How to Defragment Your Computer Using XP (And Why You Should)

Magnetic disks store data using a read/write head which spin around rapidly just above the surface of your hard disk drive's platter. It reads and writes data using very small magnetic filings to signify a binary value of 1 or 0 based on the polarity of the drive.

When properly cared for, magnetic-based hard drives can last for several years...sometimes over a decade. The average time I've had a hard drive for and used one without problems is about 5 years, but depending on what you use a drive for and how you use it, the life of the drive can go much longer.

There are two major problems with magnetic drive technology, though. One thing is its sensitivity to devices that have magnetic forces of their own (like audio speakers which are not magnetically shielded...they can severely affect or even destroy a hard drive if too close in proximity to it).

Any devices or raw magnets that are too close to a magnetic storage technology (whether it is a hard drive, a cassette tape, or any other magnetic storage medium) can affect it or destroy it, too.

You always have to be careful about where you place magnetic hard drives, how you place them, and where you place them.

The other thing about magnetic storage technology is the WAY that data is stored. Because data has to be written and read at high speeds, it is not written sequentially. Wherever the head is at, the data is written.

Normally with small files and when data is close enough together, this is not a problem because the access times are still relatively fast. But when the head has to travel over half or more of the hard drive platter to read or write to a file, the access times start to become noticeably longer than before. The more fragmented files become, the more your computer hard drive may start to sound like an old coffee or espresso machine! The more it has to access distant file segments on a drive, the more noticeable the sound of the read/write heads will be. When there are many parts of a file that are spread out on a disk, that file is considered to be heavily fragmented (it is split into many different parts at several different places). The more fragmented a file is, the more time it will take to read or write to it. The speed of the computer slows down for file access with each file that becomes more fragmented. After a while (without defragmenting your computer) you'll notice that you'll be spending a considerable amount of time waiting for your computer to access files rather than perform calculations or do other actions.

Due to the fact that many of the things Windows programs do are generally file-based (or require actions where a temp file or a paging-file is used), you can be sure that the more files get fragmented, the more a system will gradually slow down.

The way to prevent this from happening to the computer is to use the defragmentation utility for your operating system. The defragmentation program will realign fragmented files by recreating the fragmented file in a free space on your drive, reading the data out of that file as normal, but writing it sequentially so that the disk can see all the data for that file all-in-a-row as much as possible.

To defragment your computer on Windows 95, 98, ME, XP, 2000, and 2003 server...press your Start Button, go to Programs, then go to Accessories, then to System Tools, and then click on Disk Defragmenter.

(On Windows Vista and Windows 7 the process is similar and in a similar location, but may be named differently on the Programs menu under accessories)

When you click on that icon the program loads. It will show you which drives Windows sees attached to your computer, the file system, capacity of the drive, and the amount of free space left on it. Most times, you won't need to worry about this on standard systems, because traditionally your computer's main hard drive will be drive C. You can just left-click over Drive C once to highlight it, and then at the bottom of the program click on the button that says "Defragment" to begin defragmentation of your computer's primary hard drive.

If you have more than one hard drive attached to your computer and are aware that it is a magnetic drive (not a flash or usb drive), then once the defragmentation of your primary drive C is done, you may defragment any other drives on your system that you are sure of. If you want to know whether or not a drive needs defragmentation, you can have this program analyze the drive to determine its level of fragmentation, and have the computer decide whether time should be spent defragmenting it or not.

There is a color key at the bottom of the program which will show you on the defragmentation map whether files are Contiguous files that do not need defragmentation because they are already ordered (blue), whether they are immoveable (green), whether they are free space (white), or if they are fragmented and need to be corrected (red).

If you running a defragmentation process on a drive, you will see the colors change on the map from red to blue as files are defragmented. If files are being compacted for faster access, you will see any free white spaces become blue as files are moved there for faster access. When defragmentation is complete, the program will notify you and ask you if you want to see a report of fragmentation, statistics, and other data. You don't have to view the report unless you really want to. You can just click OK and return to the program.

You can now defragment another drive if you wish, or exit the program. Congratulations! You have successfully defragmented your hard drive.

It is important to seldom (or in most cases never) defragment USB disk drives or computers which use SSD (solid state disk drives), because they are both flash technology which use a type of fuse to store data rather than magnetic method(s).

The access of flash and SSD drives are fast enough that they don't usually require defragmentation on them to show any significant performance gains. Even in severe cases where defragmentation would show improved performance on a flash drive, the process of creating that many new files and moving data around on a usb flash drive or SSD flash disk burns out the drive and reduces the size of it quickly (because usable areas are being used up over the entire drive immediately and consistently).

People have asked me how often they should defragment their computer's primary hard drive. My answer is always: "It varies." Based on what you use your computer for, how often you use it, whether you read and write a lot of files or just casually browse the net...you may need to defragment your computer once every 2 weeks, once a month, or once every 3 to 6 months. If you use a computer as a programmer or developer, you'll be wanting to defragment your computer at least once every two weeks.

If you download programs, music, and browse the web frequently, then I would recommend maybe once or twice a month. If you only browse the web, I would suggest maybe once between 1 to 3 months. If you rarely use that computer you're asking about, then I would say that once every 4 to 6 months is fine.