Computer defrag??

Question

Is it good or bad to defrag your computer? Ive heard it was bad and good, but wasnt sure. What does it do?

Answer 1

As you save files on your computer and then delete files they are fragmented all over your hard drive. defraging rearanges all the files back to where they should be. If your computer is fragmented it will run slow. Your programs will run slow. Defragmenting will help. It is good and should be done on a regular basis.

Answer 2

it is good to defrag your computer. What it does is take any partial files that are on the hard drive and remove them. The fragmented files act like little speed bumps and slow down your computer. By defraging, you are getting rid of the bumps.

Answer 3

Ok, basically your computer will look on your hard drive for one large chunk to fit a file, but, if you have a lot of files, or many large files, or you are constantly deleting files, space keeps on being added and subtracted in places. This makes small gaps where the file must be split up ( or "fragmented" ) due to their random locations, it takes more time for your harddrive to find/reassemble these pieces when you need them. so, to defrag your hard drive is to unite these pieces and make the seek time shorter which in turn makes things work faster

Answer 4

Defragment is good. it keep the splitted files together, that makes your computer access the files more faster. try defragment monthly once..

Answer 5

It's absolutely one of the best things you can do to keep your PC running efficiently. At the bottom of this I'm including an explanation of "fragmentation" and how it all happens.

Check out these tips I give folks to help them keep their PC running at it's best.

A major cause of slow PC's is fragmentation of the hard drive.
You need to defragment the HD at least once a week if not more depending on how much you use your computer, and what you do with it.

One way is to use the defragment utility built into Windows XP. It is slow but does the job rather well. Go to:
Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools and then click on System Defrag to run the tool. It may take several hours, so let it run overnight or simply walk away from your PC for a few hours.

A great program for defragging automatically is Diskeeper. It costs $30 but is well worth it. Go to http://www.download.com and search for Diskeeper. Read the Publishers Description and the Editor and User reviews. It can be scheduled to run automatically as the program deems necessary, and if you are using your PC and the program launches itself, it will take a backseat to whatever you are doing and give you the priority for CPU usage. I think you'll agree it's a good program to have. It precludes your needing to remember to defrag at regular intervals.

Another major cause of a slow PC is programs that are running in the background. Here's another really good Microsoft tool. It’s called Autoruns and it was written by SysInternals who were recently bought up by Microsoft.

Before you download the program create a folder under program files called Autoruns. Leave Windows Explore open.

Launch Internet Explored and go to the following Microsoft web page.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/autoruns.mspx

Go to the bottom of the page and download the Autoruns program. After it downloads open the file. It is a Zip file. Unzip the file and you will see 4 files. Drag and drop those 4 files to the Autoruns folder you created under Program Files.

Once you have the 4 files in the C:\Program Files\Autoruns folder you can double click on the file titled “autoruns”.

This will bring up a window with several tabs at the top. Click on the “Logon” tab. It will list the programs that are running on your PC and eating up resources. Look them over carefully and turn off any that don’t absolutely have to be running. Simply click on the “check mark” in the little box beside the program name. Clicking on it will remove the check mark. Once you have edited the Startup list, click on Apply and then on OK.
NOTE: Leave items that show Windows; System 32; Program Files; etc. alone. Shutting them off may cause some things not to work.

Once you have exited the window, reboot your PC for the settings to take effect.

WARNING: Don’t go into the other tabs and start deleting things. You will probably give yourself major headaches if you do that. Stay focused on the “Logon” List only.

Another good thing to have is a little program called FreeRAM XP Pro. It is free and is available from http://www.download.com This program puts a little RAM meter on the System Tray and shows how much RAM you have remaining that you are not using at any given time. I think you may be surprised at how little RAM you have to run other programs. Also, once it is installed you can right click on the little meter, then click on RESTORE and it will open the RAM display window. You can tweak the settings so it will display your CPU usage also. Then just click “Minimize” and then “To System Tray” to return to the Task Bar.

What happens when you run out of or run real low on RAM is that the OS recognizes the low or no RAM situation and starts using a section of your hard drive as memory. This is called virtual memory, or a swap file. The PC is constantly writing and reading from your HD. Comparitively, it is a very slow process. Check your motherboard manual and determine how much RAM each slot can hold. It will also tell you what type of RAM you need. You can also go to http://www.crucial.com or http://www.4allmemory.com and run their analysis utility to determine what kind and how much RAM is installed in your PC. Depend on your MoBo manual to determine the RAM limits of each slot though.

Fragmentation:
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.



Hope this helps