Slow Hard Drive

Of all of the devices inside your computer, the hard drive is the single device that requires the most maintenance. It is in constant bidirectional communication with the CPU, saving data and retrieving data and if not maintained you'll end up with a slow hard drive.

The magnetic platters inside the hard drive are in almost-continual spinning motion, and the read/write head flutters quickly over the platter surface.

Over time, the hard disk is subjected to a number of CPU processes that modify and add all sorts of data that is stored on the drive which get very fragmented.

So what does that mean in plain english?

Imagine that your hard drive is like a big filing cabinet. All of the files are neatly arranged in specific folders and the files you need the most are all in the top drawer for ease of access.

If you need to get a file (or a number of files) they are all grouped together in the same place so it takes a second to find the files that you need. That is in effect how a clean defragmented hard drive should be.

Now imagine that every time you put the files away again you could not put them back where you found them, but just opened draws and folders and put the files back anywhere you could see a space. The next time you needed the same files you would have to open all the drawers and folders to find them so rather than taking a second or two it would takes minutes to retrieve the same files.

Now multiply that by the number of times you access your hard drive in a day (let alone the length of time you have owned your computer) and you'll quickly understand how a fragmented hard drive becomes a slow hard drive and can bring the quickest computer to it knees.

Defragmenting a Hard Drive

Fortunately having thrown all your files onto your hard drive in a random fashion you can then tidy it up again with some easy to use system tools aka hard drive defragmentation utilities.

Principally there are two methodologies for doing hard drive defragmentation or hard drive repair. The tidy up as you go method which requires a small investment in some software but pays you back in spades, or the lets take a day off and tidy up all at once method, which is free but not half as effective (and takes ages as well)

Tidy Up As You Go

Diskeeper® 2007 Home Edition Overview

For the tidy up as you go method of hard drive defragmentation we highly recommend Diskeeper Home or Diskeeper Pro.

Your Computer Will Run Faster.

With Diskeeper 2007 Home installed, your computer will run faster. Everything you do - from running programs to surfing the Internet and downloading - will occur with a noticeable increase in speed and efficiency.

Long waits, sluggishness, freeze-ups and crashes will be a thing of the past.

Remember how your computer ran when it was new? Now, with Diskeeper 2007 Home, you no longer have to suffer from a slow hard drive. You can breathe new life into your system and make it run better than it ever has before.

Diskeeper can be set to run in the background so it defragments your files while your system is idle or if your screensaver is on for example. 

For a full overview of Diskeeper and hard drive fragmentation watch this video or you can Download a Free Trial.

Take A Day Off

For the take a day off method of hard drive defragmentation then you can use the free in-built defragmentation utility that is part of the Windows operating system.

This is very much a one hit affair and depending on the size of your hard drive and its condition defragmentation can take many hours. The windows defragmenter is also very basic compared to a performance utility such as Diskeeper so please don't be too disappointed if you only see marginal improvement in hard drive performance compared to using a specilised utility. 

<<<Slow Computer