What is disk fragmentation and why does it happen?
As files are stored, moved, deleted, updated and so on, over time they can be potentially stored on different areas of the disk rather than in a single block. This is called disk fragmentation. There could be thousands of parts of files scattered all over the disks on your home server. What this means is that it takes longer to read and write those files than it would do if they were all in the same place. That annoying delay waiting for that Word document to open? Could be disk fragmentation.
This is where disk defragmentation software comes into play. The software examines the disk and all of your files, figures out where the parts of the files pysically on your drives are and attempts to move them together to make things run faster and smoother. This is a good thing – just imagine having hundreds of gigabytes of files scattered all over the disk.
One extremely important thing to remember if you want to run disk defragmentation software on your Windows Home Server, that as with Anti-Virus software, you need to ensure that you use a product that specifically supports WHS and not just any old defrag program. At the time of writing, the only two products on the market that support WHS are Diskeeper 2008 and PerfectDisk. Why is this? Windows Home Server utilises a number of unique new file system technologies which non-WHS specific software does not work with - using non WHS specific defrag and anti-virus software can lead to data loss.
For those of you who might be familiar with Diskeeper, there are a number of key features for WHS users:
- WHS Console integration which lets you control everything and view status updates directly from within the WHS Console.
- Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) compatibility, which ensures that there are not problems with any shadow copies on your WHS.
- Real-time defragmentation ensures that your system is continually defragmented to ensure that you don’t have to run long defrags.
- Background processing which ensure that there is no performance issues using a technology Diskeeper calls InvisiTasking.
Installation
Installing Diskeeper 2008 HomeServer edition is actually not that straightforward. It’s not really difficult either, there are just a few more steps to it than most people would expect. Up until very recently there were no real instructions on how to actually do this, you had to figure it out on your own, but now Diskeeper have added instructions to their blog and will also include instructions for future users. For simplicities sake I have included some instructions here (should you have the software but not yet installed it).
Once you have downloaded the Diskeeper 2008 HomeServer edition software to your computer you have it get it onto your Windows Home Server and install it – unfortunately you cannot do this through the Windows Home Server Console, which is, as you are probably aware, the preferred method of administering and managing your Windows Home Server. Copy the installation file to a shared folder on your Windows Home Server – for example \\servername\Software (where servername is the name of your WHS).
The next step you may be unfamiliar with – you need to use the Windows Remote Desktop Connection software to connect to your Windows Home Server (you can skip this if you have a monitor, mouse and keyboard actually connected to your WHS) and install the software.
Launch the Remote Desktop Connection software from Windows and in the Computer box enter the name of your home server. The username is Administrator and the password is whatever password you are using for the Administrator account. Then just click on the Connect button and it should, all being well, make a connection to your WHS and allow you to access the machine as though you were sitting in front of it.
Now find where you copied the software to and double-click on the file called Diskeeper2008-HomeServer.exe to start the installation.
Follow all of the onscreen prompts and when the installation has completed close down the remote desktop connection.
The installation process from this point onwards is fairly straightforward (like most add-ins).
Now follow these couple of quick steps:
Start the WHS Console.
Click the Settings button, and navigate to the Add-ins page.
On the Available page, you should now see the entry for Diskeeper 2008 HomeServer Console.
Click the Install button.
Installation will commence and should only take a moment or two in order to finish. After the Setup has finished you will need to restart your WHS Console.
Using Diskeeper
After you have restarted your WHS Console you will notice a new tab called Diskeeper. If you click on it you will see information pertaining to your home server, as shown in the screenshot below.
Your initial thought might be that it looks like it includes a lot of information. Don’t worry, the left hand window is purely there as a quick launch area to make things easier for you. This include a quick start guide, and overview and other useful documentation, plus menu options to view the properties of your volumes, run analysis and defragmentations and even configure Diskeeper. If you don’t need or want this Quick Launch area you can easily hide it by clicking on the top left button. You can get at all the options anyway from other buttons, so it just makes the other two areas easier to view.
As you can also see, you can view a list of your volumes, including the size and amount of free space, whether or not Automatic Defragmentation is enabled (and it’s enabled by default in case you were wondering, and that’s for 24/7 defragmentation), and if VSS is being used. You can click on any of the volumes and make selections as you see fit, including running and analysis, but more on that in a moment.
If you select a volume and click on the Properties button you can view and change the settings, including when the automatic defragmentation takes place. Personally I think that automatic defragmentation is a great feature as it means my home server is always the best it could be and I don’t have to worry about running a manual defrag later on!
You can easily set the days and times it can take place with just a few simple clicks. And another nice feature is that you can choose another volume to view or change without having to go back to the main screen.
Should you want to see how badly in need your volumes are of defragmenting, for example just after you have installed Diskeeper, you can do so by selecting the volume you want to look at and clicking the analyze button. This will display a graphical representation of your volume for you and show you just how bad (or good) it actually is. Depending on the size of your drive, this analysis should only take a few moments. You can also view either a File Performance volume map or a File Structure volume map, depending on what you are interested in. For me, I was interested in File Performance.
When it has completed the analysis, you can click on the Job Report tab to see a much more detailed view on what is going on with the volume.
As you can see, my drive is heavily fragmented. There is lot of useful information for you to see here, including how much of an improvement you would get from performing a defragmentation, in my case for access time alone I would gain a 4% improvement. 4% may not seem like a lot, but the volume in question doesn’t have that many files so – so imagine would it might be like if it was nearly full!
