No Need to Defrag Unless....

For many years without exception at every computer meeting and seminar one of the most often asked question concerned defragging.

In fact, I still receive at least one “should I and if I should, how often should I defrag my hard drive” question every week.

My response is - you no longer have to be concerned about defragging your hard drive unless.....

But before I get to the “unless” a word about defragging in general.

Back in the days when hard drives were small and RAM was scarce, to speed up a computer’s ability to expeditiously read\write, defragging was recommended. Today with huge hard drives and plentiful RAM, defragging will no longer significantly contribute to your computer’s read\write speed.

In fact for Window 7 users defrag need no longer be a part of your housekeeping as by default your hard drive will be defragged at 1:00 AM every Wednesday and if you should be an early to bed person, defragged in the background the next time it’s idle.

Note: Because of the significant demand Windows 7's Aero feature places on your system, Windows uses defragging to maintain your system’s performance.

Now for the “Unless”.

A common misconception is that the data is actually removed from the hard drive (erased) when you delete a file. In fact the file it is not erased. It’s the tiny bit of information that points to the location of the file on the hard drive that’s erased.

Note: A files pointer along with pointers for every other folder and file on the hard drive is saved in a section near the beginning of the hard drive. They’re used by the operating system to compile the directory tree structure. By erasing the pointer file the actual file becomes invisible to the operating system.

Although a deleted file cannot be seen by your computer, it’ll remain on your hard drive until new data is written over the area where the deleted file is located.

As defragging physically organizing the contents of your disk to store the pieces of each file close together and contiguously, there’s a pretty good chance the blocks (marked as empty) used by your deleted files will be overwritten.

Not an absolute quarante you’ll overwrite them all, but in lieu of purchasing a 3rd party program should do the trick.

So unless you have a need to purge your deleted files, defragging can be struck permanently from your “quick question” list.

Here’s wishing you a Good boot.