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How To Improve Your Computer's Overall Performance With Disk Defragmentation!

Recently, I published an article on <a href="http://www.daechuzzy.com/2013/09/how-to-increase-your-computer-speed.html?m=1">how to increase your computer's speed</a>. I also stated defragmentation as one of the ways in which you can increase your computer's speed. 
Today, I'm going to be categorically explaining the confusing but simple task of <a name="more"></a>defragmentation! 
I have previously stated what defragmentation is but for the purpose of emphasis, I would repeat it. A fragmented disk is a disk that has been fragmented :-).
Okay, lemme be plain, the way computers have been programmed to save files in their respective disks is very disorderly. For instance, a file saved in your disk can be arranged in such a way that the beginning of the disk, that's where some parts of the file is written.
Some parts? Yeah! Some parts are written at the beginning of the the disk. You may want to ask, what happens to the remaining parts? The remaining parts would then be written the end or middle of the disk, or where ever else the computer 'sees' space. 
This is quite a disorderly pattern and if you take a good look at it; when you finally need to call up the saved file, the computer starts sorting the disk for the actual file you've requested from whatever number of spaces it had written them. This can make your computer respond slowly at times. This process of scattering files where ever the computer deems fit is fragmentation, and the files scattered in such manner are known as fragments.
Now defragmentation is the process of sorting these files that have been scattered all over the disk and arranging them in an orderly manner. Hope you get my drift? 
You don't :-|? 
Read it again ;-) 
To defragment your disk, follow the simple steps outlined below. 
1) From your Start menu, go to Control panel. 
2) At the top right corner, on the same line with adjust your computer's settings, you'd see View by:, make sure to select category. 
3) Now click on System and Security. 
4) Next, Click on Defragment Your Hard Drive. It's usually below Administrative tool. 
If nothing happens, look for and  a program in your task bar with the name, disk defragmenter. 
Alternatively, goto Computer from a your Start menu. Right click on one if the Disk drives, select properties. A dialogue box pops up! Now select the Tools tab at the top of the dialogue box. 
Select Defragment now. 
5) Okay hold on... Before you get all jumpy, Select the disk you want to defragment, say Disk (C:). 
6) Click on Analyze Disk.
7)Wait for the analysis to be complete. You should now see what percentage of the disk is fragmented. You can now chose whether or not to run defragmentation. I for one usually run defragmentation once 10% of my disk is fragmented. 
8) Once you've made your choice to defragment, click on Defragment Disk. 
It should start defragmentation. For best results, you should run your defragmentation when you are sure you don't need to use the computer urgently. If however you start defragment in and then you see the need to use the computer, you can stop the defragmentation by clicking on Stop operation. 
You can also schedule defragmentation to run whenever you want it to run. To do schedule defragmentation, simply:
1) Click on Configure Schedule still on the Disk defragmenter interface. 
2) Set the frequency of schedule e.g, Monthly, 
3) Day of Schedule e.g, 24
4) Time of schedule e.g 7:00pm
5) Select Disks to defragment by clicking Select Disks.... Tick as many disks you want or better still, thick (Select all disks) 
That's it! Now you've known how to run defragmentation on your computer and I believe you've scheduled defragmentation too. 
You should start experiencing a difference in your computer'computer's speed. 
If you experience any difficulties please let me know and I'll reply you as soon as possible. 
Feel free to leave a comment below and share the article using the social share buttons below.

How To Improve Your Computer's Overall Performance With Disk Defragmentation!

Recently, I published an article on how to increase your computer's speed . I also stated defragmentation as one of the ways in w...

How To Increase Your Computer Speed!

