How File Fragmentation
Slows Down Your Computer
File fragmentation (disk fragmentation) is one of the key reasons why our computers tend to slow down over time and this section aims to explain why that is. Hard drives don’t always store individual files as whole files, they often break them into separate pieces or “file fragments” which are stored in many different locations. This fragmentation process is ongoing and as a result over time more and more scattered fragments accumulate on your hard drive.
Disk defragmentation
is the only way of reducing fragmentation on a hard drive.
Learn how to prevent fragmentation from occuring.
What Causes File Fragmentation?
When you instruct your hard drive to store a file, it finds the nearest available pocket of free space. If the space is not big enough to store the entire file, the hard drive writes as much of the file as it can to that free space and locates the next free space. If the next free space is not big enough to finish writing the file, it again writes as much as it can, and again locates the next available free space. This process repeats itself over and over until your files are broken down into many smaller file fragments, scattered all over your hard drive in quite a tangled mess.
Why Does File Fragmentation Slow Down Your Computer?
Each time you instruct your hard drive to access a file, it must locate all of that file’s fragments and reassemble them in your computer’s memory.The more fragmented the file, the more work your hard drive must do to locate and reassemble the fragments. As your hard drive becomes more and more fragmented and your hard drive has to work harder and harder to reassemble the fragments, the slower your PC will operate.
What Is Free Space Fragmentation?
The empty space on a hard drive can become fragmented as well.This means the free hard drive space becomes located in many small pockets (free space fragments) all over the hard drive. Free space fragmentation occurs when files are deleted (by the user or the operating system). What really happens is the file’s many fragments are deleted leaving the pockets of free space. Funnily enough, the fragmentation of free space is one of the main causes of file fragmentation. This is because many of the free space fragments are too small to store whole files and the hard drive is forced to break the files into fragments to fit them in.
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