By
Philip Churchill on January 30th, 2008
The new version of PerfectDisk for WHS is now available. The 2008 version of the defragmentation toll for Windows Home Server is priced at $39.99, and also includes a copy of PerfectDisk 2008 Professional for one of your networked PCs. A home site license is also available for just $99.99, and provides a single license of PerfectDisk 8 for Windows Home Server and up to 10 licenses of PerfectDisk 2008 Professional for your network.
So what’s new:
A brand new user interface to enhance usability and improve the user experience, including ribbons, new wizards, new graphs and more.
Enhancements to the popular Single Defrag option, including a new Selected Files Defrag capability to defragment selected files rather than the entire drive.
New StealthPatrol unattended background defragmentation for use when scheduling is not convenient.
New free space management capabilities including Space Explorer that provides a bird’s eye view of your drive, directories, and files.
New Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) compatibility mode provides enhanced defragmentation of VSS environments.
Reduced memory footprint for improved performance.
Support for the exFAT file system for improved flash drive support.
More info, and a 30 day evaluation copy is available for download.
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PerfectDisk for WHS is way better than Diskeeper… I’m glad to see this blogged long last…
However, after listening to the audio PODcast by Raxco with Phillip… well…
When Phillip stated WHS should only be used for customers with 2 to 10 computers he should have said why. That’s because WHS is limited to only ten PC’s thanks to the Microsoft EULA!
Since WHS advertising the need for backing up your data, that’s good, but WHS is the most highest cost to do just that… Because WHS requires additional purchases such as a router, and a UPS battery backup system, due to the reboot data corruption that can occur for unexpected reboots such as from power failures…
Then there’s the issue of WHS NOT being able to backup it’s main operating system, in the event of failure. Which brings up how to restore your PC when WHS crashes?
If your looking for an easier and lower cost of total ownership, that doesn’t require all the additional hardware cost, plus the extra management of configuring WHS, you can use Acronis True Image Echo Workstation.
Acronis supports direct eSATA, which provides real transfer speeds around 300MBps, unlike GiB ethernet…
Anyone wanting to transfer their data from the PC to WHS knows this, because the throughput bandwidth of using WHS doesn’t compare with an eSATA or even USB v2 direct connection…
Just transfer a 4GiB file from your USB to PC and then transfer your 4GiB file from your PC to WHS and measure the speed and time it takes to do the same task…
A home server sounds wonderful, that is when it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, and actually provides us with real services we home users need and want…
Hopefully, we all will NOT be required to click on “START” just to shut off Windows…
Note to self: never buy acronic software.
What is evil about a 30 day evaluation period? Seems fair enough to use and try it before you buy…
Not to self: No facts, no real value what’s so ever! must be a Microsoft fanboy!
Acronis provides a cheaper backup and restore solution than WHS. Anna was right, as anyone using WHS must invest more hardware, more additional cost, and it doesn’t provide more, but is actually slower…
And unlike WHS Acronis doesn’t have all the issues such as data corruption still NOT fixed…
See KB http://www.support.microsoft.com/kb/946676
Acronis doesn’t need an operating system to work unlike WHS… which has No protection for the WHS operating system in the event of a drive failure.
Congratulations, you’ve just pointed out the single greatest reason why people don’t want WHS, because to you it’s cool Nathan, but for the rest of us we need lower cost solutions, not empty your wallet as if money is no concern…
Another decent backup solution is Paragon Partition Manager Professional v9.0 which also works on a CD to bootup and restore your data without Windows loading or requiring WHS to bootup…
Acronis restores your operating system to a new computer with different hardware, try doing that with WHS… you cannot. It’s called Acronis Universal Restore…
You must be a real MS hater – no logic, pure emotions. Your “Acronis doesn’t need Operating system to work unike WHS…” is just a vivid proof. WHS IS an operating system, which COMES with a backup solution. One can argue, which solution is better, but comparing Acronis (which I like and use on occasions) with WHS is simply silly. BTW, how much would you have to spend to have a acronis server with 10 acronis clients to accomplish what WHS does for $170 (OS included)? You want to make comparisons, make it fair and based on facts not … “inventions of you emotions” .
BTW, to spare you some suspense – I do NOT work for Microsoft or any of its affiliates, nor do I make a living from selling Microsoft products.
As far as the corruption issue – YES, I am furious too, that a product that is supposed to protect data, may corrupt it on occasions. Where was the QA group. I hope somebody is going to get fired for this.
It wasn’t all that long ago when everyone read:
Windows Vista is riddled with problems and gives users and businesses no reason to buy a new PC, according to a report in the Financial Times Deutschland quoting Acer president Gianfranco Lanci.
And released today by Microsoft itself:
Microsoft says Vista adoption is about 2% in enterprise, said Microsoft’s John Curran, head of the Windows Client Group.
WHS is beta quality at best, requiring third party add-ins as missing solutions. Even with WHS PP1 it fails to protect itself from data corruption.
See http://www.support.microsoft.com/kb/946676
And who wants to delete all their data just to share it on WHS? Meaning, all WHS users must first transfer from their PC to WHS any videos, photos and data to share since WHS demands all external hard drives to be formatted as NTFS first and only.
Acronis is very cheap, and even comes with a bootable CD, that supports both creation of your operating system partitions as well as restoration. It doesn’t matter if you backup 1 or 1 million computers here, you just insert that bootable CD and use it.
WHS requires a computer system, which someone didn’t even include plus the additional cost as noted above for a router, and hopefully a UPS backup power solution since unscheduled reboot may lead also to data corruption as posted by MSWHS.
