subject: Does Disk Defragmentation Improve Windows System Performance? [print this page] Fragmentation is a fragmented unit of a file which is supposed to be stored as a whole in hard disk. In hard disk, a lot of files have fragmentations which is separately stored. They occur when the operating system cannot or will not allocate enough contiguous space to store a complete file as a unit, but instead puts parts of it in gaps between other files. When you are running too many programs, browsing website or downloading large files, fragment occurs.
They have a great impact on Windows system performance. If a file is separated into too many fragmentations, it will take a long time to access all the fragmentations before system can load the file or run it. If the file is stored as a unit contiguously, it takes few seconds to open it. In other word, they reduce the data access speed of your hard disk, therefore the system performance.
You may not notice the impact, if you are using a brand new computer which has a few files in it. Over time, as you save more and more files in your computer, you will notice that it takes more and more time to load a file and the system performance is degraded. That is caused by disk fragmentation. To reduce or eliminate the fragmentations and increase the computer performance, you need to defragment your hard disk regularly.
You can use Advanced Defrag to defragment your hard disk once a month to keep your computer in peak performance. For more information about Defragmentation, you can follow the link below to find out.
