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Volume 3 • Issue 8

Nine DefragmentationMYTHS that KILLsystem performance

See page 3

Diskeeper 2007 Review:SQLServerPerformance.com

See page 10

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For general information onDiskeeper Corporation or any ofour products, please email,telephone or write to us. Ifthere is specific informationyou require, contact any of thebelow suitable representativesand they will be pleased to helpwith any inquiries.

About DiskeeperCorporationInnovators in Performance and Reliability Technologies™

Contents

General Contact info:Diskeeper Corporation

7590 N. Glenoaks Blvd.Burbank, California

91504 USATel: (800) 829-6468

Fax: (818) 252-5514Email: info@diskeeper.comWeb: www.diskeeper.com

Editor: Lisa Shomo—lshomo@diskeeper.com

Technical: technicalsupport@diskeeper.com

PR: Colleen Toumayan—ctoumayan@diskeeper.com

Sales: salesinfo@diskeeper.com

Contact Details

For more information on our products, call us at 800-829-6468 code 3131 or go to www.diskeeper.com/newsk162

DiskeeperMaximizing Performanceand Reliability—Automatically ™

Undelete®

Worry-free dataprotection and

instant file recovery

Diskeeper Corporation ProductsInnovators in Performance and Reliability Technologies

Diskeeper Corporation, formerly ExecutiveSoftware®, was founded on July 22, 1981. During this time, the company has logged manytechnical achievements in the VMS and Windows®

industries with products like Diskeeper.

With over 25 million licenses sold, largecorporations and home users alike rely onDiskeeper software to provide unparalleledperformance and reliability to their laptops,desktops and servers. Diskeeper Corporationfurther provides up-to-the-minute data protection and instant file recovery with Undelete. A variety of system management tools, trialware and free utilities are available at www.diskeeper.com.

Consider This: Nine Defragmentation MYTHS that KILL system performance 3Customer Successes: Performance, Reliability and InvisiTasking™ 6Eight Things You Need to Know 8Diskeeper 2007 Review: SQLServerPerformance.com 10The Diskeeper Corporation Maintenance Agreement 11Microsoft®, Diskeeper Corporation and Satisfied Customers 12

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“Only file servers need to be defragged.”

This is not true. Although defragmenting file servers can oftenproduce an immediate visible performance increase, there aremany other machines that will bottleneck data flow if left frag-mented. If you allow fragmentation to accumulate on the primaryand backup domain controller servers the end user will experi-ence longer and longer log on times. Database, Mail and Printservers all have system partitions that contain O/S files andsystem files—all of which must be kept defragmented. Slow logon, sluggish printers and draggy database access are some ofthe areas that produce high help desk traffic and give manage-ment the feeling that they are not getting value for their money.

And remember, BACKUP operations, as well as Anti-Virus andSpyware scans, go much faster when ANY type of volume isdefragmented.

“You really don’t need to defragment until you notice a slowdown.”

This can be compared to not checking the oil in your car until theengine starts to smoke. When performance loss begins to slowthe workplace, the systems involved have already been losingproductivity for far too long. Often performance loss becomes“the way it is” and isn’t handled. Manual and scheduled defrag-menters absorb an unacceptable amount of system resourcesand system admin time, and simply can’t be run during workhours—when peak performance is needed the most. Diskeeper2007 is specially designed to be run on-the-fly in real time—making it completely invisible to the end user while greatlyimproving performance on an ongoing basis. Your users willnever have to wait for the performance improvement that defrag-mentation gives their systems.

Fragmentation is a system performance and reliability killer.There is no doubt about that. But there are ideas andmisunderstandings that fragmentation doesn’t affect sometypes of systems, or that it is unsafe to defragment certainsystems. We have the information that disproves these“myths of defragmentation.” In addition, there are also several other articles for you to turn to for more information.

