I hear that defragmenting shortens the life span of a hard drive. Is this true?
Also, how often should I defrag? Windows has schedules for weekly and monthly optimizations, which is better? Or should I just manually perform it whenever defragmentation reaches a certain threshold?
I would just let the scheduled task do its job. You can run the analysis once in a while to check it's functioning OK. If it says zero, no further action is required.
I just let Windows decide when to do it. I have never changed this setting.
I think by default Windows Optimizes the disks every Wednesday at 3 AM.
Also monthly is probably to long to wait. A lot of files will get fragmented even on a SSD.
Deciding how often to defrag your hard drive depends on how you use your computer. If you load, save and add to files on a regular basis, your system might require more frequent defragging than someone who only turns on their computer every few days.
Most people should defrag their hard drives about once a month, but your computer might need it more frequently.
Why do people persist in this sort of outdated advice. Windows 10 automatically defrags in background weekly by default. There is no point in altering this setting. In fact, doing it this way keeps drive in good shape.
Also better advice is to keep data on a separate drive or partition as then the main OS drive is not altered that much and hence will not get fragmented significantly anyway.
In simple terms, just let Windows 10 do its job.
Hi there
Ever since Windows 3.1 I have NEVER bothered defragging any HDD - IMO there's never any point in it. With SSD's there's no mechanical parts so don't even THINK of defragging one of those. On Windows the job can take a long time on a large HDD and I doubt if anybody would notice any improvement at all.
If you really MUST re-order your HDD a far quicker and better way is simply to take an image via Macrium (the Free version is good enough) and restore it again - probably a zillion times faster and will optimise empty space on the HDD.
Otherwise just leave it to Windows.
It's amazing how much old outdated stuff persists for years - for example modern SSD's probably have a far longer MTBF (mean time before failure for our Non Engineers friends) than standard HDD's but people are still concerned about read / write life cycles - modern SSD's will probably outlast your current computer (and your next one too if you swap the drives).
Over the years the biggest problem I've seen with slow computers is actually the POOR quality of older HDD's - these days decent HDD's are decently OK and most computers have enough RAM in them to work properly.
The absolute best advice I can give anybody on how to improve performance on a slow computer - especially older models is to replace HDD's with SSD's wherever possible. Assuming there's enough RAM in the machine to service the users workload an SSD wil pay HUGE dividends in performance - far better for most than updating the processor - and keep the OS _ programs separate from your Data drives. Unless you are an extreme gamer etc most users won't use anything like the full power of the CPU they've got now - even an Intel i3 Celeron is probably more than sufficient for typical users.
Cheers
jimbo
Maybe you should keep your suggestion to yourself you do sound like a person who does not understand fragmentation as you have suggested we should not defragment HDD even its fragmented badly.
Disk fragmentation occurs when files are broken into hundreds or even thousands of pieces and scattered across your hard drive. This occurs naturally whenever files get created, deleted, or extended and even when the operating system is first installed. Even if you have plenty of free space, Windows still fragments files and before you know it, your once fast system starts to slow down. Microsoft recognizes fragmentation as a problem and recommends defragmenting your drives regularly.
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