defragging?

Question

ok ive had to defrag my computer three times today, how did it get so messed up this quick and how do i stop it from messing up and stay organized?

hey rick rej.....if i wanted to be bored to death id just read the goverment policies or a computer manual.

Answer 1

Fragmentation occurs when the operating system cannot or will not allocate enough contiguous space to store a complete file as a unit, but instead puts parts of it in gaps between other files (usually those gaps exist because they formerly held a file that the operating system has subsequently deleted or because the operating system allocated excess space for the file in the first place). As advances in technology bring larger disk drives, the performance loss due to fragmentation squares with each doubling of the size of the drive.[citation needed] Larger files and greater numbers of files also contribute to fragmentation and consequent performance loss. Defragmentation attempts to alleviate these problems.

A defragmentation program must move files around within the free space available in order to undo fragmentation. This is a memory intensive operation and cannot be performed on a file system with no free space. The reorganization involved in defragmentation does not change logical location of the files (defined as their location within the directory structure).

Another common strategy to optimize defragmentation and to reduce the impact of fragmentation is to partition the hard disk(s) in a way that separates partitions of the file system that experience many more reads than writes from the more volatile zones where files are created and deleted frequently. In Microsoft Windows, the contents of directories such as "\Program Files" or "\Windows" are modified far less frequently than they are read. The directories that contain the users' profiles are modified constantly (especially with the Temp directory and Internet Explorer cache creating thousands of files that are deleted in a few days). If files from user profiles are held on a dedicated partition (as is commonly done on UNIX systems), the defragmenter runs better since it does not need to deal with all the static files from other directories. For partitions with relatively little write activity, defragmentation performance greatly improves after the first defragmentation, since the defragmenter will need to defrag only a small number of new files in the future.

Myths
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Many Windows users believe that frequent defragmentation is necessary to maintain adequate system performance. Although it may produce substantial filesystem speed improvements in some cases, for the typical Windows user the overall performance improvement may be minor or unnoticeable. Unless the operating system is malfunctioning, it should not be necessary to defrag to keep the system from crashing; the filesystem is designed to work with fragmented files. In fact, in a modern multi-user operating system, an ordinary user cannot defragment the system disks since superuser access is required to move system files.

[edit] Utilities
A screenshot of Windows Disk Defragmenter in Windows Vista.
A screenshot of Windows Disk Defragmenter in Windows Vista.

Defragmentation programs often come bundled with an operating system (although Windows NT notably did not include one). Perhaps the best-known defragmentation utility is Windows Disk Defragmenter, which is currently based on an old version of Diskeeper.

Defragmentation utilities:

* Diskeeper
* Windows Disk Defragmenter
* PerfectDisk
* O&O Defrag
* mst Defrag
* UltimateDefrag
* PageDefrag: Runs at startup and attempts to defragment system files that cannot be defragmented while they are in use.
* Contig: A command-line based defragmentation utility.
* Auslogics: A free defragmentation program for NTFS.
* JkDefrag: A free (GPLed) disk defragment and optimize utility for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista.

[edit] Filesystems

* FAT DOS 6.x and Windows 9x-systems come with a defragmentation utility called Defrag. The DOS version is a limited version of Norton SpeedDisk.
* NTFS Windows 2000 and newer include an online defragmentation tool based on Diskeeper. NT 4 and below do not have built-in defragmentation utilities.
* ext2 uses an offline defragmenter called e2defrag, which does not work with its successor ext3, unless the ext3 filesystem is temporarily down-graded to ext2.
* JFS has a defragfs utility on IBM operating systems.
* HFS Plus in 1998 introduced a number of optimizations to the allocation algorithms in an attempt to defragment files while they're being accessed without a separate defragmenter.
* XFS provides an online defragmentation utility called xfs_fsr.

Answer 2

Your computer will get fragmented through Installing and uninstalling programs, adding and deleting files, folders and other data, etc. Sometimes if your hard drive has become extremely fragmented, you can have to defag 2 or three times to get it totally defragged. The only way you can keep it from getting fragmented is by never using it. Defrag once a week if you save and delete a lot of files on a regular basis, once a month if you do it only moderately. You should always run disk cleanup prior to a defrag also, to eliminate unwanted files that will contribute to fragmentation.

Answer 3

Defragging is not the the be-all and end-all of PC performance, but it is necessary, especially if you intend to use any version of Windows (I now use Macs and PCs). Try AShampoo's "Magical Defrag" which runs in the background to defrag. Also, check and delete your system restore settings, and empty your cache...

Answer 4

there is no way to do that. we all have to put up with it. you only need to defrag once a month for normal usage.

if it were possible to do what you want to do the drefrag program would not exist.

Answer 5

does defrag really help to optimize your hard drive? i haven't seen any improvement with mine.

Answer 6

Check this link