®

Volume 3 • Issue 3

Identifying Reliability andPerformance ProblemsCaused by Fragmentation

See page 3

Diskeeper 2007 Is A “Must-Have” Utility!

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Diskeeper Corporation, formerly ExecutiveSoftware®, was founded on July 22, 1981. During this time, the company has logged manytechnical achievements in the VMS and Windows®

industries with products like Diskeeper.

Diskeeper Corporation is a global corporationdistributed in six continents—North America,South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.Our software products are distributed in everymajor country in the world. Due to our size andfocus on system management tools, you cantrust that our products will always be dependableand that the technical support you receive will be among the fastest and most knowledgeable in the industry.

For general information onDiskeeper Corporation or any ofour products, please email,telephone or write to us. Ifthere is specific informationyou require, contact any of thebelow suitable representativesand they will be pleased to helpwith any inquiries.

About DiskeeperCorporation

ContentsIdentifying Reliability, Stability and PerformanceProblems Caused by Fragmentation 3Diskeeper 2007—A “Must Have” Utility for Maximum Performance and Reliability

Customer Success Stories on Diskeeper 2007 5The Diskeeper Corporation Maintenance Agreement 7Case Study:The U.S. District Court of Maine 8People are blogging about Diskeeper! 12

General Contact info:Diskeeper Corporation

7590 N. Glenoaks Blvd.Burbank, California

91504 USATel: (800) 829-6468

Fax: (818) 252-5514Email: info@diskeeper.comWeb: www.diskeeper.com

Editor: Lisa Shomo—lshomo@diskeeper.com

Technical: technicalsupport@diskeeper.com

PR: Colleen Toumayan—ctoumayan@diskeeper.com

Sales: salesinfo@diskeeper.com

Contact Details

For more information on our products, call us at 800-829-6468 code 3041 or go to www.diskeeper.com/newsk119

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IP datagrams, but far less informationabounds for reliability considerations inthe case of file objects. A good overviewof the effect of stress when requestingfile objects comes from a Microsoft®

Knowledge Base article which states“The Server service cannot process therequested network I/O2 items to the harddisk quickly enough to prevent the Serverservice from running out of resources.”

Disk fragmentation is often the “straw thatbroke the camel’s back” when notingissues of stability or reliability. StressedI/O activity, compounded by fragmentation,can expose faulty device drivers or file fil-ters that may otherwise operate effectively(in non-fragmented environments). The reli-ability of third party applications is highlydependent on the degree to which thoseapplications can accommodate bottle-necks, such as in disk subsystems.

The point at which application or systemstability is compromised is difficult, ifnot impossible, to calcu-late. It is a combination ofhardware and softwareand operations at themoment of instability. Apoorly written driver orfile filter can beexposed in someenvironments butnot in others, andthe amount of frag-mentation requiredto reach “critical

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IntroductionOver the years, numerous manufacturers,third par ty analysts and labs havereported on the effects of disk/file frag-mentation on system speed and per-formance. Defragmentation has alsogained recognition for its critical role inaddressing issues of system reliabilityand improved uptime, particularly sinceMicrosoft’s decision to include a defrag-mentation utility in the Windows 2000and 2003/XP operating systems (one didnot exist in the NT® 4 OS).

In this white paper, we explain some ofthe most common reliability and down-time phenomena associated with frag-mentation, and the technical reasonsbehind them. This includes a discussionof each of the most common occurrencesdocumented by our R&D labs, customers(empirical results presented), as well asothers, in recent years.

An Overview of the ProblemHaving all program and data files storedin contiguous form on the hard drive is akey factor in keeping a system stable andperforming at peak efficiency. Thoughunavoidable, the moment a file is brokeninto pieces and scattered across a drive,it opens the door to a host ofstability/reliability issues. Having just afew key files fragmented can lead tocrashes, conflicts and errors.

The principle of fragmentation’s impact onsystem or application reliability is the tim-ing-out of a requestor or service providerin collecting/reassembling fragmenteddata. This principle holds true for both IPdatagram1 fragmentation and file/diskfragmentation.

Many system and application breakagepoints can be defined as “exerted stresson buffers to the point of overflow/over-run.” DoS (Denial of Service) attacks arewell documented examples of exploiting

mass” on a specific file or files will varygreatly upon all the other variablesinvolved.

