The Importance of Defragging Your Hard Drive

In nearly every general article about computer upkeep, the term defragging comes up. It's an essential part of maintenance, but what is it? Unlike some other computer tasks, a disc defrag isn't self-explanatory.

What is Defragging?

Defragging a hard drive is a way to make it work a little more efficiently. To know why this works, you need to know a little about how hard drives work.

A hard drive is essentially a set of metal platters encased in a machine that spins them like a CD or DVD. A small magnetic needle, similar to an old-time record player, both reads and writes data on those metal platters. The data is stored magnetically, which means that when there is no electricity flowing to the drive, it retains the data

Data is stored in small magnetic bits. In a brand new hard drive, the read/write heads -- the magnetic needle -- will write the data in a sensible order. When you attempt to read a file on your computer, the hard drive knows where to find the relevant magnetic bits and reads them. The hard drive automatically writes data in areas that are quck and efficient to access.

Over time, as your hard drive fills up, the disc has a harder time finding efficient locations for each piece of data. It will have to break up larger files to fit into smaller gaps in the drive. Deleting files will free up some segments, but the chances of those segments forming a continuous open space for a new file are slim.

At the same time, individual fragments can become corrupted. These bad sectors refuse to hold data properly, forcing the hard drive to work around them. In many cases, these sectors can be repaired, but it is not done automatically.

What Does Defragmenting Do?

The process of defragmenting is a computer service that analyzes how the data on your drive is sorted. It then attempts to move pieces of files into a more sensible order. It will attempt to group data in locations that makes it easier to read entire files at once.

The defrag process takes some time. In fact, the larger the hard drive and the higher the amount of data on it, the longer it will take. For a small laptop hard drive, it may only take half an hour. As part of regular server maintenance, it may take quite a bit longer.

Most defragmenting utilities will also discover and repair bad sectors on the hard drive during this process. This will also make your computer run faster, as the drive no longer encounters corrupted data. Some sectors may not be repairable -- in these cases, the drive simply flags them as sectors to avoid. This process is a routine part of computer service, and it's a basic step to take to increase the speed of any computer.

How to Defrag a Hard Drive

Defragging is a very simple process, but it can take a significant amount of time, especially as part of routine server maintenance. Every computer with a Microsoft Windows installation has a built-in defragmentation utility, usually found in the Start menu under system tools and accessories. This is a very basic utility, but it does exactly what it is supposed to do.

There are also over a dozen available utilities with more or less functionality. Some of them are designed to make the defrag process as fast as possible, while others offer a much wider range of options, including other forms of disc cleanup and optimization. Some of these are free, while others cost a small fee.
 
Dominick Rivoli is the owner at A1 Rivoli, top office equipment and computer service and repair specialists for the Long Island, NY Nassau, and Western Suffolk areas. Visit the website at www.a1rivoli.com.