#Defrag Hard Drive Update To An
#Defrag Hard Drive Install And Register

Disks become fragmented over a period of time after continuous usage. We will cover, in brief, preparing your PC by removing unwanted files.This causes your computer to slow down. This article contains a full layout of how to dramatically improve the health and performance of your PC by using the PC TuneUp Maestro Defrag Disk utility. When files are stored in consecutive.One of the most effective ways of speeding up your PC is to defrag your hard drive. Much, much worse.Defragmenting is the process of scanning your hard drive and joining the different file fragments stored on the disk.

Solid state disksThe вЂњmagicвЂќ behind flash drives and SSDs (Solid State Drives) is that theyвЂ™re built using electronic circuitry with no moving parts. Much like the laser in a CDВ player (or the needle on a record player), the disk spins underneath whileВ the head moves in and out to locate the proper вЂњtrackвЂќ that contains the nextВ chunk of the file being accessed.While it moves very fast, moving that read/write head still takes time.В If you can ensure that all the chunks of a file are next to each other rather than spread out all over, the head doesnвЂ™t need to move as much, and reading the file isВ faster.ThatвЂ™s defragmenting, or вЂњdefraggingвЂќ, in a nutshell:В rearranging theВ chunks so when the timeВ comes to access a particular file, theyвЂ™re all together, and theВ read/write head doesnвЂ™t need to move as much. That means a file could have its contents spread out randomly over a hard diskвЂ™s physical surface.You normally never see this, because the file system вЂ“ that вЂњNTFSвЂќ or вЂњFAT32вЂќ thing you may see referenced from time to time вЂ“ takes care of locating all those chunks when you read or write aВ file.ThereвЂ™s a physical read/write head that movesВ around on the media when data is being accessed. Files are stored in piecesВ вЂ“ frequently in 512 byte вЂњchunksвЂќ which may or may not actuallyВ be physically next to or even near eachВ other. Defragging 101Traditional hard disks are rotating disks of magnetic material with a read/write head that has to move around to find the data.

1 They both use whatвЂ™s referred to as вЂњflash memoryвЂќ to act in place of traditional hard disksвЂ™ magnetic surface.The difference is that SSDs are larger, faster, and longer lasting вЂ“ which, as weвЂ™ll see in a moment, turns out to be important in a surprising way. Flash versus SSDBoth USB flash drives and SSDs are solid state drives.USB flash drives, (also called thumb drives, USB sticks, or any number of other things), are, in essence, SSDвЂ™s slower, cheaper cousin. Everything that makes itВ look and act like a hard drive is actually done by mimicking the characteristics of a hard drive in the solid stateВ driveвЂ™s circuitry.The difference in performance can be dramatic.Many machines now come with SSDs as their primary disks, and one of the cheapest approaches to speeding up an older machine is to replace its older mechanical hard disk with an SSD.

TheyвЂ™re at a point now where under normal usage,В they can outlastВ the machines into which they are placed.But still вЂ¦ solid state drivesВ wear out. And theВ technology continues to improve almost daily.В As I mentioned above, SSDs tend to be higher quality than inexpensive USB thumbdrives. Reading doesВ not.Thus, the more you write to a solid state drive, the shorter its lifespan will be.Now, donвЂ™t get me wrong, вЂњnormalвЂќ usage should be just fine. It doesnвЂ™t matter how the files are laidВ out itвЂ™s all just as fast.Writing to the flash memory used in SSDs and thumb drivesВ causes it to degrade ever so slightly. Since thereвЂ™sВ no head to move, thereвЂ™s no additional time cost in fetching one chunk of dataВ from a flash drive over any other. Defragging solid state drivesDefragging a solid stateВ drive willВ typically gainВ no performance benefits 2.

ThereвЂ™s little to gain and much to lose. Whatever the expectedВ lifespan of the device, you could easily be cutting it in half, or worse.So defrag your hard drives every so often, but never defrag your flashВ drives. That means reading it from one location and writing to another.If youвЂ™re regularly defragging a flash drive, youвЂ™re adding thousands upon thousands of write operations each time you do so.

