DISK DEFRAGMENT

When your Windows PC starts taking longer to open files and launch applications, the first thing you should do is defragment your hard drive. But before we proceed with defragmentation, let me explain why your hard drive becomes fragmented in the first place.

All Windows-based computers suffer from disk fragmentation, a phenomenon that occurs because of how Windows saves new data. When you create a new file, download something from the Web, or simply edit a Word document, Windows doesn't save the new data as a whole, but rather splits it into little pieces and fills available bits of free space on the hard drive. As a result, the newly saved data becomes fragmented. And when you delete files, free space becomes fragmented, which eventually causes data fragmentation. It's this simple.

When Windows needs to access a fragmented file, the hard drive read/write heads have to move all over the disk to collect all the fragments of the file you want to open. Naturally, this takes a lot longer than simply opening a non-fragmented file in one smooth read movement. Fragmentation also decreases the lifetime of your hard drive, since it has to work more and harder.

The solution is to run disk defragmentation on a regular basis, like once a week. All versions of Windows have a built-in Disk Defragmenter and the Windows 7 one is even scheduled to run once a week right out of the box. Here is how you can launch disk defragmentation:

Windows XP:

1. Click on the Start button and go to All Programs.
2. Navigate to Accessories and then go to System Tools.
3. Launch the Disk Defragmenter.
4. Click on the Analyze button and let the tool analyze your drive. If the fragmentation level is significant, you will be prompted to defragment your drive.
5. Click on the Defragment button to defragment your hard disk.

Windows 7:

1. Click on the Start button and click on All Programs.
2. Go to Accessories - System Tools.
3. Select Disk Defragmenter. Alternatively, simply click on Start, type dfrgui in the Search box and press Enter.
4. Select a disk and click on the Analyze disk button to find out how much fragmentation there is. Defrag if it's above 10%.
5. To defragment a disk, select it and click on the Defragment disk button. Depending on the fragmentation level, defragmentation may take from something like five minutes to a couple of hours.

This will only defragment your files, but your free space will stay fragmented. So if you want to prevent further fragmentation, it's good to run the Windows 7 Disk Defragmenter from the command prompt with the free space consolidation option enabled.

Here is how you can do it:

1. Click on Start, go to All Programs and then to Accessories.
2. Right-click on the Command Prompt and select Run as administrator. Alternatively, you can click on Start, type cmd in the search box and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter.
3. In the command prompt type:
   1. $> defrag C: /X.
   2. C: is the drive letter you want to defrag and X is the switch for the free space consolidation option.

There is no doubt that the Windows 7 Disk Defragmenter is a lot better than the XP or Vista one, but it still doesn't do much in terms of disk optimization. For example, it doesn't optimize system files placement. And that's not good because files placement can affect hard drive performance as much as fragmentation, if not more. You see, the outer tracks of a hard drive are a lot faster than the inner tracks. Therefore, it makes sense to put frequently accessed data, such as system files needed at boot-up, to the faster tracks. This will make your computer launch a lot quicker than if those system files were scattered all over the place.

Alternate method using software:

 You can use the smart defrag feature in Advanced System Care or use the native one in Wise cleaner.