Re-branded Condusiv brings out boosted Diskeeper 12

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Condusiv Technologies has today announced Diskeeper 12, the Windows-based storage performance software for servers and operating systems including for desktops and laptops.

Condusiv, until March 2012 known as Diskeeper Corporation, has some 40 million licences worldwide for its flagship Diskeeper software which prevents and removes de-fragmentation. So version 12 presents a very large upgrade revenue opportunity for the channel partners! Moreover, there are arguably no direct competitors for this software which can be installed then left to run in the background with minimal overhead.

Diskeeper’s Intelliwrite software is unique in that it intercepts and thereby prevents fragmentation at the Windows level, so applications and storage systems read and write at peak performance from the outset; this also extends disk drive life. (Files get ever more fragmented when modified, slowing down retrieval and output and putting a greater burden on the operating system and storage devices.)

Diskeeper technology also helps reclaim free space from thin provisioned volumes to maximise storage utilisation. This can improve database performance, speed backups, and maximise efficiency for all storage including solid state disks (SSDs) and SANs.

Other defragmentation solutions (including Windows’ own one) don’t offer an intercept capability and lack other features. Windows 8 will, reportedly, reduce fragmentation; but Condusiv’s EMEA marketing and channel alliance director Scott Thomas recently assured me that Diskeeper would still boost performance – and this will anyway occur through a host of new features in version 12.

These include: an advanced new user interface with simplified navigation and drill-down architecture, new HyperBoot to improve system boot time, enhanced HyperFast with TRIM to improve SSD performance and longevity, and CogniSAN that detects and optimises resource usage in a shared storage system (e.g. a SAN) by obviating competition for resources.

Also new is System Monitoring that collects system environment activity and reports statistical information on system I/O usage, disk state – and Diskeeper’s own effectiveness which, assuming this looks good, provides a visual record of the ongoing value to the user! A statistical summary is also gathered for system performance monitoring.

The re-branding brought with it a new slogan “Think faster” (one up on IBM’s famous “Think”). The above features help explain what we can expect in future products and releases – boosting personal productivity as well as system performance. More new products are promised for later this year – and expect a new, easier-to-use, version of its Undelete software imminently.  

Thomas also said that Condusiv’s direction was also towards more support for virtualisation and the cloud. This is reflected in its recently-released V-locity 3, which monitors otherwise unused resources that sit between individual virtual machines (VMs). Agentless, it can optimise this resource usage to, for instance, eliminate unnecessary I-O queues and achieve faster reads, backups and scans – automatically enhancing VMware and Hyper-V platform performance. As such it is complementary to Diskeeper for virtual machine environments.

Diskeeper Versions… 

Diskeeper Server Edition is for application performance in Windows server operating systems (WinServer 2008 R2, 2003 and Windows Small Business Server 2011); Diskeeper Professional Edition optimises application and storage performance on business desktops and laptops (Windows 7, Vista and XP); Diskeeper Administrator Edition provides centralised management of Diskeeper operations on all machines in a network – installing, configuring, monitoring and updating, with email reports and alerts produced. They use 100MB of available hard drive space. There is also Diskeeper Home supporting Windows 7 (Home Premium, Ultimate), Vista (Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate), XP (Home, Professional).