Do You Suffer From a Slow PC or Would Like to Boot Fast?

How Warp Disk Makes a Slow PC Run and Boot Fast
Warp Disk makes a slow PC run and boot fast by optimizing the boot process and doing defragmentation behind the scenes. This article describes how Warp Disk accomplishes that.
It is a well-known fact that file system fragmentation degrades the performance of your disk and, on top of that, Windows takes a long time to boot on many systems. Both problems have to do with the way file systems operate. But why is that? And how does Warp Disk solve those problems?
File System Fragmentation
NTFS is the preferred Windows file system. NTFS stores file data in small units called clusters. Large files may occupy thousands of clusters. The ideal situation is to have the clusters of each file stored contiguously on the disk. This allows for rapid sequential file reads and writes. If each cluster of a file is placed right after the previous cluster, then the entire file can be read in a single progressing operation. On the contrary, if the clusters are scattered around the disk, then the read operation must be divided into several smaller chunks of disk reads, which will slow down the read significantly. This is called file system fragmentation. Fragmentation is bound to happen as files are added, removed, and changed in size, because the free space becomes fragmented, leaving only small holes in which to place new data.
Slow Windows Boot
Windows often takes a very long time to boot. The reason for this is actually somewhat related to file system fragmentation. The primary bottleneck during Windows boot is the file system. As the boot progresses more and more processes are created that simultaneously read from the disk. The file system will attempt to satisfy all read requests by dividing them into several smaller read operations. Consequently, the disk reads will be scattered around the disk. Just like when reading from a fragmented file.
The New Approach
Warp Disk addresses both these problems. No other single software solution does that.
Traditionally, defragmentation software are user applications or services that either run on demand or at certain intervals. Warp Disk takes a brand new approach. Ideally, the file system should take care of keeping its files defragmented. This is not the case today; at least not with the NTFS file system. Warp Disk effectively extents the NTFS file system with fragmentation prevention capabilities and read-ahead boot caching. Figure 1 depicts how this is done. The figure is a simplified view of the file system architecture with Warp Disk installed. When a user application accesses the disk the request passes through layers of drivers that send I/O requests to each other. The figure shows how Warp Disk encapsulates the NTFS file system driver. The Defragmentation Driver above takes care of fragmentation prevention. The Boot Cache Driver below does the read-ahead caching during Windows boot.

Figure 1 – File system architecture with Warp Disk installed. The blue boxes are the Warp Disk components.
User Mode and Kernel Mode
Figure 1 also depicts the two contexts that software runs in: user mode (green) and kernel mode (red).
User applications executes in user mode, whereas operating system drivers executes in kernel mode. User mode refers to an execution state in the CPU in which individual processes cannot access memory or program code in other processes and do not have access to all CPU instructions. Kernel mode refers to an execution state in the CPU in which all system memory and all CPU instructions may be accessed. Operating system drivers also control which information users and applications can access.
Advantages Over Conventional Software
Conventional defragmentation software runs in user mode, whereas Warp Disk runs in kernel mode inside drivers. This inherently provides Warp Disk with a range of advantages over conventional defragmentation solutions.
More Files Can Be Defragmented
A defragmentation application runs in user mode and may only defragment a file by interacting with the user subsystem. First, the file is first opened, then a number of MoveFile requests are executed, after which the file is closed again. If the file is locked by another process, or the defragmentation application does not have sufficient privileges to open the file, it cannot be defragmented.
Warp Disk does not have this intrinsic problem. It can defragment locked files and system files that user mode application defragmenters cannot. Only a few protected operation system files are unmovable to Warp Disk.
Instant Fragmentation Detection
A defragmentation application does not discover a fragmented file until the application is run. The very first thing a defragmentation application does is to scan all files for fragmentation. In other words, files may be fragmented for a long time, if the user is not in the habit of running the defragmentation application regularly. Files that are used often may be severely fragmented without knowing.
Since all I/O requests pass through the Defragmentation Driver, all I/O requests that may cause fragmentation are intercepted. It may for instance occur when a file is created or when it grows. Fragmentation is immediately detected and defragmentation can commence immediately.
Complete Stealth
A defragmentation application slows down other applications accessing the disk, because it has to share the disk with other applications. The defragmentation application competes with other processes about getting its I/O requests through. Even though many defragmentation applications claims to slow down when disk activity is high, it doesn’t always work that well. Furthermore, if another process tries to delete or exclusively lock a file being defragmented that process will fail, because the defragmentation application has an open handle to the file.
Warp Disk encapsulates the file system driver and therefore knows exactly when the disk is active and in which pattern it is active. For that reason, Warp Disk can determine when it is safe to do defragmentation without degrading system performance. In addition to that will Warp Disk not prevent a file from being deleted or locked while defragmenting.
No User Interaction
A defragmentation application typically does defragmentation on demand or at certain intervals. This is cumbersome and doesn’t keep the file system defragmented at all times.
Warp Disk doesn’t have this problem. It is always on. Even though Warp Disk comes with the user application Warp Disk Control Panel, it is only for monitoring and configuration.
Boot Optimization
The disk is heavily used during Windows boot. All code and data necessary for Windows to run must be loaded into memory. Late in the process are a great number of executable images loaded almost simultaneously, and many of those executables start by reading libraries and configuration data from disk. Needless to say, this induces a great burden on the disk.
Warp Disk mitigates this problem by reading data clusters known to be read during boot ahead. That is, before they are requested. In that way the clusters can be read from disk in a more orderly and efficient manner.
Free 30 Day Trial
If this article has made you curious, you should visit Warp Drive Software and try a free 30 day trial version of Warp Disk.