This is really simple, and can be really effective. No doubt you will have files such as pictures, music, or videos on your computer which you know yourself you probably will never look/listen to again. Having too many files on your computers hard drive can cause your computer to slow down due to the limited memory it can work with.To delete unused files, all you have to do is go to your documents or desktop and find files you wont have any use for, and that are worthy of deletion. Right click, and click Delete to fully remove the file, and free space.
In the first place that depends on how hard it was fragmented. Windows 7 (maybe vista too) automatically defrags once a week in the background when the pc is idle, so it shouldn't be too fragmented anyway.
YOU ARE WRONG... sorry, but regardless if you use 100% of the space on your hdd or if you use 5%, this does not slow down your pc... hard drive space has no bearing on speed, no matter what. i don't care if it is fragmented up the wazoo, the slow down is gonna be minimal... again HARD DRIVE SPACE HAS NOTHING DO WITH SPEED, NOT CPU SPEED, NOT SPEED OF MEMORY, NOT SPEED OF ANY KIND PERIOD. DON'T SPREAD FALSE INFORMATION. THIS IS THE SECOND THREAD I'VE SEEN REGARDING THIS NONSENSE IN THE LAST COUPLE OF MONTHS. WHERE DO YOU PEOPLE COME FROM???? how many processes you have running from memory, low pagefile allocated size in proportion to installed memory, weak cpu, low memory installed, these are what cause you machine to be slow, NOT HDD SPACE. NEVER will HDD space have any effect on how fast your machine is. someone close this thread please...
I think that's the best way to put it. HDD performance is not directly affected by the remaining free space i.e. whether the HDD is nearly 'full' or not. But it is massively affected by the way (location on the HDD) data is stored on the disk. The goal of a fragmentation utility is to have data sorted in a way so that the disk reading head will need a minimal effort / time accessing them whilst it moves back and forth. That is why more frequently accessed data (i.e. apps) are being given a priority and moved at the 'top'. Having said that, it's always a good idea to delete any unnecessary files for obviously ... freeing more space but for keeping system tidy as well. The only connection I see to performance here is that by deleting unwanted files, you could save more time whilst fragmenting the HDD (since less data will need to be 'sorted')
do i have to worry about defragging even if i have my OS(win7x64) running of ssd and have 2 hard drives storing all media and temp files and other directories(user folder) on them?
No, defragging an SSD is actually bad for it. Fragmentation on SSD's is good, because of the parallel nature in which the data is stored. A Fragmented SSD should in theory be faster.
For what it's worth: I have 30 years experience in computers, including fine tuning. I totally agree with the above. The original post is very misleading. HTH
uh,i think i went off subject from the OP,meaning we disregarded his spam comment(s) i was too lazy to make my own thread about defragging hard drives,and no,i didn't mean to ask about defragging my ssd,just my hard drives,does defragging an ssd realy work?? have to look into that..
I'd like to take a moment to say that this isn't entirely true. This depends very much on the type of hard drive you have(how fast it is) and just how fragmented it is. When the hard drive has to look around to find a file, and you're trying to do multiple things - the hard drive DIRECTLY effects how fast those multiple things can happen. For example, if you try to open two programs at once(ie: on startup, or manually) However, Windows 7/Vista generally don't allow the hard drive to get too fragmented. So the above is mostly true. And if you're running either of these OS's, it's generally assumed that your hardware is somewhat newer(ie: hard drive speed is higher) But many people try to upgrade their software long before upgrading hardware. I work as a PC Repair Tech, and in many cases, just a defrag speeds up the computer's performance drastically. Particularly optimizing the location of the files required for boot. You'd be surprised just how much this -can- effect a system. It is rare, yes. But it does happen.
Agree that defragging an SSD is a no-no. I only disagree on the improved lifetime claim on a normal HDD. The MTBF estimate on most HDDs is on x thousands of hours (based on usage patterns of an average user). That usage is not always the same and depends on what you do with the HDD. If you are copying / moving files continuously, the expected lifetime of the HDD is reduced. Likewise, defragging is a HDD-intensive process of moving files across and that can't be good towards the lifetime of an HDD. Based on that assumption alone, defragging an HDD once per month is too much! It's much better to spend something extra on purchasing an additional HDD which you can use for HDD intensive tasks only (i.e. temp files, downloads, movies), and have the faster HDD holding the OS/Apps (i.e. close to read only). In that way you will only have to defrag very occasionally.
