| So, when's the last time you defragged your hard drive?
When's the last time you did a checkdisk?
Have I lost you yet? :)
If I have, and you're not using a Macintosh, this entry is for you. If I haven't, maybe this entry might be useful, who knows :) If you're using a Mac, this doesn't apply to you, as far as I know :)
I'm a purporter of regular system maintenance. Like oil changes and tuneups for your car, it's a good idea to ensure your computer's components - or at least those that you can easily work with - are regularly tuned.
A previous entry talked about Microsoft's Windows Update site that helps you ensure your Microsoft system is up-to-date with the latest operating system and Internet Explorer bug patches and upgrades. I visit that site about once a month to check for updates, and I generally reboot 3-4 times in all of my upgrades.
This entry is about disk maintenance. Specifically, introducing you to the concepts and the "how to's" of keeping your program files loading quickly while reducing physical stresss on your hard drive.
This entry does not cover file corruptions or what to do with them on a very detailed level. I can't help you with programs that are suddenly crashing on you all of the time - my best recommendation is to back up any data files you find important, and uninstall and reinstall the application. I'll write up an entry about that process some time later :)
Here's a quick summary, for those who like to choose what to read:
- Let's talk about your hard drive
- What is File Fragmentation?
- Why Should I Care?
- How do I fix it??
- Important Notes
First, let's talk about your hard drive. Let's say you are like me, and you have a large enough C: drive that you don't have any other hard drives listed. They're not partitioned, nothing. It's the computer you got from the store, with a Windows operating system installed, that you started using from day one.
When your computer comes to you, your hard drive is pretty clean, and everything runs quick and easy. As the months progress, you install applications - Microsoft Office, Netscape, ICQ, Audiogalaxy, and a few games that you got when you bought the computer. Sometimes you get sick of the games and remove them, either by using the "add/delete software" option in your Control Panel, or just by deleting the physical directory. You download a number of things, and delete a number of things all of the time in your every day use of your computer.
Your hard drive trundles along, taking all of your requests and fulfilling them. Deleting files, copying them elsewhere, making duplicates of them, etc. Your hard drive is trained to fill every nook and cranny of your drive - use every little bit of space, even if that means fragmenting your 10MB file into 2124 itty bitty ones. When you call that file up - say, by running Microsoft Excel or some other application that has a large executable file - your hard drive has to pull all the bits together and load it into memory. You might get the idea that this isn't exactly efficient, the more fragmented the file is.
What is File Fragmentation Simply put, it's what your hard drive does to make efficient use of its space. Your drive does not look for one long open spot for the entire file; instead, its priority is to fill the spaces closest to the start of the disk, splitting up files in order to fill every nook and cranny.
Why Should I Care? The more chopped up files are, the more work it takes for the hard drive to pull them together when the file is being accessed. The more work your hard drive has to do, the more likely it is to corrupt files or physically injure the drive itself. Regular defragmentation of your filesystem is simply common sense, especially since it can be left unattended to complete itself while you go to bed, if you do it right.
How Do I Fix It?? First, shut down all of your applications. This first step is going to require a reboot right off, so make sure you're ready. If you've had your computer for a while, have a large disk and have done a lot of installs and deletes, you might be giving up your computer for over an hour to the first step alone - the CheckDisk portion, which MUST run before the Defrag (the Defrag tells you to run the checker and won't do anything else until the check has been completed). For example, I have a PIII 450MHz machine with a 22GB HD and 384MB RAM, with 27% free disk space on that 22GB drive, and the checkdisk took 1.5 hours to go through its five steps.
Checkdisk is run by going here: My Computer -> right click on C: drive, select Properties, then go to "Tools" tab. The first option should be to check the disk, the second option is to back things up, and the third option is the disk defragmenter. Select the first option. The computer will then tell you it needs exclusive access to the hard drive in order to check it, then asks for permission to check upon next bootup. Click Yes. Reboot your machine. It'll run through the check disk, and reboot itself when it's done.
Once it's done, it's time for Defrag. Go back to My Computer-> right click on C: drive, select properties, click on the Tools tab, and select the third option, Defragment. Select Analyze, if the program doesn't automatically analyze drive C:. The computer will take a peek at the fragmentation of the files on the drive, and will let you know if it thinks you need to defragment. You might have to click the Defragment button, or it may give you an option to start the defragment a different way.
Important Notes One thing - make sure everything is shut down when you're doing the defragment. ICQ, MSN, anything that's in the little tray beside your clock on the start bar. If it's one thing defrag can't handle, it's applications that constantly write bits of information to the disk (like, when someone ICQ's you or you download a file from the 'net). Defrag will restart 10 times if these things happen, but then it will "error out" saying there's been too much activity. It's important to run the minimum of applications while defragging. (right click on the icons and select Exit or Close or whatever terminology they use - that'll close the things in the tray beside the clock)
You may have to run a defrag multiple times, if your drive, like mine, is badly fragmented. In my Analyze report, "File Fragmentation" in "Volume Fragmentation" went from 79% fragmented to 66% fragmented between the first and second defragment attempts. Having sat here through the second defragment (we're down to 57%), I now know it goes for 2 hours and stops. It's probably a way to help ensure the hard drive doesn't overheat, with all of the work it has to do in the defrag process. I'll enter here how many times I had to defrag before my report stops suggesting I defragment again, when I get there. Likely, if I do this monthly, I will only have to defragment once, and that'll keep it clean. I've just left it for WAY too long.
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