Question: what do teenagers and Windows (the Microsoft type) have in common? Answer: they leave a mess in their rooms and hard drives. Having said that, I can’t totally fault Windows (this applies to every version that has appeared, from 3.1 right up to Vista) because what happens is this—over time we accumulate a lot of files in our hard drives—even a clean installation of Vista deposits thousands of files into your C: drive. Then we add, delete, copy, or move those files. And what does Windows try to do? Like an inexperienced maid or servant, it attempts to cram files in-between all the empty spaces in our hard drives. Picture if you will, somebody stuffing socks into a closet full of underwear. Or odds and ends into a bookshelf, you get the idea.
The result is that over time, Windows has to search for files that have been torn and scattered over our hard drives. Files are no longer contiguous. If the user doesn’t do anything about it, it will appear as if the computer has begun to run slower and slower. So what’s the solution for this? We need a program to defragment our drives, in order to make the files contiguous again. It’s akin to employing a professional butler or housekeeper to come and make our homes spick and span. And we know their services come at a price.
The past few versions of Windows have come with a rudimentary disk defragmenter, but well, it’s rudimentary. Almost like asking one’s offspring to tidy up their rooms—it’s never done well, is it? There are plenty of defragmenting programs available on the market, such as Diskeeper, Perfect Disk, O & O Defrag, etc. You’ve got to cough up some cash for them though.
What if we could enlist the help of a professional butler for free? Fortunately, there are some available, and the one that I’ve been using for some time now is Piriform’s excellent Defraggler (try saying that fast, three times). OK, the screenshots may not employ all the eye-candy of the big boys, but Defraggler gets the job done in a no-nonsense manner, and it is fast.
Look at some of the features Defraggler has (and remember, it’s free):
- Very small download size—702KB, adware and spyware-free.
- Defraggler can not only analyze and defrag drives, it can even defrag folders and files of your own choosing. An extra bonus is its ability to check drives for errors (no need to use chkdsk anymore).
- Priority can be set to Normal or Background, if you want to keep working while it defrags.
- Options include auto-update, moving large files to the end of the drive, and get this—it even has a scheduler—you can schedule a defrag when you’re out or going to bed.
- Need I mention this again, Defraggler is fast. The more often you defrag, the quicker it gets.
So what should you do prior to a defrag? Here are some tips:
- Clean out the gunk in your hard drive first. CCleaner is my choice for this, and surprise, surprise, it’s by the same folks who make Defraggler (Piriform) and it’s free.
- If you have tons of MP3 or video files on your drive, consider burning them to DVDs to free up disk space and lessen the burden of defragmenting these big monsters.
- Don’t activate any other scans (like antivirus or antispyware) while defragmenting.
- Unless you like watching grass grow, defrag when you have something else to do, like having a meal or going out. By the time you come back, it’d have done its job.
Once your hard drive is defragmented, you’ll notice that your system will be more responsive, instead of sluggish. Try it and see.