Defragmentation is a process for combining different fragments of files located on a computer's hard drive.

During prolonged use of the computer, some files on the hard drive are subjected to strong fragmentation- division of one file into several parts located in different sectors of the disk partition. For this reason, the computer has to spend much more time to find and run the desired program for the user. It turns into a strong performance drop systems, brakes and freezes of computer games or programs and other problems in the operation of a personal computer.

For the correct sorting of files on hdd, defragmentation is used, during which files are distributed over evenly on the disk partition, which will greatly speed up access to the necessary files, because the magnetic head of the hard disk will no longer have to frantically jump across the surface of the drive.

How long does the process take

This process takes an impressive amount of time, which depends on volume, occupancy and speed hard drive. Some half-empty 500 gigabyte hard drive will go through a full defragmentation in a couple of hours, or maybe even faster.

Full disks of a huge volume of several terabytes will undergo a very long procedure (in some cases it takes more than ten hours). It takes such an impressive time due to the fact that in the process it constantly happens transfer files and overwriting literally the entire hard drive, which for obvious reasons takes a very long time.

The more free space on the hard drive, the faster and better the process will be performed. That is why before starting this process recommended free at least 15 percent drive, because in this case, defragmentation will be much faster than on an overcrowded media.

Is it possible to defragment drive C

Defragment the system partition (or drive C) to do can. This process is absolutely safe in terms of the risk of harming system files or directories. Firstly, the process does not delete any files, they just move to another place on the disk. Secondly, the procedure does not affect system files or directories, they do not change at all during the process of optimizing the hard disk.

So do not be afraid to defragment the hard disk partition where the operating system is installed. The exception is drive C, which is located on a solid state drive, but more on this in the next paragraph.

Is it worth it to defragment an SSD?

Solid State Drives not subject to fragmentation. Due to the lack of moving parts, SSDs work with any files at the same speed, no matter how they are located on the partition.

SSD defragmentation is not only useless, but also destructive for this type of storage. The reason for this lies in the type of memory used on SSDs. Unlike standard hard drives, SSDs use flash memory that has limited cycles overwrites, after which no new files can be written to the disk. Carrying out the procedure will greatly reduce the overall life of the SSD, so do it categorically Not recommended.

Disk Defragmenter

Operating systems have a built-in utility for defragmenting and optimizing partitions, so installing third-party applications is not required. You can enter this program in several ways, but first things first.

Using standard operating system tools

• After that, it remains only to wait for the end of the process.

Using the schedule

In Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, you can set up scheduled hard disk optimization. To do this, in a previously familiar utility, you will need to click on the menu button " Change settings»;

After that, it remains only to choose once in what period to perform automatic defragmentation and the necessary for this procedure hdd.

Attention! Before enabling the scheduled process, you should make sure that the checkboxes are unchecked from the SSD drives in the settings, otherwise they will become unusable very quickly!

Defragmentation via command line

Fans of something more complicated can try to start the process exclusively through command line.

To go to the command line, press the key combination " Windows» + « R", and in the window that appears, enter " cmd».
To get a list of the necessary commands, you should type in the window that appears " defrag/?". After that, the command line will display information about all commands, allowing you to defragment your hard drive.
Defragmentation via the command line is needed solely to use additional features that are not available through standard utilities. If you do not have sufficient knowledge in personal computers, it is better not to use this method once again.

If you ask any computer geek you know, one of the items that will most likely be mentioned is disk defragmentation. It is about her that I will write today everything that I know.

In particular, we will talk about what defragmentation is and whether it needs to be done manually on modern Windows 7 and Windows 8 operating systems, whether it is necessary to defragment an SSD, what programs can be used (and whether these programs are needed) and how to defragment without additional programs on Windows, including using the command line.

If you have Windows 7, 8 or 8.1

In the latest versions of operating systems from Microsoft - Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, hard disk defragmentation starts automatically. In Windows 8 and 8.1, it occurs at random times when the computer is idle. In Windows 7, if you go into the defragmentation options, you will most likely see that it will run every Wednesday at 1am.