So now it’s probably time to run a manual defragmentation (again, if you are using automatic defragmentation you shouldn’t need to do this much). This time click on the defragment button. The first thing you will probably see is a screen warning you that VSS has been detected and asking you what you want to do, as shown below. I chose the default option which was to perform the defragment using the VSS defragmentation method. This reduces the chances of your shadow copies being overwritten and you potentially losing data. This is why you need disk defragmentation software that understands Windows Home Server!
Once you click continue the disk degragmentation will begin. Depending on the size of the volume, the amount of free space (as long as you have at least 1% free Diskeeper will do its magic) and the amount of file fragmentation, this process can take a while. You can watch the progress in real-time, which will quickly lose it’s appeal after about a minute. You can continue to use your home server while this is happening, but the more you use the files on that volume the longer it will take to perform.
After it has completed you can view a report and make sure you are happy with the results.
Final Thoughts
As you can probably imagine, your WHS will become heavily fragmented in a very short space of time, so in order to keep it running smoothly it’s a very good idea to run some defragmentation software on it. Just remember to only use WHS aware and supported software!
Diskeeper 2008 HomeServer edition is a great piece of software, that is fairly easy to install and requires very little configuration to keep your WHS ticking over smoothly, and is very easy to use.
For more information on Diskeeper 2008 HomeServer edition, including pricing, head over to www.diskeeper.com.
February 7th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
The jury (over on the WHS forums at microsoft.com) seems to be out on whether a defrag app is really needed for WHS. I mean, generally, you’re just backing up your PCs to it and streaming media from it - I can’t see the performance benefit.
Anyone tried this and seen tangible results?
February 7th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Why is a defrag application not included in WHS as standard?? all other Windows OS’s have this!
February 7th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Andrew - I suppose if you are just streaming media from it you may not get much of a benefit, but you still have to get your data onto WHS and as such if its all together on the disk rather than all over it then its better. Also, if you are also using WHS as a filestore, whch it is, then this really does help. Suppose at the end of the day its all about what “you” use it for as to whether you think you need it.
Steve - the point is that WHS is a different beast because of the Drive Extender and VSS, so you need an application that understands and supports its, and I guess Microsoft decided not to spend time writing one themselves when others would do it for them. I guess they didnt want to be accused of unfair competition like they get with IE and Media Player. Maybe one will be inplemented with V2. And I think you will dinf the defrag app is from diskeeper in those other versions of Windows (kind of diskeeper “lite”).
February 7th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Good review, a few concerns for me regarding the VSS Shadow Copies. Their seems to be allot of coments and infotmation saying it will greatly reduce the chance of any VSS purges.? Is this not something that can be guaranteed? or it is not yet technicall y possible?
Whilst i can understand the need for defragmentation whilst using WHS as say a document file server, For most where it just backs up pcs and streams media its just a luxury and not realy needed. Plus i am reserved even to purchase it when i do srat using my WHS as a file server with the seeminlgy unknown results with VSS.
Thank You to Andrew for the review.
RB
February 7th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Thanks Rick, glad you liked the review.
I think I would suggest asking Diskeeper about the VSS purges just to be safe.
I think if you are unsure about using it or dont think you need it at the moment, I dont see any harm in waiting. If you start to notice a significant performance hit down the round then you can look then.
Andrew
February 7th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Diskeeper isn’t as good as you may think. It hogs more CPU, requires multiple passes, and still doesn’t really defrag, as claimed. Better to consider Perfect Disk, as it does speed up file access, which is the whole point of defragging, is it not?
February 7th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
@Andrew
If in the event your sharing your files to a different PC you can do that without WHS using your PC now. And if you actually need a separate storage, you can save yourself a huge amount of money, headaches and trouble to just get a wireless hard drive that would also backup your PC and stream your video. Already in Shenzhen their selling such wireless connectivity hard drives, which many of the Germans buy to watch Xvid and Dvix videos using a remote. It’s cheap, small and best of all portable.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:25 am
@Andrew Edney - “I suppose if you are just streaming media from it you may not get much of a benefit, but you still have to get your data onto WHS and as such if its all together on the disk rather than all over it then its better. Also, if you are also using WHS as a filestore, whch it is, then this really does help. Suppose at the end of the day its all about what “you” use it for as to whether you think you need it.”
I don’t really get how it is ‘better’ when writing files to the disk, or how defrag ‘helps’ when using WHS as a file store. The files are still there, they just *might be* spread around a bit more. I guess my point is that the performance benefit gained from defrag (IMHO) is usually fairly small on a normal desktop PC. If I’m just using the machine as a file store and backup, then the actual visible performance gain for me as an end user, I would guess, is almost imperceptible. That is why I was asking if anyone had actually noticed a tangible difference with Diskkeeper installed.
@Kwai - my main reasons for getting WHS are redundand file storage, streaming media, automated backup and remote access of my home PCs in an ‘install and forget’ type of package. I don’t get that kind of experience with any other home server device currently available.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
@ Dan Smith- My experience with Perfectdisk 8 (trial) and Diskeeper Pro (trial) on a desktop PC has been quite different. PD was, by far, the bigger resource hog, while Diskeeper would always back off, when other programs were running. I could always easily work on the PC while using Diskeeper, though not always during a defrag run with perfectdisk; and the Windows screensaver and PD did not always get along well either. Also, the fileplacement algorithm of perfectdisk did not provide any perceptible increase in boot-time or overall performance. As for single vs multi-pass, I always ran diskeeper on background defrag as recommended, so it wasn’t really an issue for me.
I don’t mean to be critical of any particular app, because different users require different apps, but I prefer Diskeeper over perfectdisk by far, TBH.
Disclaimer: Please note that I have NOT used either one on any WHS install. Infact, I am still undecided on whether I really -need- a WHS box at all, or I just -want- WHS lol.