Mar052009
Published by dave at 9:45 AM under computers | technology | Daily Tips | Windows 2000 | Windows XP | Windows Vista | Windows 7 | Windows Server 2003 | Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn) | Microsoft Operating Systems
One of the simplest things you can do to improve the performance of your computer is to regularly defragment the hard drive. Your computer’s hard drive is much like a giant filing cabinet. When data is written to the drive, the system doesn’t care “where” on the drive it writes to, it just looks for free space. The result is that parts of a file get scattered indiscriminately all over the usuable disk surface. Imagine a filing cabinet with no folder structure, only pieces of paper thrown randomly into drawers! Can you imagine trying to locate all the pages of that important contract you need to review and having to sort through thousands of pages to locate them? The result is basically the same with hard disk fragmentation. If you’ve got a 500GB disk drive, everytime you access a given file, the computer may have to reconstruct the file by gathering all the pieces by searching the entire drive! That’s a performance killer and over time will severly slow down your PC.
By setting a system task to periodically defragment the drive (for most users every 30 days is more than adequate), you will keep your disk optimized and your system running smoothly for years to come!
Tags: HDD, Defrag, storage, performance
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Dave Dart has been building and repairing personal computers since they became widely available in the 1980's.
Dave has worked as a network and system engineer for solutions providers including Computer Concepts Corp. Scott Studios, dMarc Networks and Google.
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The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions. Topics and solutions are provided without warranty. All information is believed to be correct and based on best practices at the time of publication. Technology changes fast. Some information may no longer be applicable and recommended practices may be updated at anytime. SGPCDr assumes no liability for damage you may inflict on your computer whether intentional or accidental.