How to Defragment Your Hard Drive to Gain More Space and to Speed it up
Learn why it's important to defragment the hard drive and how to optimize the performance of your computer
Although you do not have specific computer skills, you can defragment the hard disk of your computer because Windows has an automatic option that takes care of the process if you follow some steps. Over time, computers slow down, and defragmentation is a simple process that allows you to gain space and speed. It is a simple procedure that we explain below:
Defragment your hard disk now to maximize the possibilities of your computer.
How to Defrag Windows 7 Hard Disk
How to Defrag in Windows 8 ?
How to Defrag Windows XP ?
What is hard disk defragmentation?
Although we see the files as separate units, they are stored in the computer in tiny fragments that are scattered in different places. Windows knows the exact location of the fragments so that we receive them as if they were one, but when we have too many files, u use the spaces several times because we delete and save new files, the computer slows down.
Imagine thousands of bits covering your hard drive trying to join each time you press the icon of a photo, a song or a document. The efficiency of Windows decreases if we do not help to gather these bits into larger ones so that the process is carried out faster, saving work to our computer.
Reasons to Defrag a Hard Drive
In addition to speeding up the processes on the computer to open files, it is possible to schedule the defragmentation to be activated at a time when you are not using the computer, for example at night. It also prolongs the life of the hard drive as its mechanical parts suffer less damage if it is defragmented as it reduces the effort of finding the small parts of the file.
The security of the computer will improve because the antivirus can eliminate the threats quickly if the defragmentation of the disk is done correctly. On the other hand, the durability of the battery in laptops will be greater because it will spend less energy because it will simplify the process of recovering files.
Steps to defragment a hard drive
If you install too many applications in a short time or use programs that consume too many resources, such as design software or a heavy video editor, you should defragment the disk regularly. In Windows 10, you will have to write “defragmentation” in the start boxes, which will open a menu with the “Defragment and optimize drives” option.
Once there, a window will be displayed that presents the names of different units stored on the disk. Click on each one and then click the “analyze” button. You will get the percentage of fragmentation of the files on your computer, which if they exceed 10% you will have to defragment by pressing the button “optimize.” Windows will start the process automatically which may take minutes or hours depending on some files you keep and your weight. However, it is possible to work on the computer while the defragmentation process occurs.
