Defragmenting your hard drive is important
Hard drives are amazing devices. They allow us to store large volumes of data with near instant access. What happens when that near instant access starts to slow down? In a word, fragmentation.
Fragmentation is what happens to your data over time as the operating system stores it away in unallocated areas of the file system on your hard drive.
Small files are easier to allocate space for than large files. Your hard drive is broken up in to sectors which allocate chunks of your data. The more chunks there are (and larger files have many) the higher chance that your data can’t be stored in back to back sectors, but instead must be fragmented, because other data is already actively stored.
This fragmentation process is novel because it allows non-contiguous data storage in real-time (instead of having to defragment each time you store a large file). There are also downsides. Over time the more fragmentation of files that occurs the slower your file system will run. It becomes more likely that your hard drive will also have to work harder to perform nominal tasks, shortening its life and raising its temperature.
The best way to mitigate the effects of fragmentation is to defragment your hard drive regularly. Defragmenting allows your files to be stored contiguously which reduces access times and hard drive wear and tear.
Always back up your data regularly. If your hard drive is physically failing or overheating intense i/o operations like defragmenting could cause it to crash.
To defragment your disk, open up “My Computer”. Right click on your hard drive and click on “Properties”. Select the tools tab and select the defragment option from the menu. The process may take a few hours so make sure to select an appropriate time when you can take a break.
