Harman Patil (Editor)

DiskTune

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Developer(s)
  
DiskTuna

Type
  
Defragmentation

Website
  
Official website

Operating system
  
Windows

License
  
Freeware

DiskTune

DiskTuna, formerly known as DiskTune is a freeware defragmentation program for Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, and 7 10 (both 32-bit and 64-bit). It supports FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS file systems.

Contents

As common with other defragmentation programs, DiskTuna uses the Windows defrag API. DiskTuna is capable of moving the Master File Table (MFT) while the file system is mounted. DiskTuna provides boot and application launch optimization utilizing the Windows layout.ini (see Prefetcher). DiskTuna counters interaction between the Shadow Copy service and defragmentation I/O by offering a VSS safe-mode option. DiskTuna monitors the hard disk's temperature using S.M.A.R.T., and can warn the user if it overheats.

Features

DiskTuna offers normal defragmentation as well as an optimization mode. The goal of optimization is to improve boot-time and faster application as well as frequently used files loading times. To accomplish the latter DiskTuna moves those frequently used files and directories and the MFT in what it calls the 'system area' at the start of the volume.

DiskTuna can be run with command-line parameters (shortcuts created by DiskTuna itself employ this capability).

Compatibility

  • Although DiskTuna is a 32-bit application it is capable of moving files in the system folder on 64-bit Windows versions: DiskTune will detect if it is running in a WoW64 environment and will disable the File System Redirector for its own process for the duration of the process.
  • VSS safe-mode emulates a 16 KB cluster size to ensure all disk I/O is 16 KB aligned. As a result, in VSS safe-mode it will not move files smaller than 16 KB nor will it move larger files if they can't be moved to a location where the move-delta between original location and new location is not an increment of 16 KB.

    • Limitations

  • DiskTuna cannot move files to which an administrator does not have access. These are files that can typically only be accessed by the system account.
  • DiskTuna cannot access files for which Windows bypasses normal file-system access (raw access) such as the pagefile and the hibernation file.
  • DiskTuna may be unable to access files that are in use (it can most of the time however). These can include logfiles constantly being written to.
  • An open bug causes DiskTuna to skip directories for which the name starts with "." (e.g. ".cache").

    • References

    DiskTune Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA