What should i defrag

This lesson will focus on Windows. If you have a Mac, you won't need to defrag your hard drive. Imagine that all of the information on your hard drive is a load of laundry. There are lots of different types of clothing and colors, and they all get mixed together in the wash.

All of your clothes are still there, but they're jumbled together and take up a lot of space. This is similar to what happens over time to the data on your hard drive.

Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Removable storage devices such as USB flash drives can also become fragmented.

Disk Defragmenter in Windows rearranges fragmented data so your disks and drives can work more efficiently. Disk Defragmenter runs on a schedule, but you can also analyze and defragment your disks and drives manually. To do this, follow these steps:. Open Disk Defragmenter by clicking the Start button.

In the search box, type Disk Defragmenter , and then, in the list of results, click Disk Defragmenter. To determine if the disk needs to be defragmented or not, click Analyze disk.

If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Once Windows is finished analyzing the disk, you can check the percentage of fragmentation on the disk in the Last Run column. Click Defragment disk. Disk Defragmenter might take from several minutes to a few hours to finish, depending on the size and degree of fragmentation of your hard disk.

Access "Optimize Drives" by searching for "Defrag" on the Charms menu search bar and selecting the "Defragment and optimize your drives" result.

Select the hard drive you want to defrag and click the "Change Settings" option. Check the box next to "run on a schedule" and select the "Weekly" or "Monthly" option. Defragmenting usually goes off without a hitch, but you might lose data if the computer loses power mid-process. Dan Stone started writing professionally in , specializing in education, technology and music.

He is a web developer for a communications company and previously worked in television. By Dan Stone. Does Block Size Affect Fragmentation? Defragmentation Organizes Files The term defragment refers to rearranging file segments on a storage device in contiguous order so the file is no longer fragmented.