What is disk defragmentation?

Question

What does it do? Does it affect any files etc.?

Answer 1

The storage section of any computer is divided into tiny portions called tracks and sectors.The files that we save are actually fragmented into various portions before they are saved on the hard disk in random sectors. So, when you want to open a file, the Operating System collects the fragments from various places, joins them and then shows it to you. By computer's means, this consumes a lot of time(usually over 100 milliseconds). However, if the disk is defragmented, the OS brings all the fragments of different files together, thereby pushing the used up space to one portion and the free space to another. This helps the computer in retrieving information much faster and hence your computer 'speeds' up! Hope you got it! :-)

Answer 2

Think of your disk space as notes you write on note cards. When you fill up one card, you have to add the next part on a new card. Your computer does the same thing - it allocates space for a file in chunks. When you edit a file that you saved previously, there may not be room for the changes in the space where the file currently sits, so the system grabs another chunk of space somewhere else on the disk, and your file is physically split into 2 parts. Multiply this scenario by every application you have on your computer, and you'll see that it's pretty easy to get fragments of files scattered all over the disk. It takes time for your computer to skip around and pick up fragments of file that are here and there. It also takes up extra space.

The defrag process tries to combine all these chunks of data together. It looks at the total size of all the fragments for 1 file and tries to copy them to one location. It goes through all the files and attempts to consolidate them this way. This makes your machine run faster, and frees up space also.

It's a good idea to run the defrag once a month or so if you use your computer a decent amount of time most days. If you use it a lot, you could go to once every 2 weeks.

Answer 3

A hard drive is like your house. You move stuff around, but don't put it back in it's place. It's still there, it just takes longer to find it. Defragmentation simply puts everything back into order, where the files can be access quicker. Heavily fragmented computers get slower searching for stuff. Other people will also write in giving you a clearer idea.

Answer 4

- Defragmentation is the process of locating the noncontiguous fragments of data into which a computer file may be divided as it is stored on a hard disk, and rearranging the fragments and restoring them into fewer fragments or into the whole file. Defragmentation reduces data access time and allows storage to be used more efficiently

Answer 5

Fragment - small part or piece broken off
De fragment - putting things together. making it easier to find smaller portions of files and things.

imagine that you go to the library everyday and people keep borrowing and returning books left and right. At some point the librarian has to return the books in their proper locations so that the next borrower wont have a difficult time looking for a specific book.

The librarian in turn is actually defraging the library.

Answer 6

Imagine a big warehouse with loads of boxes, some in lines some just scattered, and you need a box which is right at the back of the warehouse, so you have to walk all the way round stepping over boxes, instead if it was organised you could just go straight to the box saving time and energy, that is was defragmentation does it organises your "Warehouse", so you can get to the box quick saving time and energy.

hope this helps..

Answer 7

To rearrange the data fragments stored on the hard disk such that the head could travel the shortest possible distance when reading the fragments of a file.

Answer 8

This will help you understand what "fragmentation" is and how it occurs.

The story of disk fragmentation

As a seasoned IT professional, you know that disk fragmentation is a normal occurrence that happens over time as you use your hard disk. Chances are that you also know that disk fragmentation can be the source of huge performance degradation if left unchecked. But a little refresher course never hurts.
On the hard disk, a cluster is the smallest unit of disk space that the operating system can address and as such is the smallest amount of space that can be allocated to hold a file. On a standard hard disk formatted with NTFS in Windows XP, the maximum default cluster size is 4 KB or 4,096 bytes.
Now, each time you copy new files to and delete old files from your hard disk, as well as when you add information to existing files, chances are good that your hard disk is becoming more and more fragmented with each operation you perform. For example, when you copy a file to your hard disk, the operating system attempts to place the file into the first available cluster that it finds on the hard disk. If the file is larger than that cluster, the operating system breaks the file into pieces and attempts to place the rest of the file in the next available cluster. If this second cluster is not located right next to the first one, the file is fragmented.
Fragmentation also occurs when you add information to an existing data file. If the file that you're working on outgrows its original cluster, the operating system will place the rest of the file in the next available cluster. Again the file becomes fragmented when the next available cluster isn't located right next to the first one. Furthermore, each time you delete files from your hard disk, you create available clusters, thus increasing the chances for future file fragmentation--especially if the files you delete are themselves fragmented.
Over time, fragmentation can become a big problem if left unchecked. As pieces of files become spread out, the hard disk's read/write heads have to do more work to locate and transfer files to memory. The more the read/write heads move, the longer it takes to access files. Consequently, hard disk performance suffers.
It gets even worse because the effects of fragmentation can cause overall performance degradation, long boot-times, random crashes, as well as unexplained lock-ups. In fact, an extremely fragmented hard disk can even prevent a system from booting up at all.
Disk Defragmenter to the rescue
The most current version of Disk Defragmenter, which is licensed from Executive Software and included in Windows 2000 and Windows XP, is a utility that is designed to defragment your hard disk by gathering up all of the pieces that make up a file and placing them in contiguous clusters at the beginning of the disk. In the process, Disk Defragmenter moves all of the available clusters towards the end of the disk. Once the disk is defragmented and all of the files are in contiguous clusters, performance will increase as the read/write heads have less distance to travel to access any one file.
The problem
Even though Disk Defragmenter is fully capable of enhancing performance, you have to manually run it--and you have to remember to run it on a regular basis. Of course, the obvious solution would be to schedule Disk Defragmenter to run automatically.
Unfortunately, Disk Defragmenter isn't designed for automation. In fact, it's actually a dumbed-down version of Executive Software's Diskeeper, and the scheduling features weren't included on purpose in order to get you to purchase the full-blown Diskeeper package, which of course includes a SmartScheduling technology that automatically sets a defragmentation schedule based on how much you use your hard disk.
In Windows Vista, Microsoft finally added scheduling capability to Disk Defragmenter. In fact, right out of the box, Disk Defragmenter is scheduled to defragment your hard disk once a day.

If you need more information on how to keep you hard drive "defragmented", send me an email.

Hope this helps.

Answer 9

It is a process of re-ordering the data on your hard drive in order for logical files to be placed together and system information to be placed in like areas. This will mean that the files become less "fragmented", i.e. all over your hard drive.

Answer 10

This process clears up all the fragmented files on your hard-drive and frees up space in the memory - you should have the faciltiy on your computer and it will speed up your computer if done on a regular bases.