Defragging Your Computer Is an Important Step in Knowing How to Speed Up the PC
If you have had your computer for a while and never done a defrag, the chances are good that you will see a noticeable performance improvement after running one.
Keep reading to discover how to run a defrag and what each of the options means.
To defrag your disk, go to My Computer, and right click on one of your disks, then choose properties.
Click the Tools Tab and then click Defragment Now to bring up the options.
The first option is to set a schedule for the system to automatically defrag your computer.
This is a good idea if the defrag has the system resources available to run the defrag without interfering with your normal computing.
Selecting a time when you normally don't use the computer is the best choice, however, if the defrag takes too much time you may need to play with the time or frequency of the defrag.
You can schedule it to run daily, weekly, or monthly.
You also have control over the day and time it runs.
In my opinion, unless you have a specific reason to run it more frequently, running it monthly is more than enough.
The final option for scheduling the defrag is selecting which disk or disks you want to run it on.
You can only have one schedule, so if you decide not to schedule the defrag for all of your disks you will have to manually run defrag on any other disks.
To have more control over the schedule of the defrag you can run it manually.
If defrag is scheduled, there is still the option of running it manually as well.
They are not mutually exclusive.
So, when do you run defrag if you are not running it automatically? Free disk space and the amount of activity on the system are the two things that really determine how often you should run the defrag.
Any time your disk space gets below 15%, you should run a defrag.
This is also a good time to clean up some disk space by removing any unused programs.
It's also a good idea to run a defrag any time that you add or delete a large number of files.
This could be from installing a program or simply copying a bunch of files onto the hard disk.
What is a large number of files? If more than 2-3% of the disk space is changed or filled by installing programs or copying files, it's a good time to run a defrag.
Keep reading to discover how to run a defrag and what each of the options means.
To defrag your disk, go to My Computer, and right click on one of your disks, then choose properties.
Click the Tools Tab and then click Defragment Now to bring up the options.
The first option is to set a schedule for the system to automatically defrag your computer.
This is a good idea if the defrag has the system resources available to run the defrag without interfering with your normal computing.
Selecting a time when you normally don't use the computer is the best choice, however, if the defrag takes too much time you may need to play with the time or frequency of the defrag.
You can schedule it to run daily, weekly, or monthly.
You also have control over the day and time it runs.
In my opinion, unless you have a specific reason to run it more frequently, running it monthly is more than enough.
The final option for scheduling the defrag is selecting which disk or disks you want to run it on.
You can only have one schedule, so if you decide not to schedule the defrag for all of your disks you will have to manually run defrag on any other disks.
To have more control over the schedule of the defrag you can run it manually.
If defrag is scheduled, there is still the option of running it manually as well.
They are not mutually exclusive.
So, when do you run defrag if you are not running it automatically? Free disk space and the amount of activity on the system are the two things that really determine how often you should run the defrag.
Any time your disk space gets below 15%, you should run a defrag.
This is also a good time to clean up some disk space by removing any unused programs.
It's also a good idea to run a defrag any time that you add or delete a large number of files.
This could be from installing a program or simply copying a bunch of files onto the hard disk.
What is a large number of files? If more than 2-3% of the disk space is changed or filled by installing programs or copying files, it's a good time to run a defrag.
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