We're all familiar with the sound of a hard drive chattering away as it diligently searches for and writes information to the platters. The number one cause of this phenomena is fragmentation. According to our good friends at Wikipedia, "In computer storage, fragmentation is a phenomenon that [occurs when] storage space is used inefficiently, reducing storage capacity." To correct these inefficiencies, a process called defragmentation can be performed. Microsoft has a defrag utility built in to Windows but, in all but the most recent iterations of the operating system (Windows Vista), it must be run manually. Vista does offer a defragmenting utility that can be scheduled but does not really offer any log or status indicators and does not offer any customization options. A utility that can with more powerful scheduling and modification capabilities would be more convenient. Software packages that do this do exist. However, why not go one step further and automate the process real-time? How about giving us detailed log and status indicators and other tools to help manage fragmentation issues? Enter Diskeeper 2008 Pro Premier. 
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Diskeeper 2008 is an automated defragging utility that offers a slew of tools and configuration options for managing your hard drive read/write performance. File fragmentation is a very common phenomenon but is rarely addressed as often as it should be. A noisy or "grindy" hard drive is really a symptom of a larger problem, namely fragmentation. Essentially, fragmentation causes a hard drive to work harder as it looks for information to read and searches for space to write. This inefficiency reduces drive integrity as the hardware is required to worker harder and more frequently than a drive with less fragmentation. Diskeeper's solution? Real-time defragging. But does it work? And if it works, will it have a noticeable effect on system performance? Read on to find out.
