Defragmentation of individual folders. How to defragment individual files
When writing any files to the hard drive, all information is distributed across clusters. If you decide to delete a particular file, the clusters with information will be erased, but instead there will be empty space. This disrupts the order of all files on the hard drive. As a result, when reading information, the hard drive spends much more time searching for the necessary clusters, since they are scattered throughout the media. This leads to a noticeable slowdown of the computer as a whole. This process is called fragmentation.
Defragmentation allows you to restore order in the internal space. This procedure organizes the location of all clusters on the media, moving them close to each other. After this, there is a noticeable increase in performance in resource-intensive applications and games. Let's figure out how to defragment a disk and in what cases it is necessary.
When should you defragment your drive?
If you notice that performance personal computer has fallen significantly, then in this case optimization is required. Long loading of programs, opening files, copying also hint that it’s time to optimize.
What programs are used to defragment a hard drive?
Operating systems XP, 7 and later have built-in software for defragmentation. If you want to perform the procedure one-time, you can use it. However, many note poor performance when using the standard utility. If you decide to use it, then follow these steps:
Let's look at how to defragment a disk using a built-in utility:
Let's look at an example of how to defragment a disk according to a schedule:
- The standard program allows you to set a regular schedule for defragmentation. In the previous window, click the button Set up a schedule....
- In the window that opens, select the frequency, day, time and partitions that need to be defragmented.
- Once the setup is complete, click OK.
Now the turned on computer at the appointed time will carry out automatic start optimization procedures.
During this period of time, there may be a drop in performance as the system is busy with a more important process.
According to the instructions provided, defragmentation is carried out hard drive in Windows XP, 7, 8 and 10. Now let's figure out how to defragment a hard drive using a third-party program.
Optimization using defragmenters
There are quite a few programs for defragmenting the system disk. Among them there are both options for advanced users and for beginners. For example, consider a simple utility Defragger, the full free version of which can be downloaded from the official website of the developers. Download the distribution, install the software and run it. The program cleans disks in OS 7, 8 and 10. To do this, follow the instructions:
By using Defraggler not only defragmentation of the system or external drive. You can also get information about the performance of the media, a list of files, or optimize each folder separately.
How to defragment a disk using Auslogics Disk Defrag
Another utility that allows you to quickly or completely defragment your hard drive. The main window of the program is very similar to Defraggler, so there should be no problems using it.
Let's look at the startup process:
Now you know how to defragment a hard drive, including an SSD, using standard means Windows or through third party software.
Video on the topic
When any files get onto a hard drive or any other storage medium, fragments of data are not written sequentially, but chaotically. To work with them, the hard drive has to spend a large amount of time and resources. Defragmentation will help create a clear structure file system, sequentially record the data of each program or individual large file to achieve the highest speed of the hard drive and wear of its mechanical parts when reading information.
Smart Defrag is a very advanced file defragmenter presented by a famous developer. The program will help you quickly and easily put things in order hard drives user's personal computer.
Files are written in fragments every second of operation operating system. Established funds Windows does not have functionality capable of monitoring the state of the file system in real time and correctly, consistently recording all data.
Auto-analysis will identify the current fragmentation of the file system and notify the user if the indicator exceeds the one set by him. It is performed independently for each individual storage medium.
Automatic disk defragmentation
Based on the data obtained during auto-analysis, the disk is auto-defragmented. Auto-defragmentation mode is enabled separately for each hard drive or removable storage device.
Auto-analysis and auto-defragmentation are performed only when the computer is idle to protect user data from damage. To run these features, you can select a period of computer inactivity ranging from 1 to 20 minutes. Defragmentation or analysis will not be performed if the user has left a resource-intensive task running at this time, for example, unpacking an archive - to specify the system load limit at which the optimizer automation is activated, you can specify a value in the range from 20 to 100%.
Scheduled defragmentation
This function will be useful to users who have a huge amount of information on their computer. In such cases, file system fragmentation regularly reaches very large values. It is possible to completely customize the frequency and start time of defragmentation, and it will occur at a specified time without the participation of the user.
Defragmentation during system boot
Some files cannot be moved during defragmentation, because... are currently in use. Most often this concerns system files the operating system itself. Defragmentation at boot will allow them to be optimized before they are occupied by processes.
There is a function for setting the frequency of optimization - once, every day at the first boot, every boot, or even once a week.
In addition to non-movable files defined by the program itself, the user can add his own files.
The largest files in the system are defragmented - the hibernation file and the swap file, MFT and the system registry are defragmented.
Disk Cleanup
Why optimize temporary files, which in most cases do not carry any functional load, but only take up space? Smart Defrag will delete all temporary files - cache, cookies, recent documents and transitions, will clear the clipboard, trash and thumbnail icons. This will significantly reduce the time spent on defragmentation.
List of exceptions
If it is necessary for the program not to touch a certain file or folder, they can be whitelisted before optimization, after which they will not be analyzed or defragmented. Again, adding large files will significantly reduce optimization time.
Auto update
The developer is constantly improving its product, so installing and working with the latest version of the program is the key to a high degree of its performance. Smart Defrag can exit new version install it yourself, without paying the user’s attention to it and saving his time.