It may be perceived that increased system speed in the amountof a few seconds when opening/writing a file is really not thatbig of a deal. However, Computer magazine’s March 2006issue included a report entitled “Quantifying Interactive UserExperience.” In their studies they found that delays of morethan one second caused the user to be unhappy with theresponse of their systems. Those seconds matter. Especiallywhen they turn into the dramatic time reductions that can beexperienced such as a reboot from three minutes down to 45seconds with Diskeeper enabled on the system.

You can never get back yesterday’s lost productivity, so don’t letit go in the first place. Find out how much fragmentation isaffecting every machine you manage with the Disk PerformanceAnalyzer for Networks™—download this free utility today atwww.diskeeper.com/newsk163

“RAID sets don’t need to bedefragmented.”

This myth probably came about because a RAID set is designedwith multiple disks and read/write heads so that faster fileaccess can occur. The fact is that Windows NT®/2000 sees onedisk and nothing in a RAID set design minimizes fragmentation—it will fragment at least as fast as other disks. The NSTL test thatproved Diskeeper’s performance superiority over the manualdefragmenter in Windows 2000 also showed that RAID arrays ofall sizes were capable of severe fragmentation.

For the report in detail go to www.diskeeper.com/newsk164

Why pay the money for a RAID set and not let it operate at peakperformance? Chances are you are using your RAID array for impor-tant and frequently accessed data. You do not want a performancehit in this area. With Diskeeper enabled on your RAID, it will boostperformance and defragment on-the-fly, completely invisibly, and

CONSIDER THIS: Nine Defragmentationthat KILL system performance

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can keep a RAID array running at factory specs without any furthersystem administrator intervention, or even scheduling.

See our article on SANs, NAS and RAID (www.diskeeper.com/newsk165) for more information on how defragmentation workson complex disk sub systems.

“Today’s faster, bigger hard drives lessenthe need for defragmentation.”

If you’ve ever installed a Windows O/S on a new partition withplenty of space left over and then analyzed the disk for frag-mentation, you’ll see it’s already amazingly fragmented—thesize of the disk simply didn’t matter. Fragmentation continues toaccumulate from that point forward. Why allow a new, cutting-edge piece of hardware to slow down right after installation?

“By using a defragmentation utility, it is possible to achieveper formance gains that meet or exceed many hardwareupgrades.” —IDC®

And by taking advantage of the Diskeeper with InvisiTasking tech-nology, defragmentation and file system performance requiresNO scheduling. Peak performance for all your systems requiresno additional management attention.

See our article on the ROI of defragmenting the enterprise atwww.diskeeper.com/newsk166

“You should never defragment databases.”

This is one of the more common myths regarding disk/file frag-mentation. Part of this belief stems from the fact that databasesare often critical 24/7 live applications, and do not afford anydown time. Discussions on the subject often portend of a dis-claimer that the Database Administrator must shut down thedatabase first before running disk defragmentation. This is incor-rect. Quite simply, open files including live databases, can besafely defragmented. This functionality, safety of operation, isaddressed by the operating system and is not dependant on thedisk defragmenter’s capability. However, an advanced defrag-mentation tool is required to ensure that consolidating databasesdoes not negatively affect the performance of that database.Another part of the myth associated with these specialized appli-cations includes the fact that “internal” data fragmentation (indexstructures or internal space/“holes”) within files becomes ram-pant. Database vendors typically provide free tools to addressthis type of fragmentation. However, they do not address per-formance issues that stem from “external” file fragmentation.

When Diskeeper runs, it acts to defrag database and logs filesso that, instead of being made of up of many pieces, the file isone continuous segment. In addition, Diskeeper defrags freespace so that when database or log files expand, they canexpand with little or no fragmentation. But this does not last for-ever. Eventually, fragmentation becomes a problem once again,and the database and log files need to be defragged again.Ideally, defragging should be performed on a regular basis to

prevent unnecessary fragmentation from occurring. WithDiskeeper’s InvisiTasking technology, defragmentation occurs ona regular basis, keeping your database running smoothly.