This issue can be exampled by betterunderstanding asynchronous I/O3.Example: a Win32 application createseither an I/O completion port4, executes anoverlapping completion routine5, or callsWaitForSingleObject/WaitForMultiple-Objects6 APIs at the time of thread cre-ation. In any case, where the wait state isexceeded (e.g., queued I/O is paged todisk), a failure can occur. As suggested,low available memory (non-paged pool) canexacerbate failures as it reintroduces thephysical disk into the equation. In lieu offailures, extended queuing/waiting andproper exception handling can mitigateissues, at the expense of lower perform-ance (operations take longer) for the appli-cation, or increased system resourcerequirements.

“The problem we were having was theserver would get so busy that it wouldstop processing I/O requests and net-work traffic would just hang. Working withMicrosoft and Compaq we concluded itwas due to fragmentation. When weinstalled Diskeeper it resolved the prob-lem overnight.”

— Mike N., System Administrator,John Deere

dentifying Reliability,Stability and PerformanceProblems Caused byFragmentation

continued on next page

1 IP Datagram is the fundamental unit of data transmitted across internetworks using the Internet Protocol (IP).2 I/O is shorthand for Input/Output; which refers to data transfer between devices in a computer system. Anadjective such as network or disk may prepend “I/O” to specify a particular device type.

3 Asynchronous I/O exists to compensate for variables that may prevent or eliminate the possibility of synchro-nous I/O (e.g., I/O is much slower than data processing). The alternative to handling I/O asynchronously,which generally offers lower performance, is to “block” other I/O.

4 http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/fs/i_o_completion_ports.asp5 http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dllproc/base/getoverlappedresult.asp

6 http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp? url=/library/en-us/dllproc/base/waitformultipleobjects.asp

4

Failure to routinely address or understandfragmentation and its role in helping tocause these problems results in increasedIT staff workloads attempting to trou-bleshoot and identify the source of prob-lems. This frequently leads to such com-mon and often unnecessary actions asreinstalling software, re-imaging of harddrives, expensive replacement of hard-ware, an unnecessary “work-around,” aswell as overwork at the Help Desk. ForcingIT to work reactively on problemsincreases IT costs and adversely affectsuser productivity due to unacceptable lev-els of downtime.

Reliability and Stability IssuesTraceable to Disk FragmentationThe most common problems caused byfile fragmentation are:

a) Crashes and system hangs/freezes

b) Slow boot up and computers that won’t boot up

c) Slow backup times and aborted backup

d) File corruption and data loss

e) Errors in programs

f) RAM use and cache problems

g) Hard drive failures

A. CRASHES AND HANGSThere are many documented cases oferrors and crashes on Windows and thirdparty applications caused by fragmenta-tion. These types of errors include but arenot limited to system hangs, time outs,failure to load, failure to save data and inworse case blue-screens (where fragmen-tation aggravates flawed device drivers).

Perhaps the most prevalent of these cir-cumstances in modern systems is theEvent ID 2021 and 2022 errors found onsystems hosting data.

Event ID: 2021Source: SrvDescription: Server was unable to createa work item n times in the last secondsseconds.

Event ID: 2022Source: SrvDescription: Server was unable to find afree connection n times in the last sec-onds seconds.

In such circumstance the client request-ing the data will return related errors

along the lines of Event ID 3013 or sta-tus code 1450.

Event ID: 3013Source: RdrDescription: The redirector has timedout to computer name.

It is important to note that, in a corporateIP network, bottlenecks may be incorrectlyadvertised or diagnosed as network-related bottlenecks. In reality these bottle-necks often exist in the disk subsystem ona remote system. The specification ofWindows file sharing services (CIFS)7 issuch that file requests (supposedly only“valid” ones) will time out as the reliabilityof the network is a variable that might oth-erwise cause undue and unnecessary waitrequests (should a client be discon-nected). In reality extended waits can beinterpreted as dropped client connections.

An important clue to investigating frag-mentation as a potential or lead contribu-tor to reliability issues are when recom-mendations are made (by a support arti-cle or support engineer) to measure thefollowing Physical Disk Counters relatedto Disk I/O:

• Average Disk Queue Length

• Average Disk Read Queue Length

• Average Disk Write Queue Length

• Average Disk Sec/Read

• Average Disk Sec/Transfer

• Average Disk Writes/Sec

• Split I/Os

MS TechNet article from the MicrosoftWindows 2000 Professional Resource Kitin Chapter 30, “Examining and Tuning DiskPerformance,” notes defragmentation as

a primary solution to resolving disk bottle-necks such as those identified by theabove detailed Physical Disk counters.

