Defragment and put life back to your Hard Disk

Defragging a Computer

Disk fragmentation is the main cause of unstable and slow computer performance. The operation of 'defragmenting' or ‘defragging’ a hard drive is a useful thing to learn to increase the performance of your computer. How does it work?

Hard disks often constitute the main traffic jam to the speed of the computer. The time to open and access a particular memory file or cell on a hard drive depends on the technology, usually up to a thousand times slower than accessing the same memory on a RAM. The file system can write the files to an optimal location, but this only happens on an empty hard disk. After a few rewrites and deletes, the data related to the application will be saved to a different chunk in the hard disk, making it retrieval but update much slower.

Thankfully, one can easily solve this problem by defragmentation. Defragmentation is an operation which rearranges the files in an optimal and contiguous way to minimize time needed to access the hard disk. By storing the data in a much effective way, the data does not need to go through traffic jam; it found a shortcut. Fragmentation is a very sensitive and time-consuming operation, depending on the memory and amount of data located on the drive, the operation can last for a long time – up to several hours

In most new versions of Windows, including Windows Vista and Windows XP, a disk defrag utility embedded into the system is available for use. Just click on the properties for hard disk and find the 'defrag' button. You can also modify the defragmentation schedule, let’s say, once a week or every day. It’s up to the user, depending on how often they use their computer. Make sure that you can leave your computer on for at least half an hour before you start the procedure; procedure may take up to several hours. Often, it is advisable not to use the hard-disk extensively with heavy programs during defragmentation or you will risk the loss of some data. It is crucial not to interrupt the defragment process, because first, the operation is unsafe and second the next defragmenting process will start from the beginning, not from where it last stopped.

On the Linux platform, all ext2 files can be defrag with e2defrag, while all ext3 files can be defrag with the 'shake' command. Fascinatingly, e2defrag also has an option to temporarily and virtually 'downgrade' the ext3 files to ext2 to be able to defragment it.

Apple computers do not have embedded defragmentation utilities; you will need a third part disk defragmenter. Also, for computers that do not carry their own defragmenter, they can download it from the internet for free.

Smart Defrag comes in highly recommended. It helps defragment hard drive most efficiently and optimizes disk performance. Smart Defrag has an 'install it, forget it' feature, it works automatically in the background of your computer, keeping your hard disk well and running at its speediest. It is completely free for home and business use.

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Ivy is author of this article on server defrag. Find more information about defrag server here.

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