See the detailed white papers on Email servers and SQL Server™

databases at: www.diskeeper.com/newsk167 (Email servers)and www.diskeeper.com/newsk168 (SQL servers)

“If I have plenty of free space on mydisk, I don’t need to defragment.”

This idea may seem logical. If your disk contains free space thatis consolidated pretty well, it would be logical that new fileswould be placed in the large consolidated free space. However,this would not always be true, taking into account how file frag-mentation actually occurs on a Windows system.

Free space allocation algorithms in Windows XP/2003 can actu-ally contribute to the rate of fragmentation. Take the NTFS situ-ation as an example:

The XP/2003 NTFS file system driver maintains a list of thelargest free spaces on the volume. On a volume that started outas well-consolidated, ALL of the free spaces would be in the listand become candidates for allocation.

When a file gets created, it gets created in the free space thatmost closely matches the size of data available to write, in otherwords a “best fit.” Additionally, a presumption is made that anewly created file will end up larger than the size that is currentlyavailable for the operating system to write, and extra free space,an “overallocation,” is reserved for the file so as to prevent thefile from fragmenting (see Microsoft Knowledge Base article228198). That presumption is that the file will be 2, 4, 8 or 16times larger than the currently known data size, depending onhow much data is currently available for writing to the file in theoperating system’s file cache.

The file data is written to the volume, and the file is closed. Anyoverallocation is released, returning to the free space pool in theNTFS file system driver if it qualifies as one of the largest freespaces on the volume. In an extremely consolidated case, ofcourse, it will. And, in the case of doing an action such as view-ing a web page with multiple graphics, more than one cache filewould be created simultaneously.

The bottom line is this: on an active vol-ume, with a dynamic operatingsystem and dynamic utili-ties, the disk volume freespace situation is con-stantly changing. This,in conjunction withthe algorithms usedto allocate the freespace, defeats thevery best efforts ofany defragmenterthe very next timeyou do something assimple as surf the web.This just underscoresthe necessity to proac-tively address frag-

Nine Defragmentation Myths that Kill System Performancecontinued from page 3

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mentation with regular automatic defragmentation.

Read the full article with drive map illustrations on this subjectcalled “How File Fragmentation Occurs” at:www.diskeeper.com/newsk169

“Virtual Machines don’t needdefragmentation.”

CPUs and memory operate orders of magnitude faster thanmechanical hard drives. The slower the disk, the slower theentire system will be.

While these facts are well known to industry professionals, itdeserves reiteration as the issue becomes manifest when thosedisks are asked to do more. Such is the case with virtualization,where the given hardware has to support numerous simultane-ous operating systems.

Another vital factor to consider is that server virtualization cancompound disk fragmentation, which slows disk performance.

Typically, fragmentation occurs on logical disk drives, and bydevice drivers is translated to physical sectors on a disk. It canbe demonstrated as pieces of a file located in a non-contiguousmanner. In the case of virtual systems, the logical volume ismasked by the technology; known as a virtual disk. These virtualdisks reside on logical disks in the form of container files. Thosevirtual disk files can fragment just as any other file can, result-ing in what amounts to a “logically” fragmented virtual hard disk,which still has typical file fragmentation contained within it.

Read the full whitepaper on Virtualization and Disk Performanceon our website: www.diskeeper.com/newsk170

“SANs systems do not need to be defragmented.”

SANs typically employ a clustered/SAN file system to pool diskarrays into a virtualized storage volume. This is usually called a“shared disk file system.”

These shared disk file systems are not NTFS (New TechnologyFile System), but rather a proprietary software, provided by aSAN hardware or software vendor such as EMC (Celerra), LSI(StoreAge SVM), VMware (VMFS), etc. These file systems essen-tially “run on top of NTFS,” and do not replace it.

Keep in mind that every file system is a “virtual” disk. Stackingone virtual component over another (i.e., one file system on topof another) is very doable and increasingly more common.

