in plain english what does defraging do? and how often do i need to do it?

Answer 1

It depends on how much you save and delete on your HDD.
If you install a lot of software and delete other software, you would need to defrag more often than usual.
Windows XP will tell you if defragging is not necessary.

So if you have a lot of installing and deleting - check for defragging like once a month.
Defragging will make your software and operating system load faster, because all the connected information will be stored together.
If you dont defrag, the information pieces are scattered all over the drive and gathering the information to start the software will take more time.

Answer 2

When your computer writes files to the hard drive, it often can't fit the file all in one place (continguous sectors) on the drive because another file is already occupying part of the space. So the file that is being written gets spread out on the drive to multiple locations. The computer doesn't have any problem finding all the pieces (fragments) when it needs to, but the more dispersed the pieces of a file are, the longer it takes the head on the hard drive to zip around and read all the pieces.

Defragging is a process where the computer reorganizes the fragmented files and puts the pieces back on the hard drive in contiguous sectors.

You should probably run a diagnostic every few months to see if your OS recommends defragging. In Windows XP, you would do this by clicking Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter.

Answer 3

Defragging is a 10 dollar word for a 2 dollar concept. Files are written to you hard drive and when they are deleted they leave empty spaces. Some files your computer uses more frequently than others. When you defrag your rearrange where the blocks of data are on the disk. Your computer moves it around by writing in one place and deleting it in another. Your PC arranges the information in a collected logical and efficient manor.

Its kinda like packing a moving truck...you don't just toss everything in and hope it comes out right. You put the big stuff in first and pack the small things in the holes that you have left...and you put the important thing where you can get to them easily. That is exactly what defragging your hard drive does.

As for fequencey, If you are constantly on your PC downloading, adding and deleting files...I would say once every 3-4 weeks to keep thing tuned up. Otherwise for the casual PC user I'd defrag once every 8-10 weeks or so.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

Well... when your computer erases files, it leaves little empty spaces on your hard drive. Then when your computer writes new files, it tries to use those empty spaces, but often finds that the new files don't fit perfectly into the old spaces, so it tends to use multiple spaces for single files. Next, when you try to read those files, the mechanical arm on the hard drive has to work much harder to find the information. When it gets really bad, it sounds like your hard drive is beating itself to death as the read-arm bangs back and forth trying to find the pieces of your files. De-fragmenting the hard drive is a process that rearranges the files in an orderly manner so that files can be found an read faster, and the nasty noise of your hard drive beating itself to death goes away. I do it about once a month, or more often if I hear too much noise coming from the computer.

Answer 5

Defrag. Fragmentation is when files on your computer are broken up into smaller pieces. Picture a piece of paper that's cut into several pieces in different drawers. Defragmentation puts all those pieces together. It makes the computer faster and more reliable.

Defragmentation is mostly useful in cases where you routinely get close to the maximum capacity of a hard drive. Otherwise, in most modern computers, you probably don't need to do it regularly.

Optimization is different from defragmentation, optimization places files in folder in similar physical locations on the hard drive.