Exploring the ROI of

Automatic Defragmentation

Michael Materie
Product Manager for Diskeeper

March 6th, 2006

Why Defragment?

The disk is the weak link

in today’s Computer
The microprocessors in today’s computers
are much, much faster than a few years ago.

2000 2006
800-900MHz 3-3.80GHz

This increase in processor

speed is wasted because
there has been proportionately
less improvement in the time
needed to retrieve data from
the disk drive.
To make matters worse, the files on the computer’s disk
drives are stored in fragments scattered willy-nilly around
the disk.
It takes much longer to retrieve files than the rated
speed of the disk.

File A

File B
This greatly slows down the operation of the entire system.

File A
Two graphs comparing
the same hard drive that
is defragmented daily vs.
NOT defragmented daily.
Ideal file performance
levels with daily
defragmentation is
depicted on the right.
Where does ROI come from?
• Users waiting = Lost production
• Enhance/support new technologies
• High cost of manually defragmenting
• Unnecessary hardware upgrades
• Extend the life of existing hardware
• Fewer Helpdesk calls
Automatically defragmenting with
Diskeeper significantly reduces
time needed for backup!

Backup Veritas™ Backup Exec™ Computer Associates

Performance ARCserve® Backup
Testing Results
Fragmented Defragmented Fragmented Defragmented
Volume Volume Volume Volume

Elapsed Time to
0:58:08 0:19:00 1:33:43 1:03:24
Backup (hr:min:sec)

Percent
Improvement »» 67.30% »» 32.30%
(elapsed time)

Data Transfer Rate

213 619 129.44 191.34
(MB/min)

Percent
Improvement »» 190.60% »» 47.80%
(transfer rate)

From: Improving Backup Performance with Defragmentation White Paper

From: White Paper: Impact of Disk Fragmentation.

(seconds) (seconds) (seconds) (seconds)

Fragmentation
increases time
to access files
for all common
system activities
Productivity Issue:
It is not simply that
fragmentation slows
down a computer, it
acts as a continual
interruption to user
production—and those
interruptions cost $$.

With a rough estimate of software license costs (IT implementation costs not
included), ROI is achieved in under 3 months!
Virtual Machines:
VMware and Microsoft (Virtual Server/PC)
knowledge base articles, as well as best practices
from industry experts, all highly recommend
defragmentation to compact virtual drives and
maintain/restore-lost performance.
 White Paper— “Reducing Downtime and Reactive Maintenance:
The ROI of Defragmenting the Windows® Enterprise”

“It is both impractical and cost-ineffective for IT support groups to manually

run defragmentation box by box across an enterprise.”

“…network defragmentation clearly provides cost savings of several

magnitudes when compared to manual, built-in defragmentation. This
applies to both small businesses and global enterprises.”
 White Paper— “Reducing Downtime and Reactive Maintenance:
The ROI of Defragmenting the Windows® Enterprise”

“With fragmentation exerting such a severe toll on system performance,

it’s quite likely that many organizations have initiated hardware upgrades
unnecessarily. By using an enterprise defragmentation utility, it is
possible to achieve performance gains that meet or exceed many
hardware upgrades.”
 White Paper— “Disk Defragmentation for Windows®:
Hidden Gold for the Enterprise”

“It can be considered that defragmentation software

can extend the life of a typical workstation. IDC
estimates that enterprises can add up to two additional
years of life to the normal three-year usable life cycle of
workstations as a result of gaining back lost
performance from disk fragmentation.”
 New Case Study: Defragmentation’s
Hidden Value for the Enterprise

IDC found the following 1-year ROI at customer sites using Diskeeper:

At Renasant Bank = 165% 1-year ROI from:

– Increased server uptime
– Increased server efficiency
At Kaestle Boos = 141% 1-year ROI from:
– Reduced onsite Help Desk calls
– Less end user downtime
At large Telecom Vendor = 120% 1-year ROI from:
– System lifespan extended from 3 years to 4 years
– Less hard drive failures
– 20% improvement in application response times
…and the ROI for Automatic Defragmentation into year 2+ grows exponentially with
Diskeeper’s trademarked “Set It and Forget It™” management and minimal
software assurance costs.
 LINKS
Diskeeper White Papers and Case Studies
http://www.diskeeper.com/products/documentation/docu
mentation.asp
Diskeeper Product Video Tour
http://www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/tour/index.asp
Download Fully Functional 30-Day Trialware
http://www.diskeeper.com/downloads/menu.aspx

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