What the vendor of a SAN file system does at that file system levelis irrelevant to what Diskeeper does. Claims that “you do not needto defragment” may be misunderstood and incorrectly thought toapply to NTFS. It is very possible that you do not need to defrag-ment the SAN file system. The expert on that file system and thesource from which you should get setup tips, best practices, andSAN I/O optimization methodologies is that manufacturer.

As for NTFS, it absolutely does fragment and causes the WindowsOS to “split” I/O requests for files sent into the SAN, creating alarge performance penalty. You can measure this using Window’sbuilt-in PerfMon tool and watch the split I/O counter.

With Diskeeper 2007 enabled, your SANs systems can be keptrunning at maximum performance and reliability, completelyautomatically.

See the full article on SANs, NAS and RAID (www.diskeeper.com/newsk171) for more information on how defragmentation works oncomplex disk sub-systems.

“Workstations don’t need to bedefragmented.”

End user machines are sometimes incorrectly considered “thin”and not important to defragment. When it comes to perform-ance, they are anything but. Applications such as Word, Excel,Access and Internet Explorer temp files and Outlook attachmentfiles ALL create work-blocking fragmentation bottlenecks. Theconstant O/S and software updates being pushed to worksta-tions are also a big cause of fragmentation.

Here is just a partial list of files that are degraded by fragmen-tation on typical corporate client machines (where user docu-ments are stored on a company server):

• User profiles• System maintenance and logging files• Advanced system features including

System Restore, Prefetching, PC Health• Registry• Internet browsing• System updates/upgrades, service packs, hot fixes• Application updates/upgrades including anti-virus

definition files and network management file (e.g., SMS)• Systems/applications never defragmented or recently

updated may have fragmented executables• Print spools• Paging file• Hibernation file• Metadata (MFT, et al.)• Directories

And above and beyond all of that, users may be storing files oftheir own locally, including pictures, music and videos. These areall large files, and will fragment and create more holes in thefree space.

Without automatic defragmentation, these fragments accumu-late—fast. The cumulative effect is lost performance, reliabilityand, as a result, lost productivity of the employees using thefragmented systems.

Read the Windows IT Pro study at www.diskeeper.com/newsk172for more info on how fragmentation drags down application performance.

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Don’t have Diskeeper 2007 on all the machines you manage?

Download trialware today!www.diskeeper.com/newsk173

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“We are always looking for an opportunityto improve and streamline areas of admin-istration within our Microsoft environment.

“One tool that has been a great advantagefor us is Diskeeper 2007. We really enjoythe ‘Set It and Forget It’® feature fact. Ithas met our expectations for this type ofproduct and we look to keep it in our envi-ronment long-term. One of the biggest,noticeable improvements is the ability tokeep user desktops optimized for best per-formance, which reduces support callsand helps us defer hardware upgrades.

“We do use Diskeeper on all systems.Overall, we’re very pleased withDiskeeper’s list of capabilities and auto-matic features. We wouldn’t consider anyother options to safely and reliably man-age our critical production data.

“I-FAAST™ 2.0 really seems to help our crit-ical file servers to perform at their peaklevel throughout the day, reducing theadmin work and ensuring performance offiles used most often in our environment.

“Diskeeper’s 64-bit support is important,as we are running Microsoft ExchangeServer 2007, where performance is a crit-ical component to our daily operations.

“We’ll be a customer for quite some time!”

— Eric Carel, Baldwin Filters

“We absolutely love the new Diskeeper2007 Enterprise product. Automaticdefragmentation, with the InvisiTaskingmakes this product painless to set upand use. We are running this product onan SQL server attached to about 2.5TBof SAN storage, and it was impressivehow quickly it defragmented. Diskeeperquickly eliminated all fragments. Wehave seen a huge disk performance gainsince installing Diskeeper 2007Enterprise. We would happily recommendit to anyone. Trying to schedule anoffline time to defrag over a TB of data isnigh impossible. Having Diskeeper do itfor us, without compromising perform-ance is a no-brain decision. You can’tuse the built-in defrag to handle onlineSQL database; however, Diskeeper doesthis with flying colors. There is no time tobasically turn off SQL to defragment hun-dreds of GBs of databases.”

