Why Is The Hard Disk Defragmented?

Defragging: What Is It? 

Defragging is a process done on a hard drive to improve speed and recover some lost disk space. Defragging maintains the data on your hard drive in an easily accessible sequence, which makes it a crucial component of PC maintenance. If a hard drive is not defragmented, it will eventually start to lose speed and gradually have less space available for data. You probably already know that a sluggish hard drive will negatively impact system performance across the board, particularly in games where frame rate is crucial. 

 

How Is Performance Enhanced By Defragging?

The sequence in which the data is stored on the drive is changed when you defragment your hard drive. The computer will organize the files so that information that should be read together is stored in the same location on the disk. Why, of course, does the PC save the data incorrectly in the first place is the natural question to ask in this situation? If everything was perfect (such a blank disk), the PC would try these first. Nonetheless, it is understandable that the data cannot be saved together given the volume of data that is erased and written to the disk every second the PC is powered on.

 

Let's examine an illustration. If you were to write three 10 MB files to a drive, the data would be written in a line, one 10 MB block after the other. For optimal speed, your computer would like to save the data in this manner. If you ever wanted to look for the data, it makes sense that you would also want it kept in this manner. Let's imagine, however, that you decide the middle file is no longer useful to you and you decide to remove it. There is now a space between your files.

 

Let's imagine that you write a file that is 15 MB in size this time. The first 10 MB of available space will be used to write this file, with the final 5 MB being added to the free space on the back end. It’s easy to envision the state your hard disk may be in after months of use, given the millions of files that are written to and removed from it every day, in addition to the temporary files that Windows utilizes often. In this straightforward example, your PC would reorganize the drive to appear like this after a defragment.

 

The PC finds the data much more quickly and the disk heads don't have to go to different regions of the disk to obtain the necessary data when files, or even groups of related files, are stored adjacent to one another. Naturally, this improves the performance of the disks and the system as a whole. Of course, there are various performance gains. Although file fragmentation is less of an issue when switching to faster hard drives with larger memory buffers to make up for it, I would still recommend paying attention to the issue because periodically defragmenting your disk only requires minimal work.

 

How Is Disk Space Increased By Defragging?

To put it simply, defragging doesn't free up any space on your hard drive. The disk may appear to have more space when you look at the images that defragmentation tools display, but all you are doing is shifting data around, not deleting any. Any small increase in disk space results from the defragmentation tool joining together partial data clusters. Files can be stored in clusters, however, if a cluster is empty, the next file is loaded at the next cluster. A tiny amount of space will be released if a file that has fragmented throughout the disk can be reorganized into a single cluster or simply saved in a cluster.

 

Advanced File Defragmentation

Certain defragging software can do more than just arrange your files in a neat little folder; Norton Speed Disk, for example, can arrange your entire folders and programs according to the order in which they are used. For instance, it can arrange your Windows swap file at the fastest part of the disk, followed by games and other frequently used applications, which also require the fastest part of the hard drive; documents, etc., and infrequently used applications can be placed towards the back of the disk, giving priority speed access to the applications that most require it. Although this may only be a slight performance improvement, every little helps.

 

What Software Is Available for Defragging?

You'll be happy to hear that Windows has a decent defrag program that anyone can use. There are other programs available for more specialized uses as well. Norton Speed Disk is one program that is available on the market and is a part of Norton Utilities and Norton System Works. If you search for "defrag software" on your preferred search engine, you'll find a few commercial and free options.