Asked By
ashlyn
410 points
N/A
Posted on - 06/07/2011
I learn from some tips on how to make your computer work faster. Defragment of the drive is one way to keep my computer work faster but I'm afraid to defragment my computer because I don’t have any idea of what defragment all about. I have some question regarding this matter.
Your answer would be a great help for me or any other reader who will read this post. Please provide me more information regarding this matter. Here are the following question I have in mind. How often should I defragment my hard drive? What are the indication that I need to perform drive Defragment?
If I have 2 partition of hard drive do I need to defragment both of them or just the drive where I installed my Operating System? What does defragment really do to my system? Is there any software for this if any which is better the built in defragment feature of a windows or the software?
What does defragmentation do to computer system?
Hi Ashlyn,
Defragmentation is a process that reduces the amount of fragmentation in file systems inside a laptop or desktop. Fragmentation happen if the operating system unable to or will not allocate enough contiguous space to store a complete file as a unit, but instead puts parts of it in gaps between other files (usually those gaps exist because they formerly held a file that the operating system has subsequently deleted or because the operating system allocated excess space for the file in the first place). Larger files and greater numbers of files also contribute to fragmentation and consequent performance loss.
In the different way, I will put a house as an example. In a house concede of many things, such as furniture, kitchen stuff, toys for child, and etc. At the first day you move to your new house, everything takes places neatly and accordingly. Day by day pass, one by one those thing move out or children played with their toys and it’s become messy. When it come totally mess up, you as the person who life there will be uncomfortable with it. Same also desktop or laptop, it will affect to their performance. So, defrag is rearrange of your house in the different meaning.
Defrag your machine depend on your usage. No need to apply it if you’re not a heavy usage user. Let say you only use it 5 to 6 hours daily, I don’t think so you need to defrag your machine in monthly basis. One time in 2 or 3 months also possible but again depend on your usage. If you think your machine become slow, then try to defrag it. Defrag your laptop or desktop weekly basis if you are a heavy user which always online 24/7, for example a maniac gamer.
The process of defragmentation places all parts of a file together in the same place on the drive. So it’s up to either you need to defrag both of your partition or only the one contain with all program. Normally people only defrag the drive C or the primary. Defragmentation wills organizes all the directories and files according to your computer. After this process is complete, your computer will most likely run faster rather than before. To begin this process, you need to check several things:
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Make sure every important data such as all work files, photos, and any important things are backed up already to another media for example to another hard drive, CDROM, DVD or other type of media.
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Make sure the hard drive is healthy. Use CHKDSK to scan and fix the drive.
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Close programs currently open. Including virus scanners and other programs that have icons in the system tray because you are going to places everything to the correct position.
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Assure your computer has a constant source of power. The important thing is to be able to stop the defragmentation process, if there is a power outage. If you have frequent power brown outs or other outages, you should not use a defragmentation program without a battery backup. If your machine loss power with out any back up, most likely it will burn out everything. Meaning to say your laptop or desktop condemned.
There is much software for defragmentation. Norton and disk keeper are one of it. It’s depend on you actually, some of them will cost money but worth it to use. Use the default system within windows for defrag also possible, since it saving cost.
Best Regards,
Brown
Answered By
chevin8
0 points
N/A
#108276
What does defragmentation do to computer system?
Greetings,
This may answer your question:
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Over time and with regular use, files and folders on a computer's hard drive break down or become fragmented. This can cause the system to run slowly and to experience processing problems. Defragmenting the computer generally improves retrieval time and overall performance.
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For example, a computer program must access various files on the hard drive every time it is run. If those files are spread out on opposite sides of the hard drive instead of gathered and organized neatly, as they are supposed to be, the computer will have to work extra hard and take extra time to access the information it needs. In some cases, severe defragmenting may even cause a program to stop running entirely.
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Defragmenting, also referred to as "defragging," reorganizes the hard drive by putting pieces of related data back together so that files are organized in a contiguous fashion. As a result, the computer system can access files more efficiently. By efficiently organizing files and folders, defragmenting will leave the computer's free space in one big chunk. This will allow new files to be saved in an orderly fashion, thereby reducing the need for future defragmentation.
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As the overall size of disk drives keeps increasing, defragmenting a computer regularly may even help to increase its life-span. A system needs to work quite hard in order to collect fragmented information across larger and larger disks. Considering the amount of work this takes, it seems likely that defragmenting can help a hard drive last significantly longer.
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When you defragment your computer, analyze first before starting to defragment. Your computer will tell when to defragment your computer.
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You can defragment both your drives.