— Doug Robb, VirMedice, LLC

“I installed Diskeeper Enterprise editionwhen we upgraded our file server andhave not had to worry about fragmenta-tion since. I cannot even tell you about theimprovement. The only thing that I can tellyou for sure is that I don’t worry aboutfragmentation ever. The InvisiTasking fea-

ture is great as it runs on the server so Ido not even think about it anymore.”

— Jeff Maissan, Guelph Tool Inc

“We are a commercial fueling businessand have fuel stations like regular gasstations, but much larger and made tohandle big trucks. These sites are un-manned and run from a proprietary cardauthorization system on a conventionalWindows Workstation PC platform. Thesesystems provide real-time external data-base lookup for each account and card tocontrol all sorts of limits including gal-lons, products, number of uses per day,time of day use, account credit limits,etc. This software maintains logs forevery facet of function within it andbetween the different interface modulesof it. All this activity, as you can imagine,makes a disaster out of the file system.

“Running Windows defragmenter while themodules are up and running consumes toomany clock cycles and binds the disk up tothe point where the modules begin havingfailures. Those failures cause loss of com-munications with the fuel pumps and thepumps will stop as a result. After all, inorder for the modules to work, they stillhave to maintain all these dozen of workingfiles. I have known of Diskeeper for years,I remember using it with Windows NT 4.0and decided it would be worth trying out onone of these site controllers. Diskeeper’sbackground InvisiTasking does not inter-fere with the other running software on themachine while it works.

“It’s hard to put into perspective how muchdisk I/O and fragmentation I’m talkingabout here. Imagine a hard disk LED thatspends as much time lit as it does not. Justto give you an idea, one fragmented 16MBlog file from one of these systems has somany tens of thousands of segments that it can take TWENTY MINUTES just to copy the file. These are SATA drives ofrecent vintage too.”

— James M. Bertok, Downs Energy

Customer Successes:Performance, Reliability and InvisiTasking

Diskeeper does give mepeace of mind, knowingthat it is always working

in the backgroundpreventing system crashes

caused by fragmentedhard drives.

We do not consider running our systems without Diskeeper

because we consider disk functionality andreliability to be one ofthe greatest challenges

for IT departments.

Diskeeper’s backgroundInvisiTasking does not

interfere with the otherrunning software on themachine while it works.

Fragmentation Cripples the Performance and Speed of YourENTIRE NETWORK

Disk Performance Analyzer for Networks™

is a free utility that detects and reports severefragmentation-related performance loss on yournetworked systems.

The Performance Analyzer provides single-pointanalysis of each system’s disk performance. Itidentifies performance bottlenecks that mightotherwise go undetected—turning machines into

sluggish, maintenance-hogging headaches.

Download this free utility and find out today howfragmentation is severely affecting the performanceof your systems.With Disk Performance Analyzer forNetworks, you can zero in on the machines thatneed attention and handle them before they turninto help desk problems.

Download our free utility today!

Find out the fragmentation level of every machine

at your site!

ww

w.diskeeper.com/new

sk17

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“We’ve used Diskeeper on our serversfor our school’s offices and we have seena 15-25% increase in performance. Whenadministering the server, it was moreresponsive.

“Diskeeper does give me peace of mind,knowing that it is always working in thebackground preventing system crashescaused by fragmented hard drives.”

— Kevin Fuccile, RKS Associates (School system administrators)

“Diskeeper has kept my disks runningeffectively for years and has saved me ona number of occasions. One disk worth ofdata saved is definitely worth my returnon investment.