In Microsoft Support article 822219,“You experience slow file server per-formance and delays occur when youwork with files that are located on a fileserver” it notes, “Use Performance Logsand Alerts to monitor the Avg. DiskQueue Length counter of the PhysicalDiskperformance object.”

Below is a list of symptoms noted rele-vant to that article:

• A Windows-based file server that isconfigured as a file and print serverstops responding and file and printserver functionality temporarily stops.

• You experience an unexpectedly longdelay when you open, save, close,delete, or print files that are locatedon a shared resource.

• You experience a temporary decreasein performance when you use a pro-gram over the network. Performancetypically slows down for approximately40 to 45 seconds. However, somedelays may last up to 5 minutes.

• You experience a delay when you per-form file copy or backup operations.

• Windows Explorer stops respondingwhen you connect to a shared resourceor you see a red X on the connectednetwork drive in Windows Explorer.

• You receive an error message similar toone of the following messages whenyou try to connect to a shared resource:

Error message 1System error 53. The networkpath was not found.

Error message 2System error 64. The specifiednetwork name is no longeravailable.

• You are intermittently disconnected fromnetwork resources, and you cannot recon-nect to the network resources on the fileserver. However, you can ping the server,and you can use a Terminal Services ses-sion to connect to the server.

• If multiple users try to access MicrosoftOffice documents on the server, theFile is locked for editing dialog boxdoes not always appear when the sec-ond user opens the file.

• A network trace indicates a 30- to 40-second delay between an SMB Service

7 Common Internet File System is the file sharing protocol. It is an Application layer (OSI layer 7) protocol. More info: http://www.microsoft.com/mind/1196/cifs.asp

Performance Problems continued from page 3

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client command and a response fromthe file server.

• When you try to open an Access™ 2.0database file (.mdb file) in MicrosoftAccess 97, in Microsoft Access 2000,or in Microsoft Access 2002, you mayreceive an error message that is simi-lar to the following:

Disk or network error.

• When you try to open a Microsoft Wordfile, you may receive the following errormessage:

Word failed reading from this filefile_name. Please restore thenetwork connection or replacethe floppy disk and retry.

• When you log on to the file server,after you type your name and pass-word in the Log On to Windows dialogbox, a blank screen appears. Thedesktop does not appear.

• A program that uses remote procedurecall (RPC) or uses named pipes to con-nect to a file server stops responding.

Support Article ID 245077 provides anexplicit description of resolving Event ID2022 through defragmentation. It states,“This problem occurs because a requestwas made to grow a file and the disk isfragmented or is nearly full. This causesthe free space search to take anextremely long time. This request holdssystem-level locks that are needed forother requests to complete. The Serverservice resource task is pended as well,which causes Event ID 2022.”

“Our DNA Array analysis system createsand removes thousands of temporaryfiles. As a result, a couple of months intothe use of this system caused it to crashalmost daily. The addition of Diskeeperhas resolved the stability problems.”

— Andrew M., IS Supervisor, Medical College of Wisconsin

This means that fragmentation can slowdown I/O to the point where programsand processes cease to function entirely.With files scattered throughout the diskin many pieces, they are unavailable tothe system when needed and acrash/hang takes place.

B. SLOW BACKUP TIMES ANDABORTED BACKUP

The window of opportunity to conduct sys-tem backups is shrinking. While ITdepartments used to have 12 or more

hours available for backup and mainte-nance tasks, or even all weekend, withmore businesses operating 24/7, theyare now expected to per form suchactions in a significantly shorter timeperiod. Meanwhile, the amount of data toback up is growing exponentially, andcompounded by recent regulatory require-ments for data archiving.

This combination of circumstances leadsto two problems. System administratorsreport that lengthy backups mean theydon’t have time for other routine mainte-nance actions. Alternatively, some back-ups have to be aborted as they take uptoo much time and threaten to encroachon the working day. This increases therisk of data loss or non-compliance.

Fragmentation multiplies the amount oftime needed to get a backup done. If allfiles exist in a contiguous state, backupoccurs relatively swiftly. Instead, if thefiles are fragmented, the head has tolocate and gather together numerous frag-ments before they can be consolidatedinto one piece for backup. It is commonfor IT departments to report their backuptimes shrinking, often by several hoursper night, after instituting routine defrag-mentation of all servers and workstations.By consolidating files back into single con-tiguous pieces before backing them up, amuch shorter backup window is required.

