ELM Bulletin - February 27, 2009
Improve Hard Drive Performance - Defragment
Even the fastest computer will slow down over time. Much can be done to reverse this slowdown; this month’s ELM Bulletin describes a free solution that is very effective – Disk Defragmentation.
As files are written to a computer’s hard drive they can become fragmented. All that this means is that the file is broken into small pieces that are scattered all over the hard drive as unused hard drive space is found. This will have a significant impact on computer performance since all the pieces of the file must be found and reassembled before becoming available to the user.
Disk Defragmentation is the process of finding and moving the scattered pieces of a file so that they are contiguous to each other. This can result in significantly greater performance, even on old(er) computers, since the computer doesn’t have to spend as much time looking for the scattered parts of the file but reads them all in order.
Every version of Windows has a built in disk defragmenter tool. Windows Vista and Windows 7 also include the ability to easily schedule the disk defragmenter to run at specific times to maintain a low state of fragmentation.
You can find the disk defragmenter by clicking on the START button then on the following menu items:
ALL PROGRAMS > ACCESSORIES > SYSTEM TOOLS > DISK DEFRAGMENTER
Once the disk defragmenter is running you have the option (in Windows Vista and Windows 7) to either start defragmenting the hard drive immediately or set a defragmentation schedule to run automatically. (Note that the computer must be on for a scheduled defragment to start.)
If you manually run the defragmenter once every month or so, it could take several hours to complete and is best done when the computer is not in use. If the disk defragmenter is scheduled to run every day then the first run could take some time but subsequently would hardly be noticeable; unless you have added or changed a large number of files, MP3s, photos or videos.
Either way, Disk Defragmentation is an easy way to help your computer regain some of its old zest.
As always, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about this or any other issue.
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Peter Rhebergen Telephone |
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