Maximizing the Lives of Computers

LONDON, January 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Computer hardware can be-and usually is-a substantial investment, especially for a company. Once purchased and put to use, that company is going to depend on it for being the backbone of its day-to-day activities. Not simply the add-on to business processes that it used to be, today a computer system is the heart and soul of an enterprise, supporting accounting, sales, inventory, manufacturing, and every other operational facet.

It stands to reason, then, that computer systems should be made to last as long as possible, especially in today's highly competitive marketplaces. If they at least survive through their expected life spans, the company can predict when new hardware is going to be needed. If, on the other hand, one or more components fail before their time, it causes a substantial expense the company was not prepared for.

One major factor affecting the life of a computer is file fragmentation. When a file and free space is split into thousands or tens of thousands of fragments, the disk subsystem is severely taxed whenever a file is read or written. Hardware life can be shortened by 50 percent or more.

For this reason, Diskeeper(R) performance software can extend hardware life well beyond its normal expectancy-and many sites have found it does exactly that.

"Our company has recycled computers every 4 years," said Adam Hicks, IT Manager with Conewago Enterprises. "But now with the struggling economy we are letting computers go as long as we can and are finding computers that are more than 5 to 6 years old that are still running great with Diskeeper deployed."

Diskeeper goes beyond defrag (http://www.diskeeper.com/?apid=PPS0006590) to make computer systems faster, more reliable, energy efficient and longer lived. The IntelliWrite(R) technology in Diskeeper allows up to 85 percent of fragmentation to be prevented before it ever happens.

Part of the reliability that Diskeeper delivers also means greatly improved performance. "I would say our performance help desk calls were affected the most," Hicks said. "Those type of trouble tickets just do not happen anymore. Now if I get a help desk call about a slow computer, it's because somehow we forgot to install Diskeeper on that machine in the first place."

Because of its InvisiTasking(R) technology, the tasks are performed invisibly, in the background, using resources that would otherwise be idle. "When I was first told about the new Automatic Defrag ( http://www.diskeeper.com/?apid=PPS0006590) option in Diskeeper and how the users would not even notice it running, I was skeptical," said Hicks. "I tried it on some of our biggest power users and didn't tell them I changed anything. A couple of weeks later, every one of them said the computer has been running better than when it was brand new."

"In the end a smoother-running network of computers means my staff and I can spend more time on other things and be more productive with fewer interruptions from annoying help desk calls," Hicks concluded.

SOURCE Diskeeper Corporation