Will this make my computer faster?

Question

If I transfer all of my music and video docs (about 12 gigs) to a portable USB hard drive, and delete them off my computer, will it make it faster? Also, what if I back up ALL of my important files and bookmarks etc, and restart the whole system and start over from scratch?

Answer 1

Moving stuff should not make it faster; if anything it will 'technically' be slower - you may or may not notice a difference. it's due to the use of extra resources not being currently used. (unless you're using something like 98% of your hard drive already).

WHAT WILL HELP?

Moving files WITHIN YOUR PC .. usually will improve the speed. If you don't know about DEFRAG, run it. START > PROGRAM FILES > ACCESSORIES > SYSTEM TOOLS . Disk Defrag. It takes a while if you've never done it before. There's an analyze button to see if it will even help out much to run it.

YES - No matter how much cleaning you do, it's never the same as inserting that restore cd you got with your computer.

And most people don't know how or what to clean either.. so installing that restore CD is even more beneficial to them.

There's so much crud left behind .. even when you uninstall stuff.. it's pathetic. After running that restore, you'll think you went and bought a brand new computer after running that restore CD.

Whenever I buy a PC, I ALWAYS run the restore first to make sure it works. And I Always - of course - make sure there is a restore cd with any computer I purchase.

Answer 2

The only reason you should need to transfer the music and video off is if you have less then 10-20% of free disk space, (which is the optimum amount of free space). Otherwise, the computer will not run any faster.

As for starting from scratch, this is a very good idea. I wipe and reinstall everything about once a year. The reason for this is that everytime Windows boots up it spills files all over your computer. Windows Disk Defragmenter is not very good at putting them all back together, so eventually your computer gets slower and slower. Just backup anything important, format your hardrive, and start over.

The time it takes you to do this will be made up very soon in faster bootup times, faster loading programs, and pretty much anything using the harddrive speeding up.

Answer 3

"If I transfer all of my music and video docs (about 12 gigs) to a portable USB hard drive, and delete them off my computer, will it make it faster?"

Unless you have an acute lack of disk space, no.

"Also, what if I back up ALL of my important files and bookmarks etc, and restart the whole system and start over from scratch?"

If with restart you mean reinstall, yes.

Try defragmenting though.

Answer 4

Fragmented hard drive takes lot of time to read or write a file so this can cause delay. Regarding deleting of files only gives you free space and if your hard disk is cramped then this may be of use to use. Suppose you are having a hard disk with a capacity of 80 GB or more and enough space is there then your clearing the data files will not give you any additional speed. However if you uninstall any programs then defenitly your speed will increase because most of the programs get themselves loaded into memory while booting and this slows down your computer.

Answer 5

Sure actually moving files off your hard drive give you more space but it doesn't increase speed in any way. It really requires constant maintenance to keep a computer running Windows running fast.

First lets start on the hardware side.

One of the biggest things to keeping a computer healthy and running fast is proper cooling. If you have a desktop this is easy to fix if you are running hot. All you have to do is find a place in your case for a fan and slap one in. Now if you are using a laptop you really can't get another fan so you'll want to get a cooling base to keep the laptop vented properly.

NOTE: If you want to see ho how your computer gets or what to adjust fan speed download SpeedFan 4.2.9 from here http://filehippo.com/download_speedfan/

Next is annual cleaning of the actual computer. No I'm not talking about defraging yet I'm referring to cleaning the dust out of the case and off all your hardware components. When dust collects on your hardware it insolates heat and makes your computer run hotter and that isn't good. The big areas to dust are as follows:

-CPU/Heatsink
-Power supply
-Fans
-Harddrives
-Graphics Card (If applicable)

NOTE: Though all the area's i mentioned are very important to dust you really need to get ALL the dust out cause the more work to do now the less work you have to do next time.

Once that is done clean your computer out every 2 to 3 months

Ok we've made it past the hardware side and now we are on the OS and software. But before we get into details of what to do i will recomend some software that you can use to maintain computer health.

-CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/
-TweakNow Registry Cleaner http://www.tweaknow.com/
-Registry Mechanic www.pctools.com
-O & O Defrag 2000 http://filehippo.com/download_oo_defrag/

First thing we'll do a disk clean up which if you haven't gotten CCleaner you'll have do do with Window's Disk Cleanup Utility which is avable in START>ALL PROGRAMS>ACCESSORIES>SYSTEM TOOLS>DISK CLEANER
Run that and that will free up some space.

Now if you got CCleaner open that and Select what sutff you actually want removed and run the cleaner usually this will take no more then 8mins for the first time running it.

Once that is completed i would recomend cleanning everynight before your final shutdown just to keep the loose and straggly files off your PC.

Next is to clean out your Registry. That is what TweakNow Registry Cleaner & Registry Mechanic are for.

NOTE: You will have to pay for Registry Mechanic but its a great program.

CCleaner also has a registry cleaner as well and it lets you backup your registry any time you clean it which is nice incase something gets ****** up.

I would recomend running one or two of these programs to clean out the lingering **** from uninstalled programs and updated programs. If you are using Registry Mechanic you can also compact your registry to save alittle more space.

Last is defraging the hard drive of coarse this will move files on your hard drive so that they are closer together alowing them to be read faster so this is integral to PC Health. I recomend you defrag at the end of every month just to upkeep it.

Now there are tweeks you can make to the computer like in MSCONFIG and your Registy to make windows if you want to know about those aswell email me and i'll give you a list of things that you can tweek.

Answer 6

If you format your hard drive you will have a faster computer because you are deleting or the $hit that has been installed from internet without your permission... At least for a few hours is going to be faster... until you connect to internet again and get again all that spyware and adwares programs that we like.

Answer 7

Moving files off the hard drive will make it faster...but nothing you will notice unless you are using 99% of your hard drive.

Reinstall from scratch won't make the computer any faster...unless you have other things on it like virus or spyware or other programs loading.

In and of itself, these things won't make the computer faster...but they could solve problems that are causing your computer to slow down.

Answer 8

Depends on the size of your hard drive, 12 gigs might be a large percentage or it might not.

Answer 9

yes it will but u shoud also delete some temporary files in in windows.uninstall the softwares which u dont use u .try using system mechanic it will delete all the junk files and it can aslo clean ur system registry which will make ur system faster

Answer 10

No. USB is a slow device...
The quick tips are:
1.Minimise the usage of C:(parent drive).
2.Minimise basckgrounbd processes....type "msconfig" in "Run"..remove unwanted bg process.
3.Defragment in regular intervals.