See: http://www.mswhs.com/2007/11/19/should-i-re-boot-whs
Acronis sells for just $50, but WHS cost three times as much. I don’t see why anyone would want to argue that fact.
What’s interesting to note that someone would want to bash an application that they themselves use. Go figure…
But, WHS doesn’t even back itself up, so the earlier point remains in that unlike Acronis, WHS operating system must be booted up just to function.
I’m sure most of know, all operating system especially Microsoft windows, experience failures. Think how many times we all have witness and experienced the famous BSOD!
What’s even more troubling here, is how anyone would trust WHS to backup all your home computers to WHS, risking all your backup images and files, when in fact data corruption has NOT been resolved, when in fact at any time all these backup files can become corrupted at once…
Acronis backup images don’t corrupt all your backup files like WHS ticking time bomb is just waiting to occur…
In addition, you don’t need to bring your WHS server with you to backup or restore your data with you, even when travelling across the world, or heaven to forbid helping out a friend PC’s woes…
What a waste of time. I came here looking for info about PerfectDisk for WHS and user feedback on it, only to find WHS bashing and the Pros and Cons of using Acronis. In the future, how about addressing the subject of the review and take the other subjects addressed here to the appropriate forum areas.
John B. I fully agree.
Unbelievable, such a one track mind thinking only about how everything must be some great “wow” experience advertising WHS…
When in fact, the point was made how WHS has fatal flaws, that still haven’t been address since April 3rd of 2007! http://www.support.microsoft.com/kb/946676
It appears Microsoft fanboys still don’t value feedback, unless it’s only to praise their love of Microsoft’s failures to actually listen to real customers, end users and obviously the public.
Despite how good some think WHS is, the fact that they still use Acronis indicates WHS isn’t everything. Despite the higher cost of using WHS, which we customers care about, Acronis is a viable solution even if you use WHS!
Perfect Disk is a defrag application, which proves WHS as a product doesn’t live up to it’s potentials. That’s another reason everyone is discovering for themselves why WHS requires third party solutions being how WHS doesn’t provide them to begin with…
And lastly since Perfect Disk hosted a PODcast with Phillip talking about everything else related to WHS, we all have the option to comment about the Perfect Disk PODcast, unless your just a North Korean Communist unable to value feedback!
Instead of demanding only one point of view to be what you expect, try thinking about how other individuals experience WHS. And if you still just cannot see their point, at least address it, that is to provide the facts as why you disagree or can offer a better solution. Can you???
It’s obvious WHS has a real serious flaw here regarding data corruption, as posted by Microsoft, which hasn’t been resolved for about 10 months now…
When if ever will it be resolved?
How about fixing WHS? Instead of complaining about other real working software solutions!
Windows’ Defragmenter tool won’t do the job? That;s obvious since Windows Defragmenter was never really upgraded over the many years.
At least Perfect Disk 2008 bring a new level of usefulness!
On the other hand, anyone need only to check out what is being written and said about WHS on google.com for unsolicited open points of view in forums and blogs to realize the need of actually providing a real product solution.
Us customers don’t want final retail or even OEM editions sold to us as beta versions in constant need of patches, hot fixes, service packs and even powerpacks, which continue to NOT resolve the data corruption flaws of WHS.
The difference between Perfect Disk and Microsoft is in that one actually listens to their customers while the others proclaims “wow” experiences that never materializes.
See for yourself:
http://www.perfectdiskblog.typepad.com/
Ps. I really like MSWHS, only wish WHS was a better WHS product that actually offered more. Thanks Phillip! 🙂
Until WHS gets fixed, I’m going to buy Acronis to backup my PC.
So I am glad to know there is a lower cost and working solution that affords my needs to backup my operating system and data. I also already use Perfect Disk, it’s better than Microsoft’s own defrag application by providing faster boot times and file access speeds! Way to go Perfect Disk!
I like this program better than diskkeeper. Here’s a screen shot URL: http://i30.tinypic.com/2lkp8qb.png
Here’s a question, Why not use a file system that does not fragment to begin with? Such as ext2/ext/ReiserFS, instead of FAT or NTFS?
PerfectDisk 2008 doesn’t Requires Product Activation unlike Diskeeper Pro. Perfect Disk 2008 is also Certified by Microsoft, but Diskeeper Pro isn’t. Are we getting this???
Single-pass defragmentation of files PerfectDisk 2008 Yes
Single-pass defragmentation of files Diskeeper 2008 No
defragments all NTFS metadata PerfectDisk 2008 Yes
defragments all NTFS metadata Diskeeper 2008 No
Places MFT for improved performance PerfectDisk 2008 Yes
Places MFT for improved performance Diskeeper 2008 No
User-defined thresholds PerfectDisk 2008 Yes
User-defined thresholds Diskeeper 2008 No
CPU and disk I/O throttling PerfectDisk 2008 Yes
CPU and disk I/O throttling Diskeeper 2008 No
Designed for multi-terabyte drives PerfectDisk 2008 Yes
Diskeeper Pro: Requires Diskeeper Enterprise Edition or Home Server to get Terabyte Volume Engine Designed for multi-terabyte drives.
Yep, PD 2008 is top notch. I’ve tried numerous defraggers and this program is priceless. The responsiveness of my machine after a run through is fantastic. Beats anything else out there.
Here’s a Defrag Shootout Blog, which Donn Edwards has written a comprehensive review regarding Perfect Disk:
http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2007/09/great-defrag-shootout-winners.html
Thanks for your comments guys and girls.