Constant use of a computer leads to the fact that the hard drive becomes fragmented quite strongly. This means that files are written unevenly on it - not entirely, but in parts. The Windows operating system breaks large files for recording onto the HDD into smaller ones and stores them in free or designated places for deletion. In this case, the disk is filled evenly, but the reading head has to make many more movements and jump from one place to another in order to read the entire file, and this takes time. How to defragment a disk in Windows 10 and increase computer performance - this will be discussed in the article.
How to defragment a disk in Windows 10 yourself
Everything described below is suitable for owners of computers and laptops with an installed hard drive. If your Windows operating system is installed on an SSD - a solid-state drive, similar to a large flash drive, you do not need defragmentation. Will you use the operating system's built-in tools or a third-party one? software Make sure you have enough free space (usually you need at least 15% of the total space to successfully complete the defragmentation procedure). So let's get started!
Defragmenting a disk using Windows 10
Go to the “This PC” icon and right-click on one of the drives – “Properties”. Go to the Tools tab and click the Optimize button.
The “Disk Optimization” window will display your computer’s hard drives and their status. Select the one you want and click the “Analyze” button. After analysis, the system will inform you whether defragmentation is required or not. If this procedure turns out to be necessary, click the “Optimize” button to start.
The “Change parameters” button is responsible for setting the periodic execution of this process.
This allows you to automate the defragmentation process and maintain drive performance at a high level.
Besides Windows applications 10 there are programs (paid and free) from third-party developers for defragmentation that allow you to carry out a similar procedure (Auslogics Disk Defrag, Defraggler and others).
How to defragment a disk in Windows 10 - video instructions
Long term use hard drives During the process of writing and erasing data, disk fragmentation occurs. Simply put, in some areas of the disk, empty space may appear, into which the system tries to write every time required by the user file. The problem is that if this file is too large, then part of it will be written to one place and part to another.
This article will tell you how to defragment a disk on Windows 10. We will also look in more detail at whether disk defragmentation is needed at all or why. This can be done both using the operating system itself and using third party programs. Regardless of the method, the essence of the process itself remains the same.
To be honest, before performing defragmentation, users should figure out whether they need it. If you have been using the hard drive for a very long time and have not performed it full formatting, then you definitely need to perform defragmentation. Since the user often deletes or changes files not in the order in which they were written to the hard drive. Because of this, so-called memory gaps appear on the disk, where the system tries to write other files. If there is not enough disk space in that location, the file will be located in several parts.
If you try to access such a file written to your hard drive this way, it will take you longer. Please note that the more your HDD the more file fragmentation zones there will be. The figure shows how the files before the defragmentation process were written on the hard drive in fragments (this is where the name of the process comes from), and after defragmentation everything was in perfect order.
The process itself is that all files that are not written sequentially will be overwritten. And all empty clusters will disappear, since in these places everything necessary files and will be overwritten. This will speed up the operating time of the system as a whole, since when running such files the system will not have to search for pieces throughout the entire file system.
How to run disk defragmentation
The disk optimization window can be found in the updated system search. Please note that by default defragmentation is set to automatic mode, which is performed weekly background. In principle, it is convenient and should not slow down the system much, allowing you to work comfortably at the computer.
Defraggler
There are many programs that can help you with disk defragmentation automatically. We would like to draw your attention to free utility Defraggler. You can download it without problems from the official website of the developer Piriform. The program is compatible with all versions of the Windows 10 operating system.
Command line
To be able to defragment disks in the command line window, just run just a few commands. For beginners we recommend using the previous way, since the interface of the classic disk optimization tool is more understandable there.
Run the desktop command line application as an administrator. Next, run the commands below one by one to begin the process. Before executing, carefully read all the commands and the parameters specified for them.
- C:\WINDOWS\system32>defrag /?— Get help on the defragmentation process in a command prompt window. We recommend that you read additional parameters commands to be executed next;
- defrag C:/A— performing an analysis of the specified local disk. Shows how fragmented the selected disk is (in this case, the specified system disk). You can find out the level of fragmentation of all computer disks;
- defrag /C /H /V— performing an operation for all volumes in advanced mode, displaying detailed fragmentation statistics at the end of the process.
While defragmenting disks using this method, do not close the Command Prompt window. Only after the defragmentation process is completed using the command line can you close the window.
Conclusion
The Windows operating system has a built-in defragmentation utility. hard drive, which increases system performance as a result of optimization. In this article we will look at how to defragment a disk using the Windows 10 operating system as an example. Starting defragmentation in Windows 7 and Windows 8 is similar.