Thus, in Windows 8 and 8.1, the likelihood that you will need to manually defragment is unlikely. In Windows 7, this can happen, especially if after working at the computer you immediately turn it off and turn it on every time you need to do something again. In general, turning your PC on and off frequently is a bad practice and is more likely to cause problems than having your PC turned on 24/7. But this is a topic for a separate article.

But in Windows XP there is no automatic defragmentation, which is not surprising - the operating system is more than 10 years old. Thus, defragmentation will have to be done manually on a regular basis. How regularly? It depends on how much data you download, create, rewrite back and forth and delete. If games and programs are installed and removed daily, you can run defragmentation once a week or two. If all the work consists in using Word and Excel, as well as sitting in contact and classmates, then monthly defragmentation will be enough.

In addition, you can set up automatic defragmentation in Windows XP using the Task Scheduler. Only it will be less "intelligent" than in Windows 8 and 7 - if in modern OS defragmentation will "wait" when you are not working on the computer, then in XP it will be launched regardless.

Do I need to use third-party programs to defragment my hard drive?

This article would be incomplete without mentioning disk defragmentation programs. There are a large number of such programs, both paid and those that can be downloaded for free. Personally, I haven't done any such tests, but Internet searches didn't give a clear indication of whether they are more effective than the built-in defrag utility in Windows. There are only a few possible advantages of such programs:

• Fast work, own settings for automatic defragmentation.
• Special defragmentation algorithms to speed up computer boot.
• Built-in additional features, such as defragmenting the Windows registry.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, the installation, and even more so the purchase of such utilities, is not a very necessary thing. In recent years, hard drives have become faster and operating systems smarter, and if a slight HDD fragmentation ten years ago led to a noticeable decrease in system performance, today this hardly happens. Moreover, few of the users with today's volumes of hard drives are filled to capacity, so the file system has the ability to place data in an optimal way.

Free Disk Defragmenter Defraggler

Just in case, I will include in this article a brief reference to one of the best free disk defragmentation programs - Defraggler. The developer of the program is Piriform, which you may know from its CCleaner and Recuva products. You can download Defraggler for free from the official website http://www.piriform.com/defraggler/download. The program works with all modern versions of Windows (starting from 2000), 32-bit and 64-bit.

Installing the program is quite simple, in the installation options you can configure some options, for example, replacing the standard Windows defrag utility, as well as adding Defragler to the disk context menu. All this is in Russian, if this factor is important to you. Otherwise, using the free Defragler program is intuitive and defragmenting or analyzing a disk will not be a problem.

In the settings, you can set automatic scheduled defragmentation, optimize system files when the system boots, and many other options.

How to do defragmentation with built-in Windows tools

Just in case, if you suddenly do not know how to defragment in Windows, I will describe this simple process.

Disk Defragmenter in Windows Using the Command Prompt

All the same that was described a little higher and even more, you can do with the command defrag at the Windows command prompt (command prompt must be run as an administrator). Below is a listing of reference information on using defrag to defragment a hard drive in Windows.

Microsoft Windows (c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\WINDOWS\system32>defrag Microsoft Disk Optimizer (c) Microsoft Corporation 2013. Description: Optimizes and merges fragmented files on local volumes to improve system performance. defrag syntax<тома>| /c | /E<тома> [<задачи>] ] where<задачи>or not specified (regular defragmentation), or specified as follows: /A | | /o | /X Or, to track an operation already in progress on the volume: defrag<том>/T Options Value Description /A Analyze the specified volumes. /C Perform operation on all volumes. /D Standard defragmentation (default). /E Performs the operation on all volumes except those specified. /H Run the operation at normal priority (low by default). /K Optimize memory on the selected volumes. /L Re-optimize the selected volumes. /M Run the operation simultaneously on each volume in the background. /O Optimize using the appropriate method for the media type. /T Monitor an operation that is already in progress on the specified volume. /U Display the progress of the operation on the screen. /V Print detailed fragmentation statistics. /X Merges free space on the specified volumes. Examples: defrag C: /U /V defrag C: D: /M defrag C:\mountpoint /A /U defrag /C /H /V C:\WINDOWS\system32>defrag C: /A Microsoft Disk Optimization (c ) Microsoft Corporation 2013. Call parsing on (C:)... Operation completed successfully. Post Defragmentation Report: Volume Details: Volume Size = 455.42 GB Free Space = 262.55 GB Total Fragmented Space = 3% Maximum Free Space = 174.79 GB Fragmentation statistics do not include fragments of files larger than 64 MB. Defragmentation of this volume is not required. C:\WINDOWS\system32>

