what is defragment?

Answer 1

Defragmenting is way to improve the performance of your hard drive by reducing fragmentation of the filesystem. It does this by physically reorganizing the contents of the disk in order to store the pieces of each file close together and in order (contiguously). It also attempts to create larger regions of free space using compaction to impede the return of fragmentation.

Answer 2

Defragmenting your hard disk is a great way to boost the performance of your computer. Though the term "defragment" sounds a little abrasive, it is actually a simple and helpful process. After all, a defragmented hard disk is a happy hard disk.

Adding and deleting files from your hard disk is a common task. Unfortunately, this process is not always done very efficiently. For example, when you delete a bunch of little files and add a new large file, the file may get broken up into mulitple sections on the hard disk. The computer will still read the newly added file as a single valid file, but the drive will have to scan multiple parts of the disk to read it. Because hard disk seek time is one of the most significant bottlenecks in a computer's performance, this can drag down your computer's speed quite a bit. If you have a ton of "fragmented" files on your hard disk, you might hear extra grinding, sputtering, and other weird noises coming from your computer.

You computer does not like having fragmented files any more than you do. This is why defragmenting your hard disk is such a good idea. When you start to hear extra grinding sounds, or your computer doesn't open files as quickly as it did before, it's time to defragment. With Windows, you can use the pre-installed Intel defragment program to defragment your hard disk. You can also use a commercial software program like Norton Utilities to defragment your hard disk more efficiently and with more options. For Mac users, a disk utility such as DiskWarrior or Tech Tool Pro is the only way to do it. If you use your computer daily, defragmenting your hard drive once a month should keep the fragment-fiends away.

Answer 3

defragment is when your files on your computer are sort of out of order. You can use windows defragement program to make the files you use often open up better and faster. There are always files on everyone computers who get messed up it is like missing a tiny little piece of the file. It can be fixed so please do not worry. Just open up on the start menu then programs to find defrag your hard drive, and then select that to have your computer be fixed. It might take a half an hour to defrag your computer as it does for everyone else who does this at least once every two weeks to have more room on your hard drive and have the files you all a lot in the front instead of the back which makes it slower to open when you need files you have not used in awhile.

Answer 4

Ideally the files on your computer's hard disk should be single contiguous files. But MSWindows and some other operating systems break up files into individual chunks that are physically separated, and link them together internally. Over time this technique creates a crazy quilt of file fragments and retrieving any given file slows down. Suppose you had a row of filing cabinets and you needed to find a letter to Mr. Jones. The first page was in the top drawer of the first cabinet, the second page was in the middle drawer of the last cabinet, and the third page was in th ebottom drawer of the middle cabinet. You would spend more time and effort than if the three pages were all together in one drawer.

MSWindows users must periodically defragment or
"defrag" the hard disk with a utility program to get all the fragments of a file back together in contiguous space.

Other operating systems (e.g., Linux or OS X) have more sophisticated file storage schemes and this problem is handled automatically on the fly.

Answer 5

A Process that Re-orders your Hard drive sectors so that it is more ordered.
One definition of Defragment : http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/definition.php?defragment
One good way to see what defrag does, is go to defrag under system utilities, and do an anlysis, look in the report, and see the picture of the Fragmentation. If your Report is right is good, it will show
"Entire Disk Fragmentation (percentage Given)
File Fragmentation ( Percentage Given)
Free Space Fragmentation ( Percentage Given)"
Your Main indicator is File Fragmentation is the key Indicator, since 1-2 % is a minor issue, and 10-15% shows a significant problem.
Anything above that is not good.
I would recommend defragment run every 1-2 weeks. And if you are an Office power User, do it every week

Answer 6

When you download software or uninstall software and other stuff..bits and pieces of that program are scattered here and there all over your hard drive in places you'd never guess...

After awhile, these residual files that have no home, accumulate, causing your computer to slow down, poorer performance etc.

So when someone says for you to defragment, what it means is for you to utilize the windows tool disk defragmenter which can be found in "Start", "All Programs", "System Tools", "Disk Defragmenter" and basically cleans out all that riff raff and put files back into a more neater package...

(getting rid of those fragments) defrag

Consider defragmenting on a reg basis as preventive maintenance for your computer..I do mine once a month but can be done weekly, monthly etc depending on how heavy a computer user you are.

Answer 7

The files inside the computer are stored in randomly selected memory locations, by default. When retrieving data from such locations , especially on PCs with large capacity in GBs, the time of retrieval will be less if the computer is 'defragmented' or to say , the data stored in random locations are all built 'close' to each other. This is called "Defragmenting". Hope this throws some light on the subject !

Answer 8

When a file is used in a program, its not always put on the same part of the hard drive. It may have parts of it stored in many different places. As the PC gets used, files tend to get spread all over the drive. Defragging just gathers thse files back up which makes it easier and less time consuming to get to them.

Answer 9

If there isn't enough continuous space on your hard disk to save a file, it gets split up and a bit gets put in one space and another fragment gets put in another space. The file is now fragemented. Defragmenting a drive moves the bits of files about to keep entire files together. This can speed up accessing those files as the physical bit of the disk that does the reading doesn't have to move so far.

Answer 10

When you (Copy / Install / Download) a file into your Hard drive, it will be stored as chunks called "Clusters", and depending on the size of that file, the bigger the size the large amount of clusters it will take.

This file clusters are stored on the empty spaces of Hard drive, so it may be distributed accordingly, this will lower the machine performance if they were very distributed or "Fregmented"
here we need the "Defragment" software to collect the clusters together and make them contegious and easy to read.