Why defragging a hard drive could speed up your ailing PC
There are few things that are quite as frustrating as a
slow, unresponsive computer. It can transform even the most straightforward of
tasks into one that is arduous and time-consuming. Sadly, it’s a common problem
with older machines but there may be an affordable and straightforward
solution.
Over time, the data stored on a hard drive can become fragmented. To put it another way, the locations of the individual bytes that
form files become less and less logical over time. As a result, when you try to
view an image, boot up your device or anything else where it’s necessary for
your hard drive to read and retrieve data, the process takes longer.
When a hard drive is defragged, the pieces of each file are
moved closer together meaning that they’re easier to find. There’s no guarantee
that it’ll resolve matters entirely or even at all, but it’s a straightforward
task and is worth trying for this reason alone.
In order to start the process of defragmenting your hard
drive, you should access your control panel then your administrative tools. You
should then be presented with the option to ‘defragment’ or ‘optimise’ your
drives. Simply start the process (we’d recommend doing this overnight) and
check your computer’s performance once it’s complete. If there’s no notable
improvement, it might be time to buy a new hard drive.
It should be noted, however, that there are circumstances
under which defragmenting your drive won’t yield positive results – and it may
even be detrimental in some circumstances.
If your hard drive
isn’t fragmented
Obviously, if your hard drive isn’t fragmented, then
performing the defragmentation process isn’t going to bring about any kind of
improvement in performance.
Following you having accessed the defragmentation tool,
you’ll be told what percentage of the drive is fragmented. Naturally, the
higher this figure, the more likely it is that your device will benefit from
the process. If it’s low, it’s likely that fragmentation isn’t the reason your
PC is running slowly.
If you’re running
Windows 7 or later
Windows 7 and all subsequent editions of the operating
system automatically schedule defragmentation on a weekly basis. Whilst this
should mean that there’d be little benefit to you defragging your hard drive,
some users have claimed that Windows can fail to undertake this process so it’s
worth checking how fragmented your drive is even if you’re running one of the
more recent versions of Windows.
If you have an SSD
Unlike hard drives, SSDs do not have moving parts. Hard drives have a read/write head which must read data from a platter. When data becomes fragmented, this process takes longer because the drives platter must rotate so that each piece of data can be viewed by the read head and reconstructed accordingly. SSDs, however, are capable of reading and reconstructing files at the same rate irrespective of whether the data is fragmented or not. What’s more, defragmenting an SSD is not just unnecessary, but will also shorten the drives lifespan, increasing the likelihood of you suffering data loss.