Why is defragmentation needed? During operation, files on the computer disk are constantly moving: new files are added, files are deleted, copied, etc. By default, a new file is written to the disk continuously, to free disk space.
When a file is deleted or moved from disk, free space appears on the disk surrounded by other entries. When adding a new file of larger size, the file will be written to this free space, and the other part of the file will be written to another free space on the computer disk. As a result, the file will be fragmented, that is, fragments of the file will be located in different places on the disk.
Over time, a large number of fragmented files accumulate on the disk. operating room Windows system it takes more time to access files, since fragments of one file are located in different places on the disk, and there are a lot of such files.
To solve this problem, defragmentation is necessary: moving file fragments to one place. Defragmenting your hard drive will increase the performance of your operating system. If your computer has never been defragmented, then after it is done, the increase in Windows performance will be noticeable even visually.
Disk defragmentation on Windows is performed using the built-in defragmentation utility, or using third-party programs:
- Auslogics Disk Defrag - defragmentation program
- IObit Smart Defrag for hard drive defragmentation
- Defraggler is a free disk defragmentation program.
Now we will look at free disk defragmentation in Windows, carried out by the built-in utility. The defragmentation utility, with the default system settings, is enabled to work in automatic mode to perform scheduled optimization.
Please note that if your computer has an SSD drive, you should not defragment the drive. By default, in Windows 10 defragmentation is SSD drive disabled. In this case, defragment only the computer's hard drive (HDD).
Disk defragmentation on Windows 10
How to defragment in Windows 10? First, open an Explorer window, and then click on any logical drive.
In the “Disk Optimization” window, select the disk, and then click on the “Analyze” button.
After the analysis is complete, you will see Current state disk: what percentage is this disk fragmented.
To start the defragmentation process, click on the “Optimize” button.
Next comes the process of moving file fragments on the disk, which will take some time. If the disk is heavily fragmented, then its defragmentation will take quite a long time. After clicking the “Stop” button, you can stop the defragmentation process.
After the process is completed, in the utility window you will see that Windows has been defragmented (fragmented: 0%).
Scheduled defragmentation
In the disk optimization window, click on the “Change settings” button. Next, a window will open in which you can configure the optimization schedule. By default, the following settings are enabled:
- run on schedule (recommended)
- notify if three scheduled executions are missed in a row
Defragmentation is performed according to the schedule, depending on the settings: weekly, daily, monthly.
To select the disks on which you want to defragment, click on the “Select” button. Allocate all or individual disks to run optimization on a schedule.
This window displays only disks that are available for automatic scheduled defragmentation.
Disk defragmentation via command line
You can run the Windows Defragmentation Utility in command line. Run the command line interpreter as an administrator. Enter the defrag command at the command prompt, and then enter the tasks to perform the operation.
List of options for using the defragmentation utility in Windows (information from Microsoft):
Syntax: defrag<тома>| /C | /E<тома> [<задачи>] ] Where<задачи>or not specified (normal defragmentation), or specified as follows: /A | | /O | /X Or, to track an operation that is already running on the volume: defrag<том>/T Parameters: Value Description /A Analyzes the specified volumes. /C Performs the operation on all volumes. /D Standard defragmentation (default). /E Performs the operation on all volumes except those specified. /H Start an operation at normal priority (low by default). /K Optimizes memory on selected volumes. /L Re-optimize selected volumes. /M Runs an operation simultaneously on each volume in the background. /O Optimize using the appropriate method for the media type. /T Monitor an operation that is already in progress on the specified volume. /U Displays the progress of the operation on the screen. /V Display detailed fragmentation statistics. /X Consolidates free space on the specified volumes. /R Performs a partial defragmentation (default behavior), attempting to merge only fragments smaller than 64 MB. /W Performs a complete defragmentation, attempting to merge any fragments regardless of their size. /F Forces defragmentation even if there is not enough free space on the disk. /B Defragments only boot files on the specified section. Examples: defrag C: /U /V defrag C: D: /M defrag C:\mountpoint /A /U defrag /C /H /VA command has been entered into the command line to completely defragment drive “C” and display a detailed report.
Conclusion
To improve the performance of your computer, you should periodically defragment your hard drive. operating system Windows. Defragmentation can be done using the built-in utility included with the operating system.
Defragmentation in Windows 10 (video)
Defragmentation of disks under Windows control 10 allows you to organize the arrangement of files on your hard drive in such a way as to maximize the amount of disk space and increase computer performance.