That's probably almost everything I can tell you about disk defragmentation in Windows. If you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments.

When writing any files to the hard drive, all information is distributed across clusters. If you decide to delete this or that file, the clusters with information will be erased, but instead of them there will be an empty space. Thus, the ordering of all files on the hard disk is violated. As a result, when reading information, the hard drive spends much more time searching for the right clusters, since they are scattered throughout the media. This leads to a noticeable slowdown of the computer as a whole. Such a process is called fragmentation.

defragmentation allows you to restore order in the internal space. This procedure arranges the arrangement of all clusters on the carrier, transferring them close to each other. After that, a noticeable increase in performance in resource-intensive applications and games. Let's see how to do disk defragmentation, and in what cases it is necessary.

When should you defragment your drive?

If you notice that the performance of a personal computer has dropped significantly, then optimization is required in this case. Long loading programs, opening files, copying also hint that it's time to optimize.

What software is used to defragment a hard drive?

Operating system XP, 7 and newer have built-in software to perform defragmentation. If you want to perform the procedure once, then you can use it. However, many note poor performance during the use of the standard utility. If you decide to use it, then follow these steps:

Consider how to make disk defragmentation a built-in utility:

Consider an example of how to defragment a disk on a schedule:

• The standard program allows you to set a regular schedule for defragmentation. In the previous window, click the button Set up schedule....
• In the window that opens, select the frequency, day, time, and partitions to be defragmented.
• After completing the setup, click OK.

Now the switched on computer at the appointed time will automatically start the optimization procedure.

During this period of time, there may be a drop in performance, as the system is busy with a more important process.

According to the presented instructions, the hard drive is defragmented in Windows XP, 7, 8 and 10. Now let's figure out how to defragment the hard drive using a third-party program.

Optimizing with defragmenters

There are quite a few programs for defragmenting the system disk. Among them there are options for both advanced users and beginners. For example, consider a simple utility Defragger, the full free version of which can be downloaded from the official website of the developers. Download the distribution, install the software and run it. The program cleans up disks in OS 7, 8 and 10. To do this, use the instructions:

By using Defraggler not only defragmentation of the system or external disk is carried out. You can also get information about the performance of the media, a list of files, or optimize each folder separately.

How to defragment a disk using Auslogics Disk Defrag

Another utility that allows you to quickly or completely defragment your hard drive. The main window of the program is very similar to Defraggler, so there should be no problems using it.

Consider the launch process:

Now you know how to defragment a hard drive, including an SSD, using standard Windows tools or through third-party software.

Related videos

Disk defragmentation in Windows is an important and necessary process for optimizing the recorded data located on the HDD, regardless of the configuration of the computer and its platform. Why is file fragmentation happening? How effectively can it be counteracted? How to optimize correctly? And of course, how to do disk defragmentation? We will talk about all this in our article.
What is fragmentation?
Data fragmentation usually means splitting files into blocks of different lengths, carried out in the process of writing to a hard disk - while they are fixed in different non-consecutive areas of the storage medium.

This process is primarily associated with the finite size of clusters (respectively, sectors) of the hard drive, which does not allow writing large data in one place.

As practice shows, most often fragmentation is formed when large files are transferred to the hard disk.

