Disk Defragmentation Best Practice
Avoiding Fragmentation to Increase Computer Speed and Reliability
Summary of the causes and effects of fragmentation on computer speed and how to increase speed and reliability by regular, intelligent disk defragmentation.
Hard drive fragmentation has an effect on both computer speed and reliability. It affects the most important part of the PC : the place where all the data is stored, where temporary information is held, and the location for the operating system required for the machine to work correctly. Like any other important organ, it pays to take care of it, and PC health is heavily affected by disk fragmentation.
Fragmentation happens in the background, and the only symptom is likely to be a reduction in speed or reliability issues. This could have other causes, too, so it pays to know what causes fragmentation as part of evaluating the solution. In this way the user can decide if they are likely to be victims of disk fragmentation.
The vast majority will be.
What is Fragmentation / Defragmentation?
Fragmentation is caused by individual files being spread over hard drive - with different pieces being placed in different locations. This means that every time a file is saved, it might be saved in different places on drive, and the operating system has to remember where these places are. Since files are constantly being saved and deleted, and since the operating system tries always to save files in the largest available contiguous block, the map of available space is in constant flux and danger of fragmentation.
This is a fairly abstract concept, but it is similar to a chef baking bread. The ingredients for the bread might be used for other recipes also, and are constantly being taken out and put back in the larder. This means that they might be in different places, but if the chef wants to bake bread every day, then they will save time by putting all the bread ingredients in one place, rather than having them fragmented all over the pantry.
How to Defragment
Defragmenting (degfragging) a drive is a three step process, carried out by a disk defragmentation tool:
- step 1 : analyze
- step 2 : fix
- step 3 analyze again
When the software analyzes the drive, it finds out how many files there are, and where they are stored. If a machine has a fragmentation of 1, then each file is stored in its own block. If the number is greater than one, then, on average, each file is placed in at least two separate locations. This might not sound like a lot, but files with hundreds of fragments on a often used system are not uncommon, if it has not been defragmented.
In defragmenting the drive, the tool will try and restore each file to it's own single fragment as far as possible; but this will only hold until the next time it is saved. So, developers, graphic designers, writers, and regular internet users all save and delete files on a regular basis during their working (or playing) day. Tools exist to defrag a drive automatically or manually. Manual disk defrag takes time, as the machine must be left to perform the defrag once a week (for example).
The solution is clear : automatic, regular, in the background defragmentation with a dedicated tool.
A word of caution : defrag tools alter the hard drive; always back up data first, in case something goes wrong!
