Ableton Forum

Anybody use this?

No need to partition your hard drive.
Place any program or file on any disk anywhere (outer rim of platter for performance, inner rim for least used files)
Defrag with 1% free space
Speed up application launching.

I would like to know your opinions, experiences and or criticism, suggestions for alternatives etc.

Some info here

Cheers

Just a bump / Sorry,

Somebody posted a link here some time ago pointing to a test with and w/o a defragger on OSX.

The surprising result was not only that defragmentation didn't make the system faster in nearly all of the test cases, but slowed it down actually.

On windows my experience is that defragmentation helped. I'm not into the file systems and what is different on OSX, so I can't explain all that to you.

nbinder wrote:Somebody posted a link here some time ago pointing to a test with and w/o a defragger on OSX.

The surprising result was not only that defragmentation didn't make the system faster in nearly all of the test cases, but slowed it down actually.

On windows my experience is that defragmentation helped. I'm not into the file systems and what is different on OSX, so I can't explain all that to you.

Thanks. The claims about 200-300% improvement in disk read write speeds with Ultimate Defrag are impressive. Being able to move and place on your disk your .exe & .dll (and others) files anywhere you want on your hard drives seem in theory (the little I have) to be able to aid the person running an audio biased PC. I have seen the odd criticism about managing partitions, even though there are claimed benefits to running these. Apparently with UD you get the same benefits as partitioning but with out the hassle.

if it's really a performance increase you are after then why not just use a 2nd external hard drive. it's certain to be faster then this tool might possibly be.

200-300% read/write improvements are really, really hard to believe. This would be faster than the disk interface could support, wouldn't it?

I have used it, on my previous computer, and probably need to again on the new one. I like the pretty picture. On my ageing computer it did improve performance noticeably... this was a computer that was creaking with age, underpowered, so I don't know if it would be as noticeable on a faster machine. I doubt 300% performance increase, but the outside of HD spindles are certainly faster.

p.s. all this on XP

dys4ik wrote:200-300% read/write improvements are really, really hard to believe. This would be faster than the disk interface could support, wouldn't it?

By disk interface do you mean choosing between USB, FW, eSATA?

I guess it would I used HDtach to measure the difference between using the USB and FW400 connections to my ext 7200rpm HD. The average read write for the FW interface was approx 2.5x faster than USB2. The speed at the outer edge was another 30% faster again.

From the PDF Manual

This is where UltimateDefrag does its magic! UltimateDefrag brings your hard drive up to performance that exceeds average drive manufacturer quoted performance by around 300 to 400%. Since there are already performance enhancing systems in hard drive logic and Windows O/S, you will experience performance increases anywhere between 30 and 100%.

I suppose its also about managing where on your disk your information goes so the head is not moving as much. Placing Windows, Live and VST's on the outer edge of my sys hard drive and Live's library on the outer edge of my ext HD, and placing archived info such as images and rarely used programs on the inner tracks of the HD should help some, probably more on my older P4 lappy than the new desk top Quad.

gjm wrote:

dys4ik wrote:200-300% read/write improvements are really, really hard to believe. This would be faster than the disk interface could support, wouldn't it?

By disk interface do you mean choosing between USB, FW, eSATA?

I guess it would I used HDtach to measure the difference between using the USB and FW400 connections to my ext 7200rpm HD. The average read write for the FW interface was approx 2.5x faster than USB2. The speed at the outer edge was another 30% faster again.

From the PDF Manual

This is where UltimateDefrag does its magic! UltimateDefrag brings your hard drive up to performance that exceeds average drive manufacturer quoted performance by around 300 to 400%. Since there are already performance enhancing systems in hard drive logic and Windows O/S, you will experience performance increases anywhere between 30 and 100%.

I suppose its also about managing where on your disk your information goes so the head is not moving as much. Placing Windows, Live and VST's on the outer edge of my sys hard drive and Live's library on the outer edge of my ext HD, and placing archived info such as images and rarely used programs on the inner tracks of the HD should help some, probably more on my older P4 lappy than the new desk top Quad.

on your quad core Gjm, id be really surprised if you saw any performance benefit at all. I reckon the 200% claimed would be on marginal machines.

Id be very interested if anyone has done some independent benchmarking with this.

bencodec wrote:if it's really a performance increase you are after then why not just use a 2nd external hard drive. it's certain to be faster then this tool might possibly be.

this is the other weird myth i see on here all the time. External drives are almost always slower than the internal SATA bus, unless we are talking about full speed eSATA.

adventurepants_ wrote:on your quad core Gjm, id be really surprised if you saw any performance benefit at all. I reckon the 200% claimed would be on marginal machines.

Id be very interested if anyone has done some independent benchmarking with this.

Yeah. I have been using the quad for CAD and Solid Modeling the last few weeks and that thing is Sooooo flippin snappy.

My use of Live is embarrassingly simple, I do not foresee coming close to bogging it down music wise.

Just trying to settle on good housekeeping tools for the long haul.

adventurepants_ wrote:

bencodec wrote:if it's really a performance increase you are after then why not just use a 2nd external hard drive. it's certain to be faster then this tool might possibly be.

this is the other weird myth i see on here all the time. External drives are almost always slower than the internal SATA bus, unless we are talking about full speed eSATA.

AHhhhh, thats why HDtach reported the average data transfer rate of my P4's Lappy 5200rpm Hard Drive as being nearly 5% faster than the ext FW400 7200rpm HD.

gjm wrote:

adventurepants_ wrote:

bencodec wrote:if it's really a performance increase you are after then why not just use a 2nd external hard drive. it's certain to be faster then this tool might possibly be.

this is the other weird myth i see on here all the time. External drives are almost always slower than the internal SATA bus, unless we are talking about full speed eSATA.

AHhhhh, thats why HDtach reported the average data transfer rate of my P4's Lappy 5200rpm Hard Drive as being nearly 5% faster than the ext FW400 7200rpm HD.

people get too hung up on spin speeds and forget about throughput!

Well I just bought the program. I like it very much.

Using the program I have moved my Ableton program and folders right to the very outside track of my hard drive, and have archived rarely used programs and folders to the very inner tracks of the HD. No partitions needed. It looks like a great way to manage my audio pc. Its very flexible, you can change whenever you want.

You can manage your sys HD one way, and if you have ext HD's, manage them another way, according to your needs.

I recommend checking out the the trial version, defrag and disk management will take on a whole new meaning.

UltimateDefrag

I use it! Its very good. My library and Temp file directory are on there own drive at the outer rim and the recorded files are prioritized to the outer rim of my velociraptor. All my programs are on the outer rim of my RaptorX.

Like It should be I reckon.