At the same time, recording on an absolutely clean storage medium is carried out mainly sequentially, however, the less free space remains on it, the more often information is written to different areas of the HDD.

Why you need to defragment

The top three reasons to run regular defragmentation are:

1. Speed ​​up file access and hard drive performance. After ordering the logical structure and optimizing the location of the media files, a continuous sequence of filled information clusters is provided - thus, the time of moving the positioning disk heads is reduced, which leads to faster file operations;
2. Increasing the life of the HDD. Reducing the number of movements of the positioning heads increases their service life;
3. Increasing usable hard drive space. With very high degrees of hard disk fragmentation (from 40 percent and above) and its significant data filling (up to 95 percent), it is sometimes impossible to write files of sufficiently large files to the HDD, although the operating system indicates that the necessary empty space is available.

How to defragment

The instruction below allows you to defragment the disk in the standard Windows way - the corresponding program comes with the OS distribution kit.

It is desirable to carry out the optimization procedure in the case, if the selected hard drive or logical partition has the required free space (minimum 15 percent, optimally 25-30 percent).

It should also be noted that classic defragmentation is applicable only to HDD, for SSD drives, it is disabled by default, while the process of optimizing flash memory data is carried out by the operating system using other mechanisms (power auto-correction, TRIM and Superfetch, ReadyBoot blocking, etc.)

1. Hold Win + E and after opening "Explorer" Expand the "This PC" section.
2. Click on any of the local disks with the right mouse button, select from the context menu "Properties".
3. Choose a tab "Service" and paragraph "Optimize".
4. After opening the program, designate the necessary disks and press the key "Analyze".
   
5. If fragmentation of any local disk above 5 percent- press "Optimize" and do not interrupt the process until it is finished and restart your computer.
   
6. By clicking on the “Change settings” tab, you can set up a schedule for optimizing hard drives in Windows 10. Set up the frequency of disk optimization (we recommend choosing weekly).
   
7. Select the disk to be optimized in the menu "Disks". We recommend that you select the drive where Windows is installed and click OK.
   

On this process defragmenting a hard drive on windows completed.

Content

To speed up the work of a personal computer, it is not necessary to go to the store to purchase new expensive components - you need to defragment the disk using a special utility that will help bring each fragmented file to an orderly state, transfer important system components to a faster partition, and much more. Inexperienced PC users neglect the necessary maintenance, considering the hard drive a secondary component, and in fact, the speed of access to various files, including Windows components, depends on optimization.

What is disk defragmentation

When deleting programs, games, movies and other large files, separate elements remain on the hard disk that occupy a certain space, i.e. fragmentation occurs. The next time the recording of a new file starts, the part will be written in one place, then the occupied space will be skipped, another part will be recorded, skipping, and so on in a circle. This will lead to the fact that in order to gain access, the HDD head will have to move from the beginning to the middle, then to the end, back, and this will significantly slow down the work.

What is needed for

The procedure is necessary to collect the file together - the parts will follow strictly one after another, being in successive clusters. So the read head will need to read only a small part, make a small movement to read the entire file. The use of such utilities is especially important for those users who often overwrite files, install games and programs, work with a large number of small documents, etc. Thanks to the sequential arrangement, the opening and launch speed will increase by up to 50%.

What is useful

The closer the elements of one file are to the initial part of the hard drive, the faster the opening will take place, and, in some cases, this becomes very noticeable. The same applies to system files - when they are located on the initial clusters, system loading is accelerated, as is the autorun of programs, and overall performance. An SSD drive does not need to be defragmented, but rather the opposite - the service life will be greatly reduced, because. there is a limit on the number of write-rewrite cycles.

How to defragment a disk

Windows has a built-in disk defragmenter that does its job well. It is recommended to run it weekly to keep the PC hard disk in proper condition and prevent unnecessary clutter with small parts of files. You can set the automatic launch mode when the computer itself turns on the program at the right time. The speed of the program is directly affected by many factors, of which the following should be highlighted:

• technical parameters of the iron component of the computer;
• total hard disk space;
• the amount of space occupied;
• the number of completed write-rewrite cycles;
• period since the last defragmentation.

