Disk Defragmenter
Many of my friends will know this already, but I got to thinking that probably many of my family members do not. So let’s start with a question, “Why does the performance of a computer degrade over time?” There are a few reasons why this can happen, but I’d say the biggest one is disk fragmentation. Huh?
When I say disk, I am referring to your computer’s hard drive. The hard drive is a set of magnetic disks that hold data. When a new program is installed on the hard drive, your computer’s operating system will try to place all of the files for a program right next to each other. This makes sense. If your computer is going to load that program, it will perform faster if all the files are located physically near one another.
As you install more and more programs on your computer, the amount of free space to put the files becomes less and less. So naturally, the computer will come to a point where it is physically impossible to store all the files for a particular program in the same location. Therefore, it must put some of the files over here, and some over there. Even single files can be split up and stored in different disk locations. These are called fragments. And this is the start of a fragmented hard drive.
Windows users do something for me quick. Click the start menu button on your computer. Go to All Programs –> Accessories –> System Tools –> Disk Defragmenter. The program will open up and you will see all of your hard drives listed. Select the main drive and click the Analyze button. After a few moments it will display a popup that says if you should or shouldn’t defrag your hard drive. Ignore that and justs click Close.
Now look at the color chart on the screen. This is a color representation of the files on your hard drive. Blue is good. Blue files are those that are grouped nicely with the other files in the same program. Red is bad (Why is red ALWAYS bad?? It’s my favorite freakin’ color!). Red represents fragmented files. These files are not grouped nicely with the other files in the same program. Sad… isn’t it? Lastly, lime green represents your page file.
Timeout. We need to talk about the page file now. First, do you know what RAM is? Also known as system memory? Anyway, your computer has some. The more it has the better. This is the hardware in your computer that loads files as they are needed by the operating system. RAM is fast, and the more of it you have, the faster your computer will run and the less it will get “bogged down” when you have lots of programs running at once. OK, so RAM (aka system memory) is hardware in your computer that loads files as they are needed. Well, the page file is sorta an extension of that. Your system sets aside some space on your hard drive to use as sort of backup RAM. So that when the real RAM is full, it can use the page file as well.
Unfortunately, new systems always come setup with a varying page file. That is, there is a minimum size and a maximum size set. The system then grows and shrinks your page file as it is needed. Sounds kinda nice, but it’s no good! You want your page file to be the same size all the time. Doing this is as simple as setting the minimum and maximum at the same number. These numbers should always be a multiple of 1024 (aka 1 GB). For example, I have 2 GB or RAM, and my page file is 4096 (4 GB).
So what’s the big deal if you just let your page file grow and shrink as needed? Well… it moves around then. And when space gets tight it starts to break into separate pieces, just sort of fitting in wherever there is room at the time. The result is the horrid FRAGMENTED page file!
So after time, you end up with not only a fragmented hard drive, but also a fragmented page file. In layman’s terms, your computer gets real slow. How do we prevent this? I eluded earlier to the concept of a static (non-changing) page file. Before you hard drive gets so completely over-bloated with stuff that there isn’t even enough space to fit any one program in one location, set those page file min and max values to the same number. I’d suggest 2048, 3072 or 4096. Once it is static it won’t move. That’s right, it will just stay put, solid, together, CONTIGUOUS!
Now I’m going to make a prediction. And I’m not even that smart, so you are going to be amazed when I get this right. My prediction is that your color graph is quite colorful! Lot’s of red and blue all over the place, and if you are really hurting, you see some lime green split up too. I am sorry to hear that.
There are a number of programs out there to fix badly fragmented drives, because the Disk Defragmenter that comes with Windows can only take you so far. As a matter of fact, I have a hunch it doesn’t even show all the files on your computer. But run it. Run it after you finish reading this article, and walk away for an hour or so. Your computer should run much better when it’s done. When you get back, you’ll probably still have some fragmentation, but your system performance should improve.
But for those of you out there that are not satisfied with “better” and you want perfection take a good hard look at PerfectDisk 2008. There is a free download that lets you use it as a trial for 30 days before you have to buy it. At that point it’s $39.99, but after what I have seen I’m seriously considering buying it. I used PerfectDisk 2008 to defrag my drive. ALL FRAGMENTS GONE. Lots of contiguous free space! Top that off with a perfect contiguous page file and you have this beautiful picture:
Family members and friends, feel free to give me a call if you need help getting your computers running smooth again. Or you can email me.
Comments from old site:
Written by Aaron
Posted: Saturday, February 2, 2008 at 6:34 AM
Wow, Perfect disk completely defragmented your laptop. I knew it would work for you. I had a similar problem with some game files that windows wouldn’t defrag and Perfect disk fixed my computer up.
