Most computer users know that defragmenting a PC's hard drive makes the computer run faster. And a faster PC lets you get work done more quickly, thereby saving you time, right? The problem is that defragging your hard drive can be a long, frustrating process that takes hours, yet the performance improvement it offers can be measured only in milliseconds.

Raxco's new PerfectDisk 2000 Version 5.0 ($49 for workstation PCs, $249 for servers, direct) offers fast and effective drive defragging capabilities. The product is designed to minimize the time and effort required to keep your drives running at peak performance.

Like competitor Executive Software's Diskeeper, PerfectDisk uses the hard drive defragmentation APIs built into Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. These APIs ensure that no data is lost in the defragmentation process, even if several other programs are using the hard drive at the same time. The APIs let users defragment drives on file and application servers without taking the servers off-line.

We tested PerfectDisk on several Windows 2000, Windows 2000 Server, and Windows XP Professional PCs. The program installs in a few seconds, and the user interface is simple, informative, and easy to understand.

PerfectDisk includes a scheduler feature that automatically defrags your drive at a time you determine. As with Diskeeper, a network administrator can schedule defragmentation sessions on client PCs. Diskeeper includes this feature only in the more expensive network version of its product; Raxco offers network scheduling in all versions of PerfectDisk.

PerfectDisk uses a patented disk-optimization strategy that keeps track of file usage over time. If a group of files doesn't change over the course of several PerfectDisk sessions, the program doesn't try to move those files during subsequent defragmentation sessions. Consequently, frequent defragmentations take less time. On our main test PC, we did notice that repeated defrag sessions took far less time than the initial session.

Some disk defragmenters do a great job on existing files, but they often leave free space scattered all over the drive. PerfectDisk, however, consolidates the free space into as few fragments as possible to avoid this problem.

If you've been avoiding defrag tools because of the hassle involved, PerfectDisk is worth a look.