Defragmenting your hard drive or doing a “defrag” can be a headache, especially if you don’t understand the benefits of doing so. While it is a hassle to find time when you aren’t doing anything else (and your computer is on, and you have enough available disk space, and…), defragmenting your hard drive is incredibly important. So why should you defrag?
A zippy machine is a happy machine and a happy machine means a happy end user. We all love when our machines work quickly, but the trick to making that happen is making sure that your machine is running efficiently. Now, when your computer saves things into your hard drive, it does so in blocks. These blocks are ordered sequentially within the hard drive, but sometimes the blocks get confused and get a little misplaced. This is called “fragmentation” and it causes your machine to take longer to recall the blocks. Now, when you “defrag” your machine, you are defragmenting those blocks so that they can be recalled faster. This won’t slow you down quite as much as it used to, but keeping track of your machine’s efficiency can make a big difference in performance. Read More