“To maintain optimal system perform-ance, companies need…disk defragmen-tation on a regular basis for all theirservers and workstations,” said SteveWiden, analyst at International Data Corp(IDC). “Otherwise files can take 10 to 15times longer to access, boot time can betripled and nightly backups can takehours longer.”

C. FILE CORRUPTION AND DATA LOSS

File corruption and data loss are bothimmediately traceable to fragmentation.In tests on Windows 2000 and WindowsXP, a specially designed utility was uti-lized to fragment an NTFS volume. Eventhough the test drive was only 40 percentfull, the files themselves were frag-mented resulting in the automatic cre-ation of additional MFT records. Whenattempting to move one contiguous 72MB file onto that disk, the result was thecorruption of everything on the disk.

Why would this occur? The presence ofexcessive file fragments on a disk makes

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Diskeeper 2007—

A “Must-Have” Utility for Maximum Performance and Reliability

Diskeeper 2007 Customer Success Stories

“We LOVE Diskeeper 2007. We use it on our big SQL box (8-wayprocessor, hundreds of gigs of space on an SAN, 16 gigs ofRAM) and it has increased our disk performance by a factor ofabout 8 or 9. We were looking at adding more spindles to ourSAN to help with some disk I/O issues we had but this won-derful software did it for us. The I/O pause feature is perfectas well since we can’t take our server down to defrag. Keep upthe good work!

“Our company is a news aggregator. We spider the web andmatch specific news stories to our customers’ needs. There’sa lot of news out there; let us find what you really need. Ourdatabase query time cut in half after running the first fewpasses with Diskeeper ServerEnterprise—money well spent!”

—D. Underwood, CustomScoop

“I just tell you what I see with Diskeeper 2007. It is a good prod-uct, well thought out with the user in mind and technically solid.

“I spent some time reading about not only InvisiTasking™ but alsoI-FAAST™. All I can say is that I’m very impressed. I have seen avast improvement in the resources used to keep my diskdefragmented. From my perspective, there are virtually none.Diskeeper does not interrupt me when I’m using the computerbut takes advantage of the times my computer is idle to keepit running at peak performance. I don’t have to schedule timeto defrag. It’s just done.

“I not only recommend Diskeeper to my friends, but also to myclients. It’s a great tool. Very reliable, very stable, and veryeasy and convenient to use. Keep up the good work!

“Diskeeper 2007 truly is ‘Set It and Forget It,’® except you nolonger have to set it. It’s more like, ‘install it and forget it.’ Theother thing I like is that helps me manage my MFT and boot-time defragmentation. I don’t know much about MFT, butDiskeeper lets me know when it needs attention and will adjustthe size for me as needed. It’s great!

“Diskeeper is by far the best defragging tool on the market (andI’ve used a number of them over the years).”

—J. Boisseau, Priority Software, Inc.

“Diskeeper is a well designed product that I feel is essential tomy business, which depends on computers running at peak per-formance.

“I would recommend it to anyone running a Windows OS. WhenI hear complaints of slow system performance, defragmenta-tion is one of the first things I analyze.

“We are using Diskeeper on all systems including notebooks forfield use. These can be the most essential component of a suc-cessful day in the field, and your product keeps the notebooksresponsive and efficient.

“Civil programs have gone over the top in CPU and memoryusage. Data files, especially GPS, become large very quickly.When multi-tasking between applications, files can becomefragmented just as quickly. Automatic defragmentation resolvesthe issue in real time.”

—J. Noonan, Storm King Surveying and Mapping, Inc.

“I’ve used Diskeeper for many years as an individual user, smallbusiness proprietor, and as an employee of large organizations(federal and private).

“I have found particularly that Diskeeper 2007 and the newer ProPremier version are by far the best of the lot, a quantum leapabove Diskeeper 10 and its predecessors. Your developers seemto have finally figured out how to defrag unobtrusively in 2007.

“Diskeeper’s best advantages are, in this order:

“1. Performance enhancement (most obvious and immediatelyvisible)

“2. Reliability (in that the product is nearly bulletproof)

“3. ROI (longer term)

“I also use Diskeeper on our notebooks. It is installed on every-thing that I touch and recommend, and I am extremely pleasedwith the results.”