“My familiarity with Diskeeper goes WAYback. We were using the product in theearliest days of Windows NT 4.0 and I dobelieve that we were using something sim-ilar on our DEC/VAX systems before that.I have deployed the newest Diskeeper2007 for experimental purposes and it

seems to be a major step forward. I amanxious to get it deployed on systemswhere the older version of Diskeeper now

sits. Diskeeper is one of our core installprograms whenever a server is built. Weinstall Diskeeper immediately after the OShas been installed and all hardware is sta-ble. We then can be assured that what-ever is installed after that has been con-figured on the disk correctly. So, for us,fragmentation is minimized right from thebeginning.

“The boot-time defrag features also pro-vides for continuous disk management. Weperiodically use Diskeeper to look at theMFT and it lets us know whether it is in ahealthy state or not, THEN provides toolsthat allow us to rectify any problems.

“All in all, we do not consider running oursystems without Diskeeper because weconsider disk functionality and reliabilityto be one of the greatest challenges forIT departments.”

—Jim Colunio, Elmira College

We’ve used Diskeeper on our servers for ourschool’s offices and wehave seen a 15-25%

increase in performance.

Experience the Success These Customers Have!

DOWNLOAD DISKEEPER TRIALWARE TODAY!

www.diskeeper.com/newsk174

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As an IT Professional, you know the importance ofmaintaining system performance and reliability. Yourteam is the one called to the rescue when desktops orservers crash, slow down or freeze.

Many of these issues stem from a single, hiddensource: disk fragmentation.

Reliability issues commonly traced to disk fragmentation:

Crashes and system hangs/freezes; slow boot times and boot fail-ures; slow backup times and aborted backup; file corruption anddata loss; errors in programs; cache issues, and hard drive failures.

Having files stored contiguously on the hard drive is a key factorin keeping a system stable and performing at peak efficiency.Even a small amount of fragmentation in your most used filescan lead to crashes, conflicts and errors.

The weak link in today’s computers:A computer system is only as fast as its slowest component. Thedisk drive is by far the slowest of the three main components ofyour computer: CPU, memory and disk. Even with the fastest CPU,system performance would be affected by disk fragmentation.

Is real-time, automatic defragmentation neededin today’s environment?

More than ever! Large disks, multimedia files, applications,operating systems, system up-dates, virus signatures—all dra-matically increase the rate of fragmentation.

Fragmentation increases the time to access files for all commonsystem activities including opening and closing Microsoft® Worddocuments, searching for emails, opening web pages and per-forming virus scans. To keep performance at peak, fragmenta-tion must be eliminated instantly.

Increased server uptime:Fragmentation can cripple server performance and reliabilityresulting in downtime and lost production.

Diskeeper can easily and safely be used on your servers includ-ing file and print, web, domain controllers, SQL, Exchange andany other database or application servers.

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Virtualization and fragmentation:Server virtualization can be used to reduce the number of phys-ical systems for more efficient CPU utilization.

However, there is a downside: the disk subsystem must nowaccount for increased disk I/O. Disk fragmentation is the primarycause of unnecessary I/O overhead. Automatic defragmentationis more important than ever for maximum performance.

Hidden scheduled defragmentation costs:Scheduled defragmentation is not “free”—it has heavy hiddencosts, such as IT time to set and monitor defrag for every sys-tem. This results in either staying after hours to defrag, givingthe users administrator privileges (not likely!), break-fix han-dlings or more often no defrag whatsoever.

How do I find out how much fragmentation I have?Download a free trial version of new Diskeeper 2007 by visitingwww.diskeeper.com/newsk176. Install it, select a volume, selectAnalyze and view the report.

Advanced, automated defragmentation:Maintaining systems can be a daunting task—maintenance,including defragmentation, must take place regularly to keepthem running at peak levels. However, with constant uptimerequired, scheduling such processes to run at the right timescan be tricky, since while running they pose a considerable drainon system resources.

Diskeeper 2007 marks the end of scheduling, and the beginningof REAL TIME, on-the-fly maintenance of systems. Never againworry about dips in performance or straining valuable systemresources—even when demand is at its absolute highest!

Customers agree Diskeeper maintains the performance and relia-bility of their desktops and servers, reducing maintenance andincreasing hardware life. Every system you manage needsDiskeeper for enhanced file system performance—automatically!