For Windows 7

The built-in utility utility defragmenter for Windows 7 defragments hard disk partitions, but only files and free clusters remain intact, although computer performance will still be increased. Automatic mode is present and is configured by date, time and frequency. Before starting, it is recommended to clean the local drives of residual garbage, for which you can use the system or one of the free utilities and check the system registry.

The function can be activated along the path - Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools. The second way - Computer - right-click on the logical drive - Properties - tab Tools - Run defragmentation. After pressing the start button, the program window will open, where you can select one of the items:

• set up a schedule;
• analysis;
• defragmentation.

The analysis will check hard disk sectors for fragmented files and report in percentage. It is recommended to have at least 15% free space on the hard drive, because. in its absence, defragmentation can take a very long time, and efficiency will be significantly reduced. It is always necessary to have some unused space on the system disk and used for storing information - scoring completely, you may encounter slowdown of the entire computer.

For Windows 8

The program in Windows 8 practically does not differ in its functionality and capabilities from the previous version. There is also the ability to set up a schedule, and the process takes a lot of time, much more than when using third-party quick utilities. To access it, you must press Win + E, left-click on the logical drive, click the Manage tab at the top, then Optimize.

For Windows 10

This operating system is installed on most modern laptops. As a carrier, either an SSD drive is installed here, which does not need to be defragmented, or a small HDD, where the situation is radically opposite. A small hard drive is subject to fragmentation much faster, which reduces the speed of performing any tasks. It is difficult to set up automatic defragmentation here, because the laptop turns off when it is not being worked on to save battery power, and the best option would be to start it manually every time.

To open Disk Optimizer, you must do the following - Explorer - This Computer - right-click on the disk - Properties - Tools - Optimize. Here, again, you can analyze the disk for fragmented files and their percentage, start the optimization process itself, or set up a schedule. The more often defragmentation-optimization is performed, the less time subsequent launches will take.

Disk defragmentation software

There are alternative programs with a more understandable and user-friendly interface and some additional features. The utilities are free, and to use them you only need to download the file and complete the installation. Some will automatically replace the standard disk defragmenter, which is convenient, because. you do not need to disable it yourself through Windows Services, which not every beginner can do.

Defraggler

The utility can defragment the disk not only completely, but also individual folders and even files. This will help in cases where the speed of a particular application is important, and not the entire computer. The program works with any file systems. It is possible to automatically transfer large files closer to the end of the disk. The speed of work is very good, and all information about the hard drive is presented clearly.

Ashampoo Magical Defrag

The utility is made in a minimalist design - the elements are presented in a single window, with virtually no settings and with a small amount of information. There are no additional functions here, and the work takes place in the background, turning on during those periods when the computer is idle, in sleep mode, etc. At some points, this is very convenient, because. computer resources are not always used 100%, for example, when watching a movie or working in office programs, you can use the HDD and processor to service the disk.

Auslogics Disk Defrag

The program has several key features that distinguish it from other offers. It not only defragments files, but also organizes the available free space, which takes a lot of time. Able to optimize system files itself, speeding up access to them. It is possible to set up a schedule, or work in the background without loading all the resources of the computer.

MyDefrag

A distinctive feature of the program is that it replaces the screensaver, i.e., when the computer goes into standby mode, if you need to defragment the hard drive, the process starts. The work will be optimized as much as possible, and the files will be in an orderly state. The program requires only initial configuration, after which it will operate in automatic mode.

Smart Defrag

IObit's product is able to keep the files on your hard drive in order at all times. The utility uses a special algorithm that performs partial defragmentation at system startup, and the boot time increases slightly and only if Windows is installed on it. There is a smart distribution function, when frequently used files are distributed closer to the beginning and access to them is faster. The speed of work is good, even with a large number of files and their fragmentation.

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