—P. Colman, The MITRE Corporation

7

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8

Background: The Federal Court System Goes High TechIn the American court system, whenever a dispute is with a cit-izen of another state or is governed by federal law, it is tried ina federal court, not in a state court. The United States districtcourts are the trial courts of the federal court system. Withinlimits set by Congress and the Constitution, the district courtshave jurisdiction to hear nearly all categories of federal cases,including both civil and criminal matters. One of the two U.S.District Courts in the State of Maine that try these federalcases is located in the city of Portland.

The U.S. District Court in Portland uses modern technology toincrease efficiency internally. It utilizes a network of WindowsServers. These servers operate as file and print, Web, DomainController, application servers and more. The application mixincludes Microsoft Exchange, WINS, DHCP, DNS, VeritasBackup Exec, WordPerfect, Net Show Server, IIS, NetscapeEnterprise, Right Fax, SMS, as well as some court-specificapplications to track restitution payments, jury monitoring, etc.

In addition to servicing the internal demands of the court systemitself, the court also provides data online to lawyers and the pub-lic. Its Public Access to Court Electronic Records system (PACER),for example, offers case information to authorized users over theInternet. Public records, forms, court opinions and rulings arealso available online. Therefore, the IT systems of this U.S.District Court must be kept running smoothly at all times.

Challenge: A Slow and Fragmented Legal SystemTo maximize performance and support its growing network, thecourt added several new servers. However, after an initialperiod of exceptional performance, even the newest serversbecame sluggish. Despite these hardware upgrades, many ofthe court’s users began to voice complaints concerning thetime it was taking to access their files. Directory listings and fileaccess, for instance, were taking up to 10 seconds and evenserver response became sluggish.

“One server, for example, took 20 minutes to shut down duringreboot,” says senior automation manager Kevin Beaulieu.“System deterioration over time was just the ‘reality’ of theWindows world as far as we were concerned.”

In addition to this steady dwindling in performance on all servers,

backups began to take longer than expected, and on a number ofoccasions the system would hang in the middle of a scheduledbackup. “It took a very long time for backups and the system wasextremely slow,” said Beaulieu. “We also experienced systemhangs and other reliability problems.” These needed to beaddressed in order to obtain the system performance, reliabilityand ROI objectives the court originally set out to achieve with theirhardware upgrade.

Disk FragmentationWith hundreds of files being written and deleted from disksevery minute of the working day, files are divided into fragmentsand rapidly scattered across the hard drive into whatever spaceis immediately available. However, while this system simplifieswriting to a disk, it results in documents that can be divided intothousands of pieces. Unfortunately, for every thousand frag-ments, one thousand system I/Os are required to obtainaccess—the hidden reason behind long delays when openingfiles. Files were found splintered into so many pieces that someserver operations took 25 times longer than normal.

The Solution: Picking up the PiecesThe U.S. District Court’s solution was to install a third partynetwork defragmenter on each of their servers and worksta-tions. A network defragmentation program checks each file andpartition to determine which files need to be defragmented andwhich should be moved to another location to provide morecontiguous free space. To accomplish this online, so thatdefragmenting could occur seamlessly in the background whilecontinuing to support the high demand for system accesssimultaneously, the U.S. District Court chose Diskeeper byDiskeeper Corporation.

Diskeeper uses special APIs developed by Diskeeper Corporationin cooperation with Microsoft. These APIs work with the file sys-tem, designed specifically to accomplish defragmentation safely.From his own desk, Beaulieu was able to utilize Diskeeper’sPushInstaller feature to remotely load the defragmenter onto eachserver and workstation across the entire U.S. District Court site.

Diskeeper is a complete defragmentation solution requiringzero administration. Diskeeper’s features make defragmenta-tion easy and seamless throughout the enterprise. Its break-through PushInstall™ technology eliminates the significant yethidden costs associated with manual software deployment.

DISKEEPER MAXIMIZES PERFORMANCE ANDSUPPORTS THE GROWING NETWORK AT THEU.S. DISTRICT COURT OF MAINE

“The results we’ve obtained from Diskeeper compare favorably to what I’ve seen from major hardware ugrades,” says senior automation manager Kevin Beaulieu.“Clearly, defragmenting regularly is vital to system performance.”

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How many users have called your Help Desk in a panic say-ing they’ve lost or overwritten a critically important file? TheWindows server recycle bin doesn’t protect files deleted bynetwork clients. Restoring files from backup takes forever,and may not get the latest version of the file. And neitherbackup nor “snapshots” can help if a user has saved overthe version he or she needs.

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—Jeff Vargason, Barr Nunn Transportation, Inc.

