Uses of Defragmentation and how it affects PC Performance

I have been very intrigued by this question in the past before too. The answer to this question makes a lot of sense actually.So you can think of a hard drive a bit like a CD, with a bunch of sectors in which it stores information. The hard drive has an arm which moves back and forth on the hard drive to read the sectors which holds the information. The time it takes for the arm to move to different sectors of the hard drive is a very long time compared to how fast the processor and ram work. They have no physical movement required to function so it is much faster. So the more arm movement that goes on when your hard drive is reading information, the longer it is going to take for it to finish reading it.

With that said, A new hard drive has no information on it. So when you install an application or file on it, it pretty much puts it all in one sector of the hard drive(depending on the size). This is a good thing because when it goes to read the files, they will all be on the same sector and the arm wont have to move at all, that, in return, saves time and your computer can carry on with its functions faster. Over time though, you start to fill up the hard drive and you start to erase files and add files and so forth. This causes the sectors to become jumbled and unorganized.

Lets say you uninstall an application and that leaves a small chunk of a sector open for use. Once you install another application or one that is bigger, it is going to occupy that chunk of the sector, then run out of room and the hard drive is going to have to occupy space somewhere else on another sector. Because of the information being scattered on different sectors, This means that the arm is going to move more when you try and use the file/application; and that will take longer than no arm movement. So by defragmenting, it sorts associated files into the same sectors to lower arm movement and that is what speeds up the hard drive. Less arm movement.

Hi,

 

Your inquiry into disk defragmentation happens to be about an area that is very intriguing. Disk defragmentation is a very good way of keeping your computer primed. I will give you the basics on disk defragmentation and why it is important for your computer.

 

1. The disk defragmentation software is usually included in the Microsoft windows operating system. It is utility software that helps to make your computer processor available ergo more speed from your computer. At the most basic level defragmentation involves sorting out the files found on your drive freeing up memory by deleting the unsorted files or pieces of files.

 

• To access this utility on windows 7, go to: start>all programs>accessories>system tools

 

2. There are instances in which files may be stored in a manner that jumbles up the files such that a piece of the file may be located at one point on your drive while another piece is located on another location. Usually such a situation leads to a good consumption of your computer resources therefore reducing performance in other critical areas

 

• The defragmentation of such a drive will bring together all this pieces together and reduce the amount of resource dedicated to locating such a file and an obvious boost in computer performance.

 

3. Computers slow down due to a host of reasons the most common ones being; viruses, a large number of temporary files, cookies from websites and so many more. Defragmentation helps in getting rid of this useless information some of which you may not need anyway. This has the added benefit of improving the lifespan of the drive

 

4. Sometimes it is not only the nerds who get to use the run option when it comes to locating files, however on a heavily fragmented disk this option tends to be slow. Thankfully defragmentation easily sorts out this out and reduces the amount of time spend in locating files through this option. It does this by reducing the disk head travel time.

 

5. Writing files to the disk through such procedures as cutting or copying and pasting procedures are also some of the benefactors of the defragmentation of any drive. Significant time is saved in this procedure when disk defragmentation has been carried out

 

6. Invariably every one of us has suffered from a slow computer at one time or the other especially when it comes to opening up applications such as office or PDF files. As much as writing files benefits from defragmentation so too does reading files (opening files and applications). The amount of time reading files can be drastically reduced if defragmentation is carried out

 

7. Perhaps the most important area that benefits from defragmentation of drives is the start time of computers. Typically slow starts up times are really frustrating. As it stands’ defragging your disk helps in cutting down the amount of time a computer boots up.

 

So exactly how often should you defrag your disk?

 

While no definite answer exists for this question, it is generally recommended that you do it once a week, however if you do carry out a lot of installations and deletions on your computer then you should the defragmentation utility after the installation of deletion operation.