Talk:Vopt

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What a load of nonsense. Each statement can be verified and I can't see any hype or exaggeration. --Donn Edwards 15:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Verify them then... And there definitely seems to be some hype to me, for example "Its method of defragmentation is highly efficient, winning loyalty from users for the short time it takes to process the drive" Nil Einne 12:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Security Now Discussion

Transcript of Security Now podcast #88

Leo Laporte: Yeah. Babak in San Jose, California asks: I was wondering if you could comment on which hard disk defrag and maintenance tools you prefer. I’m referring to tools that run under Windows. What do you use to defrag and maintain your disks? Besides SpinRite.

Steve Gibson: Well, certainly SpinRite for sector-level maintenance. There is a defragger that you’ll know well, Leo, probably. It’s still around, and it’s my favorite. It’s from a company called Golden Bow Software.

Leo: Oh, that’s still around.

Steve: That’s Vopt.

Leo: That’s the one that Jerry Pournelle would just sing the praises of.

Steve: Yes. And I’m still doing so. I’ve become less and less impressed by Microsoft’s defragging. I find that when I use the defragger in XP or especially Vista, Vista they just took all the meat out of it. I mean, it’s just amazing. I’d like to see...

Leo: You’re not supposed to really need it, though, with NTFS, are you?

Steve: I know. But just it feels good. It just feels – I don’t want all these little red teeth all over my hard drive. I like everything to be in little blue blocks. And so anyway, Vopt is my favorite defragger. It runs, I’m not sure about Vista, but certainly all the way through XP. And I’m sure they must have a version now because Vista’s been around long enough. Anyway, they’ve kept it alive. It does a very good job. It’s got a whole bunch of really nice features.

The thing that’s built into Windows, there’s a disk cleanup which is something I also recommend that people use because it empties your trash, it throws away a whole bunch of the cached stuff that your Internet Explorer browser has downloaded. I mean, and many times, in many cases, hundreds of megabytes of just stuff you really don’t need. And so when you run this, it will get rid of that stuff. Vopt has an even more thorough version of that that does a better job, a deeper job of cleaning up really the debris that the systems accumulate over time. And it is the case also that defragging your system will mean less wear and tear on your hard drive. It’s the head moving which will create wear and tear. And that’s what causes heat. If a drive is just sitting there idling, or not moving the head a lot, it will run cooler than if the head is flying back and forth all over the place.

Leo: It is possible to over defrag and make it worse. In other words, you shouldn’t run these things every day because then you’d be doing the opposite. You’d be overexercising your drive.

Steve: Yes. You’d be putting the drive through more work than it wants. And there is also something, a sort of a SpinRite-ish benefit to defragging, and that is that it does cause your system to revisit areas of the drive, and it allows the drive to see that it’s got problems that it might otherwise not be aware of. SpinRite, of course, does it from zero to a hundred percent. I mean, it does the entire surface. Defragging doesn’t guarantee you that, but it’s another sort of a good thing to do, just sort of, you know, shake the dust loose from the drive.

Leo: And by the way, Vopt is available for Vista, does work with Vista, $40 at Vopt.com.

Can we include this is the article? 41.243.121.208 21:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Some things of note

built-in optimization of the Windows prefetch folder

Problem with this feature it doesn't work well at all. When defrag and Vopt will place these files any where it chooses to often around the page file. Which is not helpful when the page file needs to increase. Since then the page file cannot be moved and problems occur.

The main other problem is that Vopt doesn't defrag all the prefect files only the system files. And yet when run Vopt again all those files you have used since that are in the prefetch folder are now all yellow and place them selves in the prefect zone where ever it is after defrag. Though more times than not this doesn't happen and have yellow prefect files everywhere leaving the drive having to spend extra time when load a file that the prefect folder knows of.

Don't get me wrong Vopt is good just they don't seem to want to fix these problems or bugs to make Vopt better.

I have two hdd that act strange with Vopt not strange in that Vopt is bad for them just I guess bugs.

This is at the end of the drive both drives have large area that are dark blue boxes. There are no files there it just remains there. But look with any other defragmenter software and all is as should be nothing is there. As a test I did fill nearly one of those drives 1000mb remained empty. Files were in that same zone could be seen clearly with other defrag softwares. But in vopt that area still there could not see any of the files within or able to choose any by selecting the squares. If browsed for a file that was in that area and excluded it would not be shown as grey excluded or appear in status excluded files menu. All ok since these drives I have used for years. Neither drive has any overlay type area or any reserved area. Both I have checked with using MHDD and other such low level tools all say the drive is like any other empty drive and the drives sizes are reported correct to manufacture label on the drive. Neither are re-manufactured or recertified drives repaired or other by manufacture that I know of. Usually a label shows this or colour of the label.

OT: (if allowed to go OT here, delete this paragraph if not): That said none are Seagate that are known to sell brand new drives sometimes without any recertification label attached as retail new drives. The reason why no one should ever buy a Seagate drive although that is becoming harder since Seagate now are nearly the only drive manufacture. Seagate lower price drives to push the other manufactures out of the market or to sell to them. This likely will happen then we can only hope SSD drives are many TB capacity and reliable since Seagate mechanical drives are non reliable. This about Seagate is not meant any harm or otherwise just what I see or think is likely to happen.

Vopt is showing its age such as even finding a file to defrag is a chore. Need to exclude it when need Vopt defragment it with other files.

Vopt cannot defragment any system area files even though it says it can defragment the page file it cannot. That is I have never seen it able to do so. Though what is need for any defrag software that none yet have achieved that I know of is the ability to defrag the MFT files. That is able to place them back to their MFT zone for which they belong and should stay. Though at least Vopt does show the user which files are MFT that many other defrag softwares cannot or don't show them all.

There is meant to be one or two that can do this but in practise they are bad at this. Where one will leave smaller files with the MFT files (No thanks). And the other will place the MFT at the start of the drive (again no thanks).

OT again: Drive problems where the MBR is at the start of the drive I'm sure is the doom of many drives and likely data. Maybe the reason Microsoft had to eventually change to GPT or HFS (unknown which). I read one of those or both store the MBR equivalent at the start and end and maybe also in the middle. That is good news but how bad Microsoft are for not using that in the first place or soon as they realised.

OT last time: Microsoft is floundering as we can see from many flavours of their latest OS's. Mac tried to jump in take the mantle to be the best by ditching their expensive tie in computers and hardware. Now able to buy as everyone else can any hardware and Intel motherboard to use MAC OS. Microsoft should learn from Mac OS is to keep people using the OS not drive them away. Mac OS when last looked 90%+ lower than Microsoft OS. Linux meanwhile could have it all but the backward jokers looking after that ruined it for everyone.

Linux and Mac need to ROOT get rid of that snite no business would have their users using any of those OS with a back-door ROOT. Make the OS like Microsoft NO ROOT totally removed all all ROOT commands, tools and all other now made into various GUI's. That if each user wanted to can access them to do as they require. No backdoor NO ROOT. Think of Microsoft MMC and similar but where it is easier to use and works. Linux or Mac have the chance to be the leader but only if can get rid of the ROOT and back-doors and get all business to use your OS. Without doing so they won't be doing so.

Excuse the OT: maybe you make them a page of their own somewhere on wiki or other where relevant OS people of those companies can read of them.

92.26.181.164 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:16, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Website defunct

The website is now defunct.--Abolibibelot (talk) 19:49, 23 May 2019 (UTC)