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Results: Significant Performance and System Reliability GainsDespite the advanced state of fragmentation at the governmentsite in Maine, the defragmentation program rapidly consolidatedall servers and workstations. “The results gotten from Diskeepercompare favorably to what I’ve seen from major hardwareupgrades,” Beaulieu pointed out. “Clearly, defragmenting regularlyis vital to system performance.”

System Performance & ReliabilityBy automatically defragmenting its entire network, the U.S.District Court site in Portland, Maine, has significantly acceler-ated performance and system reliability. One server, in particu-lar, was laboring severely under a heavy fragmentation load. Fileaccess times were resulting in a constant stream of user com-plaints. “After initiating defragmentation, the time it took for fileaccess went from as much as 10 seconds to about a second,”said Beaulieu.

Beaulieu also noted system reliability improvements across thenetwork after defragmentation with Diskeeper. In addition to sys-tem hangs before defragmenting, several servers would take avery long time to reboot. In some cases, Windows servers wouldshut down completely due to fragmentation. “We occasionallyexperienced system hangs and these went away after we imple-mented defragmentation on all our machines,” Beaulieu said.“The time it takes to boot a server has dropped from 20 minutesto 45 seconds,” he added.

Back-UpsAfter the migration to Windows 2000, the U.S. District Court siteswitched to Veritas Backup Exec. According to Beaulieu, theOpen File agent used by this backup program makes a virtualcopy of the drive and then backs up the virtual copy. Result:large quantities of temporary files are created and deleted in theprocess, creating extensive amounts of fragmentation.

“After the installation of Diskeeper, we saw an increase ofbackup speed of up to 30 percent,” said Beaulieu. “Further, thesystem was usable during backups, which it never was before.”

ConclusionBeaulieu’s advice to other system managers is simple: “Thebuilt-in defragmenter that comes with Windows 2000 is a wasteof time as you have to use it manually on every box and thatabsorbs a lot of valuable time,” said Beaulieu. “That defrag-menter also fails to address system files like the Paging Fileand Master File Table, which can become a severe fragmenta-tion problem on any Windows system. My advice would be toimplement network-wide defragmentation and take advantageof Diskeeper’s features.”

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“After initiating defragmentation, the time ittook to for file access went from as much as 10 seconds to about a second,” said Beaulieu.

10

it more difficult for the operating system tofunction efficiently. When a file is added,large-scale data corruption can result.

Microsoft Suppor t Ar ticle 826936describes how slow hard disks, low mem-ory, low CPU speed, or disabled diskcaching (i.e., a bottleneck) contribute toloss of backups and a Volume ShadowCopy Service failure during periods ofheavy I/O activity.

Microsoft Support Article 825444 andothers related to Microsoft Access, docu-ment fragmentation of the database fileor structure and recommend disk defrag-mentation in addition to database com-paction and repair procedures.

D. BOOT UP ISSUESIn-depth testing by Diskeeper Corporationdiscovered that a heavily fragmented MFTcan almost double the time it takes for asystem to boot. Similar tests on boot vol-umes with file fragmentation showedbootup slows up to 15%.

Earlier versions of the Windows NT plat-form were highly susceptible to fragmenta-tion of metadata files, to the extent ofblack screens and other boot failures. Theextent of Support articles related to frag-mentation-related boot failures in NT 4exemplifies the effect fragmentation playsin system reliability.

Modern NT-based platforms haveimproved, but issues still exist. Accordingto Microsoft Support Article 265509 forWindows 2000, “The System hive file isusually the biggest file that is loaded andis likely to be fragmented because it ismodified often. If the System hive file istoo fragmented, it is not loaded from anNTFS volume, and the computer hangs.”

E. ERRORS IN PROGRAMSErrors also occur when applications aresubstantially fragmented. As in the previ-ous section, this is related to the sheersize of such applications and the time ittakes to physically gather up all of thepieces in order to load properly. In somecases, fragmentation slows down theloading of applications, sometimes sig-nificantly. In other cases, the applicationwill time out or freeze.

The guide, “Improving .NET ApplicationPerformance and Scalability,” publishedby Microsoft, serves to direct architectsand developers in the building of .NET

applications that meet required perform-ance objectives. In several sections dis-cussing performance they discuss theimportance of disk I/O bottlenecks as afactor to consider in development and inother sections note defragmentation as asolution to improve these bottlenecks.

Microsoft Article 324958 documents alist of actions, including disk defragmen-tation to optimize SMTP8 queues inMicrosoft Exchange.

