what's a fragmented file and is it useful to run a disk defragmenter?

Answer 1

Yes, its always good to keep your disk defragged.

Basically when the computer writes data to your hard disk, it uses whatever available blocks it can find.

So, if you have a 3 block file to write, and if blocks 10, 50, and 350 are the first available blocks, it will be written to those 3 blocks.

Meaning when you read the file, your disk head has to jump around to those blocks to read the data.

Defragging, moves blocks that belong together, closer together. So the file in this example might end up in blocks 3,4 and 5

So when your reading it in, it not only reads in faster, but its less stress on your read heads.

This is obviously an over-simplified example, but gives you the basic jist of the process.

Answer 2

Whenever you delete a file in WIndows, the space that it occupied is more as "free space", and made available for the next file saved. If you deleted a small file, and then save a large one, there will not be enough space for the whole file, so Windows will "fragment" or divide the file and save the rest of the file in another space. As you edit and resave files (changing thei sizes), delete files, add files, etc., over time your files will become more and more fragmented, or spread out all over the place. The more a file is fragment, the longer it takes to open, save or use that file.

When defrag a computer, it takes all the files and shuffles the parts around until it can get all the parts of each file back together again. It also rearranges them so that the files are in the best location on the hard drive. When looking for a file, Windows always starts at the center of the disk and looks out. A defrag moves the files used most often to the center of the disk, and the ones used least to the outer part of the disk. This helps it run faster.

Answer 3

Defragmentation hurries up examining from and writing on your no longer straight forward stress. it extremely is in certainty in simple terms cleansing up the mess that accumulates as archives gets places unevenly around the stress. it bunches it up right into a neat pile to be examine extra straight away. as quickly as a month extremely would desire to be sufficient, yet once you do no longer use your pc too heavily, even that would desire to be extra beneficial than you desire. Doing it too rarely will do no extra beneficial than sluggish you down somewhat. test disk seems for certainly harm on your no longer straight forward stress or the information on it, often brought about by utilising skill outages, no longer shutting down precise, or in simple terms actual harm.