Many computer users may heard about disk defragment, but do you know why you need to defrag disk drive, why you can speed up Windows by disk defragment? So in this article, I’ll discuss disk defragment.

Why do you need disk Defrag
The computers performance may become sluggish as your hard drive becomes increasingly fragmented. Defragmenting a hard drive rearranges the files so that each file is stored in a contiguous collection of disk sectors. This makes reading and writing files much faster.

How fragment produced?

Whenever you save a file or install a program to your hard drive, it is not generally stored as a single entity. Instead, it is divided up into a number of small packets. When you retrieve the file, the computer puts all the pieces back in the correct order so you can view your file or run your program.

As you save more files, delete unwanted files, install new programs and uninstall others the disk can become more and more fragmented. That is, the small file packets will become more scattered throughout your hard drive.

How to do disk defrag?

Windows has a built in tool that can remedy problems caused by a defragmented hard drive. This tool is the Disk Defragmenter.

Two ways to invoke Windows disk defragment tool.

  • Open My Computer, choose “Properties” > “Tools” > “Defragmentation”.
  • Right click My Computer > Manage > Storage > Disk Defragmenter (For Windows XP). Click “Start”, input “Defragmenter”, then press “Enter” (For Windows 7)

Windows built-in disk defrag tool has to analyze and defrag one by one, moreover, the defragment speed is so slow and consume resource, so I do not use this tool.

Free Windows defrag software

Among free and commercial defragment software, I like to use Auslogics Disk Defrag.

Auslogics Disk Defrag
Auslogics Disk Defrag

Advantages of Auslogics Disk Defrag in my eyes.

  • Analyze and defrag all partitions at the same time.
  • Defrag operation is fast and visual.
  • Shut down computer after defragmentation, so I do not need to wait at my computer.
  • Task schedule, so forget about it, Auslogics will defrag disk for me regularly.

Auslogics Disk Defrag also provides other option to better defrag and improve computer performance, worthy using.

Other disk defragment software:

Smart Defrag

Ashampoo Magical Defrag

O&O Defrag

UltimateDefrag

PerfectDisk