On Microsoft Word 2000, for example, anerror message may appear stating:“There are too many edits in this docu-ment. This operation will be incomplete.Save your work.” (Microsoft KB articleQ224029). This is caused by insufficientdisk space on the hard disk containingthe Windows Temp folder as well as frag-mented or cross-linked files.

CD Writers and other media devices alsoexperience problems caused by fragmen-tation. Why? Such devices require data tobe supplied sequentially in a steadystream. If the associated files are frag-mented, this data stream is interruptedas the system struggles to gathertogether various file fragments. This inter-feres with the quality of video playbackand leads to CD writes aborting. Regulardefragmentation heightens the reliabilityof such devices.

Per Microsoft Support Article 306524,CD recording may fail intermittently. Thedocument lays out several ways toresolve this issue; however, the primarystep is to defragment the hard disk con-taining the data destined for the CD.

Symantec Knowledge Base articles noteapplications such as Partition Magic,Server Magic (Example error message:“Error 1650 Partition too fragmented tocopy or resize”) and Ghost are all nega-tively affected by fragmentation and maysubsequently fail at operations.

Video Editing Professionals also acknowl-edge that disk fragmentation causesdropped frames and poor quality multi-media. A White Paper published byAccurate Vision, Inc., a full-service legalvideo company, concluded, “From thetests we conducted as described in thisreport, we are convinced that drive frag-mentation is one of the major culprits

that impede the performance, stabilityand productivity of NLE systems9.”

F. RAM USE AND CACHE PROBLEMS

Files often become so fragmented thatthey take a long time to be read intocache. As well as delays, this can leadto system hangs. Similarly, a frag-mented paging file creates system sta-bility challenges. “Out of vir tual mem-ory” error messages are prevalent, forexample, on Domain Controllers anddata loss results.

According to Microsoft Support articleQ215859, “The pagefile.sys file is eithernot large enough or is severely frag-mented. This may also cause users toexperience problems when they attemptto change their password or gain accessto the network.”

As covered earlier, such memory issuesare rooted in the fact that excessive over-head is required to compile files that arescattered around a disk in many pieces.By keeping files consolidated, thesememory problems are prevented.

Applications that increase buffers toaccommodate for slowed I/O, such asthat caused by disk fragmentation,inevitably use additional memory to com-pensate.

G. HARD DRIVE FAILURESFragmentation hastens the onset of harddrive failure by increasing the amount ofdisk head movement. Diametrically, regu-lar defragmentation extends drivelongevity. The reason for this is simple.Running a defragmentation program con-solidates fragments, minimizing I/Orequired for future file access activity.The long-term effect is reduced totalphysical disk head movement; the meas-ure used to determine disk lifespan (orMean Time Between Failure — MTBF).

To demonstrate, consider a file frag-mented into 100 pieces. The disk headhas to move 100 times to access it. If thisis occurring every time a file is read orwritten to disk, the head and associatedmoving parts are effectively performing100 times more work than one that isfragment free. Result: more wear and tearon the disk and an earlier failure.

8 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. It is the most commonly used protocol for server-to-server email messaging overthe internet.

9 Acronym for “Non-Linear Editing System”. These systems employ digital editing technology that supports immediate random access to any point within any given multiple media clip.

Performance Problems continued from page 5

Fragmentation Cripples the Performance and Speed of YourENTIRE NETWORK

Disk Performance Analyzer for Networks isa free utility that detects and reports severe frag-mentation-related performance loss on your net-worked systems.

The Performance Analyzer provides single-pointanalysis of each system’s disk performance. Itidentifies performance bottlenecks that mightotherwise go undetected—turning machines into

sluggish, maintenance-hogging headaches.

Download this free utility and find out today howfragmentation is severely affecting the performanceof your systems.With Disk Performance Analyzer forNetworks, you can zero in on the machines thatneed attention and handle them before they turninto help desk problems.

Download our free utility today!

Find out the fragmentation level of every machine

at your site!

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100 pieces per file may be a conservativeestimate, however. A study by AmericanBusiness Research conducted on 100companies revealed that 56 percent ofWindows workstations had files frag-mented into between 1,050 and 8,162pieces. One in four reported finding fileswith as many as 10,000 to 51,222 frag-ments. For servers, an even greater degreeof fragmentation exists. Half of the respon-dents discovered 2,000 to 10,000 frag-ments and another 33 percent had filesfragmented into 10,333 to 95,000 pieces.