Have you ever wondered why when you first buy a computer, it's speed is very fast, snappy and responsive?  Always doing your bidding with little or no lag at all. Well, as we all know, over time the story changes and you begin<a name="more"></a>to ask yourself, "what's all this?", "why is this computer getting unnecessarily slow?" There are a couple of reasons though, why computers get slow.
Truth is sometimes, we forget that the more softwares we install on our computers, the slower our computer becomes. This is because every software installed has it's own demand on your computer's memory. 
Now, let's assume each software is a block of concrete, and the computer (with it's available memory space) is a skateboard. If we set this skateboard into motion, and decide to load concrete blocks on the skateboard; with time, the skateboard slows down until it comes to a halt as a result of the weight acting on it! Hope you get my drift? 
Also, apart from the fact that your computer slows down over time, you also notice that as time goes on it takes a longer time to boot. Well, this can be attributed to the increasing number of start-up programs (programs that start automatically as you boot your computer).
Also, junk and temporary "temp" files are accumulated over time which also slow down computer speed! 
Now we've seen some reasons why a computer slows down over time, let's look at simple maintenance tasks that can speed up your computer dramatically. 
⇨Turn Off And Stop All Fancy Desktop Features/Programs 
A number of desktop beautification programs are nice and very fanciful to behold. But as much as these features make your desktop fanciful, they also slow down your computer and program response time. Get rid of them to increase your computer's speed! 
⇨ Defragment Your Drives Regularly. 
<a href="http://www.daechuzzy.com/2013/09/how-to-defragment-your-hard-drives-and.html?m=1"> Defragging is a simple process</a> which takes place when file fragments (which is the way in which Windows arranges files) are put together to speed up file access. These file fragments are put together and quality defragmentation utilities (which are built in Windows) also assemble the free space into a single block to prevent future fragmentation. 
So with regular use, your files are arranged 'haphazardly' in little bits and pieces. That's why you should defragment your hard drive on a regular basis. This includes all your computer hard drives-as many partitions as there are-no partition should be exempted. 
This is a very simple maintenance task to run. Good thing is you can also <a href="http://www.daechuzzy.com/2013/09/how-to-defragment-your-hard-drives-and.html?m=1">schedule defragmentation</a> hence automating the task of increasing your computer speed!
⇨ Shutdown Regularly! 
Forgetting to shutdown is a very common practice amongst avid computer/laptop users. 
Maybe because rebooting can be a pain, or because you want your computer to be always ready-to-go, or because you want your computer to work while you sleep, or probably because you run a server on your computer! But shutting down regularly increases your computer speed. How? When you don't shutdown, temp files accumulate on your computer, this slows down the computer's performance overtime! However, shutting down helps to take care of the issues that come up as a result of temp file accumulation! 
⇨ Disable Desktop Shortcuts. 
Desktop shortcuts are totally unnecessary, they not only occupy space on your desktop but also are an inefficient way to open files and programs on your desktop. Apart from reducing your computer speed, they also slow down your computer boot time! Better ways to open files would be to use Startup Menu, Quick Launch Menu etc. Doing this little thing also speed up your computer quite significantly.
⇨ Uninstall Programs That Are No Longer Useful. 
Like I mentioned earlier, every program you install in your computer occupies some memory space. Now, if you continually install programs on your computer without removing them, you reduce the available memory on there, hence slowing down your computer. To make your computer faster, take your time to browse through your installed programs and uninstall the ones you no longer have need of.
⇨ Reduce The Number Of Startup Programs. 
What do I mean by startup programs? These are programs that start as soon as you power on your computer. Many programs assign themselves (as a result of the way they were written) to start on boot; and removing as many of these programs as possible would help increase your computer speed as well as no boot time. 
⇨ Close All Unused Programs. 
This is another factor many computer owners ignore. Imagine running many programs at the same time! While it's not impossible to do that (all thanks to multitasking), you would be putting too much strain on the computers processing power and thus speed. Closing programs that are not currently being used would go a long way to speed up your computer.
⇨ Increase Your RAM Size. 
All the factors I have mentioned before now deal with software. Increasing your RAM size is however an hardware task. To be completely honest with you the above tips would NOT work if you have a low RAM size! Imagine using a 512MB  RAM and expecting your computer to be speedy; it doesn't work that way. So you might try heading up to your computer technician's and asking for a RAM increase. It would also increase your computer speed dramatically! 
Well, now it's up to you to take action! And if you have other tips, kindly mention them in the comment box below, I and other readers would be glad you did!

How To Increase Your Computer Speed!

Have you ever wondered why when you first buy a computer, it's speed is very fast, snappy and responsive? Always doing your bidd...

How To Improve Your Computer's Overall Performance With Disk Defragmentation!

How To Increase Your Computer Speed!

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