifications into a singular display. In some cases the charts may over-estimate and in other cases, underestimate. For example, on SQL Server® the graphs may overestimate about 10% of the fragmentation prevented, on Microsoft® Office documents it may underestimate the number of fragments prevented by 80%. What is important is that with IntelliWrite enabled, fragmentation is being handled, before it happens. The end result of having Diskeeper with IntelliWrite and Automatic Defragmentation working is a system running at peak performance in the most efficient way possible (without fragmentation).

The statement: "Proactive prevention is the most energy efficient method to eliminate increased storage power consumption caused by fragmentation," points out that when IntelliWrite is handling your system’s fragmentation, it is reducing the amount of disk head movement previously needed to accomplish defragmentation and therefore is reducing Diskeeper's total system resource footprint.

System Fragmentation Prevention Graph

 

This section of the Dashboard tab shows system fragmentation prevented by IntelliWrite in real-time. In the graph, fragmentation prevented every second, within the last minute, for your entire system, is displayed in green. The scale on the left side of the graph pertains to the number of fragments that have been prevented and the scale along the top of the graph pertains to the seconds in the last minute.

Statistical Information for Selected Volume(s) Since the Previous Day

 

This section of the Dashboard tab shows statistical information for selected volume(s) since the previous day. The columns of the table include the name of the selected volume(s), whether or not IntelliWrite and Automatic Defragmentation are enabled, the number of fragments prevented, the number of fragments eliminated and file read/write time % improvement.

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