It's worth noting that in Windows 10 this tool is called " Disk optimization", so now defragmentation and disk optimization are almost equivalent concepts.
During defragmentation, all parts of files are moved to neighboring clusters. This makes it easier to access information and the computer runs faster.
The Optimize Drives tool includes features that let you work with various types carriers. Depending on what kind of hard drive you have (), Windows will automatically perform operations that are appropriate for your device.
In most cases, defragmenting the “C:” drive is sufficient, but if you often use files located on other partitions, you can perform this procedure for them as well.
By default, disk optimization runs automatically on a schedule once a week. But you can also defragment manually.
There are several ways to optimize partitions in Windows 10. Let's look at 2 of them.
Defragmentation using the Optimize Disks tool
1. Launch Explorer ( Windows + E) and on the left in the menu tree open the item “ This computer».
2. Select drive “C:” or any other partition. Then on the tab " Control"run element" Optimize" As a result, the tool should load " Disk optimization».
This tool can also be launched in another way. To do this, you need to right-click on the target partition and context menu select " Properties».
Then in the window that opens you need to open the “ Service" and press the button " Optimize».
3. Select the disk that you want to defragment and click the button Optimize" The optimization process can take from several minutes to several hours depending on the size of the partition and the degree of file fragmentation.
Before this procedure, you can also click the " Analyze" to see the extent of disk fragmentation and decide whether to start this process.
If the partition is fragmented by less than 10% , then there is no need for optimization.
You can continue to use your computer during the optimization process, although it is advisable to wait until it finishes.
Optimizing disks using the command line
1. Run Command Prompt as an administrator.
2. Enter the command diskpart and press Enter.
4. Find the drive you want to optimize in the list and make sure that the letter it is designated by matches the one in Windows Explorer. Enter the command exit and press Enter.
5. Run the commands below depending on your needs:
defrag C:/O– defragmentation of the “C:” drive (you can change it to any other partition);
defrag /C /O– defragmentation of all disks using a method corresponding to the media type (HDD or SSD).
The description and full syntax of the command can be studied by executing the construction “ defrag /?».
In fact, there is another 3rd way to run disk defragmentation in Windows 10 - with using PowerShell. This method is for more advanced users and I think that the first two are quite enough for the average user.
When using a HDD, information is constantly recorded/erased. But the disk surface is not filled sequentially, but in parts, resulting in fragmentation. It is one of the main reasons for a slow computer, so you need to know how to defragment a disk on Windows 10 to speed up your PC and increase data access speed.
Why is defragmentation needed?
This procedure allows you to collect one file “in a heap” by writing information about it sequentially onto the surface of a magnetic disk. After this, the operating system will not have to first assemble the file piece by piece and only then use it. Therefore, after defragmenting the HDD, the speed of the PC will increase (you will also find this article useful for improving the performance of the device).
How to start a process on Windows 10?
Defragmentation in Windows 10 is performed by standard tools or programs developed by third-party companies.
Established funds
In the new OS, as in previous versions, there is a built-in Disk Defragmenter utility.
- This computer → RMB on any disk → Properties → Tools tab → Optimize.
- In the "Disk Optimization" window, select the one you want to defragment → Analyze.
- After the evaluation process, if the fragmentation is more than 5% - 7%, click "Optimize".
Important! Windows 10 is set to automatically defragment disks by default. You can change the optimization schedule or disable it altogether in the “Optimization by schedule” block by clicking the “Change parameters” button and specifying the desired time.
The time of the procedure depends on the speed of the HDD, fragmentation and how busy the disk is (it needs to have about 10% - 15% of free space).
Third party programs
Third-party programs provide the user with more options for setting up and performing defragmentation.
Defraggler
The program shows the fragmentation map and HDD status, and also prepares a list of "split" files. It carries out the process according to the user's specified parameters. This program is much more effective than the built-in utility. 
The tool has a similar interface and functions to Defragger, and is capable of optimizing file system due to movement Windows files. This increases the speed of the computer. 
The SSD defragmentation process is performed on a different principle, so the classic utility is harmful solid state drive(read the article on how to configure it correctly). In addition, the speed of reading data from all SSD cells is the same. Therefore, information fragmentation does not slow down your computer. When installing this type of media on your computer, disable automatic optimization disks.
Video
The video describes in detail how to defragment a disk using a standard utility and another third-party program.
Conclusion
Defragmentation increases the speed of your computer. It “assembles” files into one whole after they are split when recording to the HDD. You can perform optimization using the built-in utility or programs from third-party developers. But when using SSD storage, do not run this function because it is harmful to the drive.
