How do I Defragment my Storage Drives?.

saltyseadog said:

My OS is Windows 10 Home version 2004. I use a 125GB SSD only for the system and program installation files. Everything else I store and backup on my 500GB and 1TB HDD's. I have never defragmented my SSD as was advised it is not a good idea but after 7yrs I think it might be a good idea to defragment my two HDD disc drives but am unsure how to point the defragmenter at them without doing the SSD. I did a search but found nothing specific to my question, could someone more knowledgeable point me to a tutorial or such?.

The 'Optimiser' [illustrated by ignatzatsonic above] knows how to treat SSDs and how to treat HDDs. You can just tell it to include all your drives and it will treat each one in the way it needs.

Actually, it will & trim defragment SSDs monthly. This is deliberate and MS regards it as the best course of action. If you are interested enough, you can read about it but there really is no need to do so. Just set Optimiser up to cover all your drives then forget all about it. So you can stop reading this post now.

If you have set an SSD to be 'optimised' weekly by the Defragmenter, then it actually trims & defrags monthly.

This info is in defrag - Microsoft Docs under the sub-heading 'Scheduled task'
- SSD defrag is also discussed in The real and complete story - Does Windows defragment your SSD - Scott Hanselman
-The situation is further complicated by the fact that, since Windows Vista & 7, Windows defragmentation has not bothered moving around blocks of 64MB or greater. So your files can remain fragmented to that extent. MS experimented and decided that its old practice of fully defragmenting files gained no benefit once lumps of 64MB were consolidated. Disk Defragmentation – Background and Engineering the Windows 7 Improvements - Microsoft Docs
- You might also enjoy reading Trim and SSD Performance - Why is it Important - Crucial
- If you ever need to check that Trim is enabled, use Enable or Disable TRIM Support for Solid State Drives - TenForumsTutorials

The defrag & trim records are kept in Event viewer, Application log, Sources - Defrag, Defrag-Core and, as lxo7 post in TenForums illustrates, they can be accessed through PowerShell as well.

- I have never managed to catch a record of anything other than trimming taking place but others have seen SSD defrag happening [shown in that lxo7 post]

Denis