can you Defrag an external hard drive?
Should you?
2007-11-03 10:53:11 · 3 answers · asked by Philip Augustus 3 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
You can, if you want to, but it's not recommended because it's going to be S-L-O-W since it runs off a USB interface. It's better to connect it as an internal IDE/SATA drive and defrag using Diskeeper or something, then put it back in the external enclosure. Follow the correct procedure for connecting internal drives to the PC (power off, connect IDE and power cables, then power on etc) otherwise you'll fry the drive. Check your PC/motherboard manual.
Ofcourse this may be possible only if you are using a custom enclosure, and not a retail external drive (eg Seagate Freeagent) which may be sealed and your warranty may be voided if you open up the enclosure.
As for defragging a FLASH drive, it's utterly useless since flash drives have no moving parts and work on a totally different principle compared to mechanical hard drives.
2007-11-04 01:45:12 · answer #1 · answered by Turbocharger 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Of course. You should defrag any disk that you modify/create quite a bit. Heck, I even defrag my USB flash
2007-11-03 11:01:22 · answer #2 · answered by tech_guy_towt 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes and Yes if you delete and create/download lots of files.
2007-11-03 10:57:28 · answer #3 · answered by Cupcake 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