PerfectDisk 14 Pro 14.0.0.890

Overview

Every computer becomes slower and decreases performance after some time so it is crucial that you defragment the hard disk in order to boost its speed. PerfectDisk Professional is a utility designed to do this job effectively, including many features to maintain your system in good health without being troublesome or difficult to use. In the newest version (v12.5) a new feature has been added called Space Management which basically turns PerfectDisk into a cleaning software and deletes all junk files located in your computer to recover disk space.

Installation

Installation is just 3 steps but doesn’t have any special settings at all, although it might take several minutes to finish depending on the speed of your computer. Supported operating systems are Windows XP, Vista, 7 and Home Server, either 32 or 64-bit version.

Interface

The interface is solid and modern, with a very nice way of organizing everything. The main window is split into tabs, separating the main features. There five of them: Defragmentation, StealthPatrol, Scheduling, Space Management, S.M.A.R.T. and Dashboard. The first two and Space Management are optimization features, while S.M.A.R.T and Dashboard are there for information purposes. Scheduling, as the name suggests, allows you to schedule tasks to be performed in the future.

Pros

With an updated defragmentation method in this new version, the time taken to defragment a hard drive is reduced by 25%, a significant improvement especially when it is a large hard drive. Apart from that, you have various options of how to defragment. For example you can select only particular files and not the whole disk, or you can perform a Boot time defrag, a feature that optimizes files that are normally locked by Windows. You can see a detailed report after every defragmentation with analytic information and graphs.

Stealth Patrol has two main functions: Firstly, it performs defragmentation tasks automatically when the computer isn’t busy to keep it optimized and save valuable time from doing so manually yourself. The other function is called OptiWrite, and it prevents fragmentation on the drive before it happens. It’s a really helpful feature that runs in the background and monitors file activity, consuming very low system resources as well.

Cons

When you run it for the first time it might seem complicated but in essence everything you need is easy to find and use, with the more advanced options not getting in the way, so a novice user won’t have a hard time getting familiar with it.

Alternatives

Diskeeper (Pro, Pro Premier, Home, Server) is a shareware that belongs in the same category as PerfectDisk, including various features for hard disk defragmentation. It is an efficient program but it is a little bit complex for inexperienced users. Another high quality product like PerfectDisk and Diskeeper is O&O Defrag, but even though it is a powerful defragmentation engine it's not very flexible as it lacks the capability to be extensively configured by the user.

Conclusion

After testing this program, we can safely say that it is a shareware worth the money. Many other programs promise great results after using them, but PerfectDisk is a perfect example of the “actions speak louder than words” saying.