The computer user who has owned his device for some time, sooner or later is forced to get to know more deeply their important part - hard disks on which the operating system is installed, as well as various data are stored. In addition to the need to clean them from different “garbage”, often there is a need to find out what disk defragmentation is and apply this procedure. Let's try to partially fill this gap.
General Disk Defragmentation Explained
What is it? A computer’s hard drive consists of separate blocks / fragments, and in the process of writing information to it, it is distributed into different parts of the hard drive in case the file is larger than one such block. This is called fragmentation. For this reason, the overall performance of the disk is deteriorating and the speed of removing information from it is reduced. To solve this problem, it is necessary to periodically collect different parts of one file in one place. This is the answer to the question of what is disk defragmentation. As a result of redistribution of fragments of the same file, the speed of your hard drive increases significantly.
In order to more or less understand this procedure, you need to devote a lot of time to studying it, read special literature, and watch video courses. We will not do this, but simply dwell on various options for performing the operation we need so much.
Standard Defragmentation in Windows 7
The easiest way to defragment your disk is to use the standard program of the Windows 7 operating system. You can find it by going along the path: “Start” - “Standard” - “Utilities.” We find there a program called “Disk Defragmenter”. If the operation in question has never been performed on this computer, you can immediately click on the button that starts the process. If this is not the first time, it is recommended that you first analyze the state of disk fragmentation. It can be seen whether disk defragmentation is needed, which is why we have already figured out.
Using the menu with settings, you can select the frequency of operation, time, day of the week, discs that need to be serviced. It is recommended to perform it with active use of the PC at least once a month.
Best Disk Defragmenter
According to many computer users, some of the best free programs are MyDefrag and Auslogics Disk Defrag. And if the first of them was a leader for a long time, then recently it has been losing its position and the second utility is taking them. Auslogics Disk Defrag is an excellent program, when it is used, analysis of computer disks takes only a few seconds, and the process itself, usually long, has been significantly reduced and now takes several minutes.
Despite the loss of position, MyDefrag remains one of the best programs, although not in the first place. All processes in it, despite the rather low optimization, are fast. Other utilities sometimes skipped some files, arguing that they could not be defragmented. So, MyDefrag does not notice such a problem and processes all the information available on the hard drive, which can significantly improve its performance.
Which utilities can still be awarded the title of the best program? Disk defragmentation is excellently performed by a free Piriform product called Defraggler, which successfully combines convenience, stability and, of course, excellent performance. Defraggler is easy to use, but at the same time has a complete set of all the necessary functions.
Now consider a paid utility that has a bit of advanced functionality and features.
Raxco PerfectDisk Professional
Considering the question of what disk defragmentation is, we should not forget about a whole series of other software that performs similar tasks. Hard drive maintenance programs include, for example, Raxco PerfectDisk Professional. Using it, you can observe the whole process in real time - on a changing graphic table. To start the operation, you just need to select the disk and press the start button. PerfectDisk optimizes the page file, MFT table and, most importantly, the physical location of directories and files on disk.
IObit SmartDefrag
Again, back to the free software, as it is the one that is most in demand on the market.
How is this program different from its own kind? The fact that it works on the principle of "installed and forgotten", loved by users. Recommended for use by those who do not want to waste time servicing their device. Immediately after installation, it goes into automatic mode and independently, completely invisible to the device owner, defragments all files during normal computer operation. Due to the fact that the files are not initially divided into separate fragments, good system performance is achieved. For faster reading of information from the disk, it is additionally ordered.
Useful Tips for Defragmenting Hard Drives Properly
In conclusion, it is necessary to dwell on how to perform disk maintenance as correctly and efficiently as possible.
- No need to defragment garbage. It is recommended to clean the recycle bin, temporary folders, browser cache and registry before. Some utilities can do this on their own, sometimes installing additional software is required.
- No need to defragment everything, do it only with what you need. Reason: processing some elements is completely inefficient and it is a waste of effort / time. In addition, over-rewriting information reduces the life of the disk. Therefore, files larger than 64 MB in size will be ignored by the native Windows utility. Other programs provide you with the opportunity to customize this size.
- Problems with recovery points. When defragmenting disks, they are lost, as files are moved and others are written on top of some. To prevent this, go to the settings and set the Shadow Copy Service (VSS) compatibility mode . Now recovery points will not be damaged.
- It is not enough to know what disk defragmentation is; you still need to understand when to use it and when to abstain. When using solid-state drives (SSD), as most experts say, data is read from them and so quickly, so there is no point in performing defragmentation. SSDs are recommended for exceptions.
- Files must be placed where their place is. That is, it is desirable, in addition to optimization and defragmentation, to perform the consolidation of free disk space.
- When performing disk maintenance, you can continue to use your computer or laptop. This process will not interfere with the normal work.