Forcing the issueItвЂ™s funny. At least not without a proper backup of its contentsВ вЂ¦ which you should doВ anyway. Even better, once a week Windows will automatically defrag the disks that need defragging, and not defrag the drives for which itвЂ™s not appropriate.Except вЂ¦ donвЂ™t defrag that USB stick. (Or rather, they wonвЂ™t do the wrong thing.)Windows will note that you have a solid state drive and actually not allow you to defragment it.

No, it didnвЂ™t immediately fail or burst into flames.But thatвЂ™s kinda the point. PiriformвЂ™s Defraggler is the tool I use when I want something a little more extensive than WindowsвЂ™ own defragging tool.And yes, I took a sacrificial thumb drive and defragmented it. Windows wonвЂ™t let you, but most third-party defragmenting tools assume you know what youвЂ™re doing when you ask to defrag a drive вЂ“ any drive.

Defrag Hard Drive Update To An

File fragmentation increases the work that this mechanical device has to do, thereby worsening an existing performance bottleneck. Use a good backup strategy instead.In: Hard Drives (HDD) This is a major update to an article originally posted February 19, 2008The magnetic hardrive is a -mechanical- device that is, by orders of magnitude, the slowest* component in a modern PC of which all other components are solid state (CPU, RAM, GFX etc). In my opinion, thatвЂ™s not even close to a good enough reason to shorten your flash driveвЂ™s lifespan. Emphasis on slight.3: OK, a reader did comment on a prior article with a potential benefit: defragmented files may be easier for file-recovery utilities to recover. I'll look at when those are, and are not, appropriate.Can I Delete Setup Files IвЂ™ve Downloaded? - You can safely delete setup files after you've set up the corresponding software, but only if you do something important first.2: Naturally, this comes with a вЂњnever say neverвЂќ caveat: there are cases in which, for a variety of technical reasons, a defragged solid state drive has been shown to have a slight performance increase. It will fail sooner, and without warning.Which, naturally, brings me back to backing up.How Do I Remove Myself from a Machine? - Although there's no way to remove all traces of yourself from a machine, there certainly are ways to remove as much as you can.What Security Software Do You Recommend? Basic Protection in Four Steps - My recommendations for specific security software and techniques to keep your computer, and yourself, safe.When Is It Safe to Say вЂњYesвЂќ to User Account Control (UAC) Notifications? - User Account Control, or UAC, pops up when programs need special permission to do something.

So, there is no use defragging your thumb drive or ipod nano.IMO, even with the rising popularity of SSDs, there is still a long way to go before they can seriously threaten the trusty magnetic-mechanical workhorse in our homes. Infact, in the corporate space, unattended intelligent automatic defrag of workstations and servers is becoming the norm since it eases the workload of the IT people yet reduces user complaints of poor performance.However, as Leo has so precisely explained, flash drives derive none of the benefits of defragmentation that are applicable to mechanical HDDs. In addition to preserving overall system performance, defragmentation may also improve the life of the drive in the long term, improve chances of file recovery (if the HDD crashes) and a defragmented drive may also reduce battery consumption in laptops.

Defrag Hard Drive Install And Register

The life-span of flash drives are NOT reduced by writing to the drive. As Leo has said many times, better to use something rather than nothing at all.Defragging flash media DOES reduce its life-span, however, your reasons are slightly off. Understand that AV products seem to change rankings with each other depending on latest updates, test authorities, etc. The tests were run on Windows Vista PCs and included a list of viruses known to be circulating in the wilds of the Internet as of January 2008: worms, bots, polymorphic viruses, file infector viruses, and even legacy virus strains.Five products notched perfect 100% detection rates (prices include one year of virus-signature updates): Avira Antivir Personal (free for noncommercial use), ESET NOD32 ($40), Fortinet FortiClient ($28), Frisk FPROT Antivirus ($29 for up to five PCs), and Symantec Norton Antivirus ($40).You can install and register free copies of Avira on each of your 4 computers from. The results were obtained from Virus BulletinвЂ™s April 2008 edition and tested 37 antivirus solutions. ReplyIn the edition of Windows Secrets several anti-virus programs were evaluated.

Flash memory gets its name from the technique used to erase its data. This process does not вЂњwear outвЂќ the media.