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Download Diskeeper Trialware today atwww.diskeeper.com/newsk176

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Reliable Data Protection with Undelete Recover lost files instantly!Even “saved-over” versions of Microsoft Office® files!

• Undelete 5 Server Edition captures and protects remotelydeleted files on your servers.

• Undelete 5 Client allows network users to recover theirdeleted files from the server.

• Undelete 5 Professional Editionprovides local file protection plusClient functionality.

“We are very happy with the product and its extremeease of use. It’s true that I can generally get lost filesfrom my backup tapes, but using Undelete is muchfaster and easier. Undelete also lets me restore lostfiles that haven’t been backed up to tape, but wereeither modified incorrectly or deleted.”—Jeff Vargason, Barr Nunn Transportation, Inc.

How many users have called yourHelp Desk in a panic, sayingthey’ve lost or overwritten a criti-

cally impor tant file? The Windowsserver recycle bin doesn’t protect filesdeleted by network clients. Restoringfiles from backup takes forever and maynot get the latest version of the file. Andneither backup nor “snapshots” canhelp if a user has saved-over the ver-sion he or she needs.

Now there is a solution—new Undelete 5! Undelete 5replaces the recycle bin with a Recovery Bin that cap-tures and protects all deleted files, no matter howthey were deleted. Undelete works in real-time, so italways has the latest version of the file—and, in thecase of Microsoft Word, Excel® and PowerPoint® files,it can even recover earlier “saved-over” versions.

Best yet, recovering files with Undelete 5 is instant—all it takes is a few clicks of the mouse. Undelete 5even gives you the option of letting users recover theirown files from server Recovery Bins!

Download Trialware Today!www.diskeeper.com/newsk177

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DISKEEPER 2007 REVIEW:SQLServerPerformance.comThe following is an excerpt of a product review from SQLServer.com written byDinesh Asanka and published June 13, 2007

As a DBA or a DB engineer, keeping your SQL Server at an acceptable performance levelshould be a high priority. Most of your clients will want your database system to operateat a superior performance level.There are a few ways of achieving this performance level on the software side, such asintroducing correct indexing, re-writing your triggers and stored procedures, etc.Another way to increase performance is to reduce hard disk fragmentation. If your .mdfand .ldf files are fragmented, it will affect performance during data retrieval operations.When data is fragmented, the database engine has to take data from different locationson your hard disk, adversely affecting SQL Server performance. This will be more seriouswith an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) system as it is involves more data retrieval

than it does transactions. Not only are.ldf and .mdf files affected, but alsoSQL Server backup files, binaries andother relevant files.Diskeeper is a tool for defragmentingyour data systems. Obviously, youare aware of the tool that comes withWindows 2000 and Windows 2003server editions. You must also beaware of its limitations.Diskeeper is easy to install and config-ure. A screenshot of the main windowis shown above. The user interface has

changed drastically from previous versions. Most of the information is available with a clickof a button or two. Same operations can be performed in several ways, which is easy for theend user. Interactive help is available as the need arises, which enhances its usability.You can compare the statistics before and after defragmentation of a hard disk, whichin this case clearly shows that there was a definite improvement after running Diskeeper.Diskeeper is designed to cater to all the Windows file systems.Diskeeper is an ideal tool to solve your external fragmentation issues. It is a simple yeteffective way to improve database system performance. If you are a DBA, I recommendthat you download this tool and experience the difference.To read the full review from sql-server-performance.com, including screenshots and fulltesting results, go to www.diskeeper.com/newsk179

Put Diskeeper to the test on your SQL Server! Download trialware today at www.diskeeper.com/newsk180

Diskeeper 2007—NowAvailable for

Windows Vista™!