The early wear and tear is frequently real-ized in corporate enterprise,

“I have been a supporter of havingDiskeeper installed on servers as wellas workstations. By my recommenda-tion, Texas Dept. of Transpor tationinstalled it on all workstations, prevent-ing many hard drive crashes.Defragmentation is vital to data integrityand lengthening life of hard drives.”

— Christopher S., CEO, CSS Media Inc

This precept was documented in a studyby IDC highlighting the fact that regulardefragmentation enhances performanceand lengthens the lifespan of a machine.“It can be considered that defragmenta-tion software can extend the life of a typ-ical workstation,” said Widen. “IDC esti-mates that enterprises can add up to twoadditional years of life to the normalthree-year usable life of workstations.”

Contiguous Files = Greater UptimeConclusive evidence exists on the issueof file fragmentation being a primary fac-tor in the most common system stabil-ity/reliability problems that companiescontend with daily. To greatly lessenthese problems, advanced automaticdefragmentation of every server andworkstation should be considered high-level, proactive system maintenance.

To do this, easily and cost-effectively,automation and advanced technology arevital. When advanced site-wide defragmen-tation is fully automated, it represents one

of the simplest, yet most effective, systemmaintenance activities to protect andimprove the stability and uptime of anentire network. It’s just not possible tomanually keep up with the defragmenta-tion demands of more than a handful ofmachines.

By using an advanced, automated defragand file system performance solution tominimize troubleshooting and other reac-tive system maintenance demands, SysAdmins experience benefits that gobeyond system stability. There is theadditional gain of saving significant timeand manpower, allowing IT staff to domore important things and delivering ahard dollar savings to a company.

Try Diskeeper today and see the benefits for yourself!

www.diskeeper.com/newsk124

© 2007 Diskeeper Corporation. All Rights Reserved. The Diskeeper Corporation logo, Diskeeper, Disk Performance Analyzer for Networks, Executive Software, I-FAAST, InvisiTasking, Maximum SystemPerformance and Reliability—Automatically, PushInstall, Recovery Bin, “Set It and Forget It” and Undeleteare trademarks and/or registered trademarks owned by Diskeeper Corporation in the United Statesand/or other countries. Microsoft, MS-DOS, Excel, Access, Windows, Windows XP, Windows NT, WindowsVista and PowerPoint are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and othercountries. All other trademarks and brand names are the property of their respective owners.

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Diskeeper 2007Success!

“I can honestly credit Diskeeperwith eliminating performancedegradation throughout thelocations I am responsible for.No more general system slownessor application hangs due to heavyfragmentation; it has proven to be an invaluable tool.”

—Adam Magness,Citrus & Allied Essences, Ltd.

People are bloggingabout Diskeeper!Denver Fowler (www.denverfowler.com)

“Diskeeper 2007—The Denver Review”

I-FAAST (Intelligent File Access Acceleration Sequencing Technology)

This is an über-cool technology that was introduced inDiskeeper 10. I-FAAST significantly improved file access per-formance beyond that provided by Microsoft Windows DefragSystem by 10 percent to 20 percent on the average.Sometimes by as much as 80 percent!

Oh, but it gets much better from here!! (Can’t tell I’m veryexcited, can you? Like a kid in a candy store!) I didn’t tell you

how I-FAAST does things to speed up your PC’s per formance.I-FAAST, now version 2.0, uses the world’s only system performance enhancement technology that actually bench-marks your drives, and determines their per formance characteristics. It continually monitors these volumes todetermine which files are used most often. With this col-lected data, Diskeeper organizes your files to optimize yourdrive’s per formance.

In Diskeeper 2007, they then integrated I-FAAST with a newtechnology called InvisiTasking. InvisiTasking makes everythingDiskeeper 2007 does virtually invisible. Thus freeing up valu-able resources on your PC. How cool is that! Being that thesetechnologies are turned on and running by default uponinstalling Diskeeper 2007, the end user no longer needs toworry at all about their drive’s file fragmentation.

Tech IQ (www.techiqmag.com)“Diskeeper Cashes In On Virtualization”

Diskeeper is benefiting greatly from the virtualization craze,according to a PR rep from the company. Sure, IT Managerscan now consolidate three, four or even more servers into a vir-tualized server. But the downside is those single servers willreceive three to four times as much disk traffic as a result. Inother words, the physical server will be working overtime withthree to four times the fragmentation on the single drive as itstrives to manage three or four virtual machines. That’s a“boon for business for Diskeeper.”