Hi everyone! I worked in Seagate Brazil a couple years. Well, I will try to explaned SDD in single lines. About: - LIFETIME: Depends memory chip technology. Well! Is around 4/5 years minimal, lab. experience!; - ELECTRONIC PULSE SPEED ("nanosecs") - This is a speed of the sdd "disk", incomparable with Hard (Mechanical) Disks ("milisecs"); - THE PROBLEM - The speed tests, actually, is too strange! Because phisically the SDD tech is better than HDD tech! I believe the problem is OS (win7 etc) isn't fully prepared for SDD tech! - FRAGMENTATION - For SDD tech, fragmentation doesn't exist, but for the OS exist! Crazy No ! - BEST CHOICE (today) - Is SDD to boot OS (and charge Apps), HD to save personal files and put virtual memory into "RAM Drive" (DDR etc it's too fast to do this, better than SDD). - SDD FOR THE MASS - Only specific OS for SDD tech, enjoy the full capacity of this technology! - BETTER OS for SDD - Today only (at this day... ) Apple, with your Lion OS, use the fully SDD capacity! To prove this, look about the battery lifetime from Apple ultrabook (MacAir) and compare with Samsung/Dell/LeNovo ultrabook! This is my expertise contribution for this forum! This expertise is from ATM PCs and Bank Servers. Lucky for all! Leo
The need to defrag depends on the usage of the drive. If you constantly change the contents of the drive (install/uninstall programs, install a crapload of updates etc), the need to defrag increases as the position is created where its more likely that the drive is fragmented. Two things which are in constant change on a HDD are the temporary files and the pagefile. Even setting the pagefile as permanent doesn't help as Windows deletes and recreates it on boot (deletes the file, not clear the contents), which can eventually lead to it re-fragmenting. There is a good and bad aspect of a feature regarding defragmenting in Windows. Windows will put the most frequently accessed programs first which means they load slightly faster of a mechanical hard drive, as a mechanical hard drive reads from the outside in. The disadvantage with this is different program use from week to week creates different datasets for usage, meaning you end up with needless 'defragmenting' (where the defragmenting is actually just moving the file locations). A fragmented drive will slow it down for both SSD and mechanical, afterall random 4k reads on an SSD are not the same speed as sequential read/writes. The difference is the level of fragmentation of each file. If a 10MB file has 5 fragments, each fragment is 2MB which isn't too bad, and on a SSD it really doesn't affect it too much. On a mechanical drive, if the fragments are ordered from the outside in on the drive, the heads merely have to move in one direction as the platters rotate to read the file, so it doesn't slow it down too much either (it does a little). If the first fragment is on the inside of the drive, the second further out, then the third further in... You hope NCQ etc kicks in, but regardless of that it does hinder performance. Now, in the situation where the chunks are smaller, and they can be down to 4kb, thats when the performance really suffers. If you delete lots of small files (like clearing temporary files etc) which weren't sequential, when the space is needed by file it gets fragmented into lots of small pieces to fill the gaps. This is a little over-simplification, but over time it does add up. The slowdown won't affect the files that are defragmented, only those which are fragmented. If the files that are fragmented are rarely used, defragmenting doesn't really help. For an SSD, the ordering of the programs won't make a difference, as the speed access is the same across the drive (unless its a dodgy one, say a 256GB where the second 128GB uses slower chips)..., so for an SSD its try defragmenting, not 'defrag and mechanical drive optimise'. I believe these special algorithm defrags only defrags the files that are problematically defragged as outlined above. You should only need to do this after you have installed windows, all the programs, all updates, moved the pagefile and temporary files off the drive, and only then do the special algorithm defrag. DO NOT use the Windows defrag! or defrag programs that don't have this algorithm. Perfectdisk 12 is one example of a defrag with an SSD algorithm. Due to the nature of SSD's, there are special algorithms for defragmenting, which should be rarely done as there should be no need to. An SSD is really an acceleration drive, you shouldn't really use it for the pagefile and temporary files. That is my opinion of course, but its safer to have them on a mechanical drive. Ideally you have a partition on this drive purely for the pagefile - it can't get fragmented if its the only thing on there. On the rest of the drive you can use it for the remaining apps you don't need the speed for, temporary files etc. Of course, ideally you have at least 8gb of RAM to limit the pagefile use on the slower drive. If you do decide to go that route, don't use an eco/green drive, use a proper 7200RPM drive. At the moment the fastest released 1TB drive (ideal for this purpose) is the Hitachi 7k1000.D, which has only just been released and availability may still be low. It is a single platter (so 1, 1TB platter) drive. If you're going to put the pagefile on a separate drive, this is the one to put it on, as the faster the better. Same goes for the temporary files and apps. So basically, in agreement with Europanet etc there! The other thing to keep in mind is to keep updated with drivers, Windows and program updates etc. Doesn't matter if you have a Asus, Gigabyte etc motherboard, if, for example, your sound chip is Realtek, download it from the Realtek website NOT from the motherboard website as they are rarely updated. Same goes for display drivers (AMD/Nvidia) etc. If you become a keen updater, head over to the hotfix repository thread and website and download all the latest updates and not just the general release updates.