You might have noticed that it takes your computer longer to launch programs or load your files? One of the reasons for this is because of something called fragmentation.
The user of the computer would never notice, but your hard disk is actually logically divided into small chunks called sectors. During the life span of your hard disk, you will have added files, removed them and made changes. When you are installing a new program, the computer will need to determine where it should be located. It will look for a group of sectors that are free and will start installing the program (or saving the data file) in the first sector. As that sector is filled up, the computer will then look for the next available sector. Once it has determined the best second sector to use, it sets a pointer at the end of the first sector which indicates the physical location on the hard disk where the second sector is located. Large programs can take up many sectors with the first pointing to the second which points to the third, and so on.
When you have a new computer, the computer is able to find large numbers of sectors in the same physical region and as a result, the program will be installed in sectors that have a close proximity. The problem arises as your hard disk fills up. If it needs to find a second sector and there’s not one near the first then it will look for the next available sector which might be on the exact opposite end of the hard disk. Thus, in this scenario, you could have one program file where the sectors are scattered throughout the hard disk. Although the computer keeps track of this seamlessly, the reality is that the sensor that reads the hard disk needs time to move back and forth and the hard disk spins like a record player (cd player?) to bring the right physical location to the read/write head. When the file is split up like this, this is known as fragmentation.
To combat performance slowdown caused by fragmentation, Microsoft Windows includes a utility which can be located by clicking on the start button and then selecting Accessories followed by System Tools and then System Defragmenter. You can think of this utility as a “spring cleaning” tool for your hard disk. Once you run it, the utility will go through and temporarily move sectors to empty areas and then organize the sectors that belong together sequentially. When you first run the System Defragmenter, it will do an analysis of your hard disk to determine how much your hard disk is defragmented.
The user of the computer would never notice, but your hard disk is actually logically divided into small chunks called sectors. During the life span of your hard disk, you will have added files, removed them and made changes. When you are installing a new program, the computer will need to determine where it should be located. It will look for a group of sectors that are free and will start installing the program (or saving the data file) in the first sector. As that sector is filled up, the computer will then look for the next available sector. Once it has determined the best second sector to use, it sets a pointer at the end of the first sector which indicates the physical location on the hard disk where the second sector is located. Large programs can take up many sectors with the first pointing to the second which points to the third, and so on.
When you have a new computer, the computer is able to find large numbers of sectors in the same physical region and as a result, the program will be installed in sectors that have a close proximity. The problem arises as your hard disk fills up. If it needs to find a second sector and there’s not one near the first then it will look for the next available sector which might be on the exact opposite end of the hard disk. Thus, in this scenario, you could have one program file where the sectors are scattered throughout the hard disk. Although the computer keeps track of this seamlessly, the reality is that the sensor that reads the hard disk needs time to move back and forth and the hard disk spins like a record player (cd player?) to bring the right physical location to the read/write head. When the file is split up like this, this is known as fragmentation.
To combat performance slowdown caused by fragmentation, Microsoft Windows includes a utility which can be located by clicking on the start button and then selecting Accessories followed by System Tools and then System Defragmenter. You can think of this utility as a “spring cleaning” tool for your hard disk. Once you run it, the utility will go through and temporarily move sectors to empty areas and then organize the sectors that belong together sequentially. When you first run the System Defragmenter, it will do an analysis of your hard disk to determine how much your hard disk is defragmented.
This process is safe to run, and there should never be any data loss, but of course, we all backup our hard disks on a regular basis in case of emergency. Right? :)
The defragmenter can also be setup to automatically defragment on a schedule that you define. How often you should defragment depends very much on how often you install or change files, how quick your hard disk and how big it is, but probably a monthly defragmentation would be sufficient. If you run the utility and see that it appears to be fragmented past 25%, then you can always just run it manually or adjust your schedule so that it’s defragmented weekly.