Already have Diskeeper 2007?Contact our Customer Service tofind out how to get your freeDiskeeper 2007 update for yourWindows Vista operating systems:customerservice@diskeeper.com

Download Trialware Today!www.diskeeper.com/newsk178

Let’s Summarize Before AfterThe Key Figures: Diskeeper DiskeeperFragmented directories 812 10

Excess directory fragments 3,838 16

Total fragmented files 20,183 97

Total excess fragments 55,546 664

Paging file fragmentations 2 2

Volume fragmentation 23 % 9%

Data fragmentation 25 % 10%

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The Diskeeper CorporationMaintenance Agreement—KEEP YOUR SOFTWARE CURRENT AUTOMATICALLY

Receive upgrades

automatically when new

software versions are

released

Would you like to always have the most currentversion of your software at the best possibleprice— even at a savings of up to 50%*?

Diskeeper Corporation Maintenance Programsare available for volume license products.

With a 1- or 2-year Diskeeper maintenance agree-ment, you’re guaranteed to get new versions ofDiskeeper at no additional cost. Purchasing main-tenance for your volume license gives you a dra-matic cost savings of up to 50% compared to anupgrade purchase. Maintenance can pay for itselfwith only one upgrade!

Maintenance Program Benefits:Free updates and upgrades provided automatically.

Cost Savings: our 1- or 2-year maintenance pro-gram is up to 50% less than the cost for buyingupgrades.

Easy Budget Management: our renewable mainte-nance programs make it easy to budget for futureexpenses. Furthermore, no additional costs areincurred for upgrades, as they are covered underthe maintenance program.

Convenient Website Downloads: quick and easyaccess to downloading updates from our site.

Efficiency: have the latest and greatest versionsof the software, which always includes the new-est features and enhancements.

With a maintenance agreement on your volumelicense software, you will be among the first to auto-matically receive your free upgrade to your productduring the agreement period. This way, you alwaysstay up-to-date on your software, have the newesttechnology available and enjoy the benefits.

A maintenance agreement also provides the advan-tage of being able to budget your software costs forthe next 1–2 years (depending on contract length).

If you have any questions regarding the DiskeeperCorporation Maintenance Program, please contactyour favorite reseller or a Diskeeper Corporationsales representative at 800-829-6468 code 3132.

*savings depends on product purchased and volume license level of software.

© 2007 Diskeeper Corporation. All Rights Reserved. The Diskeeper Corporation logo, Diskeeper, Disk PerformanceAnalyzer for Networks, Executive Software, I-FAAST, Innovators in Performance and Reliability Technologies,InvisiTasking, Maximizing Performance and Reliability—Automatically, Recovery Bin, “Set It and Forget It” andUndelete are trademarks and/or registered trademarks owned by Diskeeper Corporation in the United Statesand/or other countries. Microsoft, Excel, Office, Outlook, PowerPoint, SQL Server, Windows, Windows NT andWindows Vista are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. Allother trademarks and brand names are the property of their respective owners.

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PAIDGlendale, CAPermit #61

Visit our website: www.diskeeper.com/newsk181

DISKEEPER 2007SUCCESS!

“Diskeeper is workinggreat! The most important‘cost justification’ is nodowntime on all serversand less help desk calls and resources due tofragmentation issues.”—Rodney Dudley,

Pedernales Electric Co-operative

7590 N. Glenoaks Blvd.,Burbank, California 91504 USA1-800-829-6468www.diskeeper.com

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

Microsoft, Diskeeper Corporationand Satisfied Customers“Executive Software [now Diskeeper Corporation] has a close relationship with Microsoft supportpersonnel. They have traveled to several of the support sites at their own expense in order to deliver technical information about their products and the technology involved. Executive Softwarealso provides software to Microsoft personnel so they become familiar with their products, and be able to identify and report problems if any.

“The relationship between Executive Software and Microsoft is beneficial to customers. If or when an issue arises, the ongoing relationship facilitates communication and action between the tworespective companies in an expeditious manner.

“It is these types of relationships that lead to extremely satisfied customers, especially when there is a product interaction between the two parties.”

—Microsoft Corporation, Advisory Support Engineering