Quiet operation
Automatic operation of Smart Defrag requires the display of some notifications about the progress of tasks. Many users know how inconvenient it is when a notification appears in the corner of the screen while watching a movie or an important moment in a game. The developer paid attention to this detail and added the “quiet mode” function. Smart Defrag monitors the appearance of full-screen applications on the monitor and does not show any notifications or make any sounds at this time.
In addition to full-screen applications, it is possible to add any programs at all while they are running - Smart Defrag does not interfere.
Defragmentation of individual files and folders
If the user does not need to optimize the entire disk, but only needs to work on a large file or heavy folder, then Smart Defrag will help here too.
Defragmentation of games
A separate feature worth highlighting is the optimization of the files of these games to achieve the best performance even in moments of real action. The technology is similar to the previous one - you just need to specify the main executable file in the game and wait a bit.
In addition to games, you can also optimize large programs like Photoshop or Office.
Hard drive status information
For each drive, you can view its temperature, usage percentage, response time, read and write speeds, and attribute status.
Advantages:
1. The program has been completely translated into Russian, but sometimes there are typos, which, however, are not so noticeable against the background of the capabilities.
2. The modern and very clear interface allows even a beginner to understand it right away.
3. One of best solutions in its segment. This confirms its position in the top of the best defragmenters.
Flaws:
1. The main disadvantage is free version functionality is not fully disclosed. For example, in the free version you cannot perform auto-updates and activate automatic defragmentation.
2. When installing the program, there are checkboxes by default, which may result in the installation of unwanted software in the form of toolbars or browsers. Be careful when installing, uncheck all unnecessary boxes!
Conclusion
Before us is a modern and ergonomic tool for optimizing a personal computer. A trusted developer, frequent additions and bug fixes, high-quality work - this is what helps it confidently lead the list of the best defragmenters.
This is a process during which the location of files on the disk is optimized. This optimization allows you to increase the speed of working with files, and therefore improve the performance of your computer as a whole. In this material we will talk about how to defragment a disk using tools built into Windows, as well as using third-party programs.
Tips for performing defragmentation:
- Do not defragment drives. For SSD drives Defragmentation is an absolutely useless action. It only reduces the resource SSD operation disk, but does not provide any gain in operating speed.
- To perform defragmentation, you need free disk space. The more free space, the faster and better the disk defragmentation will be performed. The minimum amount of available space is considered to be 15 percent of the entire disk.
- If you want to get consistently high speed, then use scheduled defragmentation.
- Avoid using a drive that is being defragmented.
How to defragment a disk using Windows
operating room Windows system has a built-in mechanism for disk defragmentation. To use it, open “My Computer” and call the properties of the partition that you want to fragment.
In the window that opens, go to the “Services” tab and click on the “Run defragmentation” button.
After this, the “Disk Defragmenter” window will open in front of you. Here you need to select the disk that you want to fragment and click on the “Analyze disk” button.
After the analysis of the selected disk is completed, you will see the percentage of fragmented data on the disk. If this percentage is significant, then you need to defragment. For example, I analyzed the “E” drive and the percentage of fragmented data on it is zero. There is no need to defragment this disk. But after analyzing the “C” drive, it turned out that it was fragmented by 36 percent, which means it needs to be defragmented.
In order to defragment the “C” drive, select it in the list of drives and click on the “Disk Defragmentation” button.
After this, the defragmentation process will begin. The time it takes to defragment a disk depends on the amount of data defragmented and the speed of the disk itself. As a rule, this takes at least several hours.
In addition to manually starting defragmentation, you can use scheduled startup. To do this, in the “Disk Defragmentation” window, click on the “Enable Schedule” button.
After this, a small window “Disk defragmentation: change schedule” will appear in front of you. Here you need to enable the “Run on schedule” function and configure the schedule.
Defragmentation can be performed daily, weekly, or monthly. After setting the schedule, close all windows by clicking on the “OK” button.
Disk defragmentation using third-party programs
You can also defragment the disk using third party programs. Now there are many quality ones. The most popular free ones are Piriform Defragger, Auslogics Disk Defrag, MyDefrag, IObit Smart Defrag. Paid programs much more, the most famous of them are: O&O Defrag, Ashampoo Magical Defrag, Raxco PerfectDisk, Auslogics Disk Defrag Professional.
For example, consider the process of disk defragmentation using free program Auslogics Disk Defrag Free.
After launching the program, check the boxes next to the disks that you want to defragment and start analyzing them.
After analysis, the program showed that drive “C” was 46 percent fragmented. In order to defragment this disk, check the box and click on the “Defrag” button.
This is all that needs to be done, all that remains is to wait for the defragmentation process to complete.
Like a built-in defragmentation utility, Auslogics Disk Defrag Free allows you to defragment disks on a schedule. To do this, open the “Settings” menu and select “Scheduler”.
After this, a window with a defragmentation schedule will open. Here you need to enable the “Defragment automaticaly” function, select the defragmentation time and disks.
After this, Auslogics Disk Defrag Free will defragment automatically at the specified time.
To date find good program, which is also free, is not a problem for defragmenting your hard drive. All of them cope with their task quite effectively. It would seem that more is needed. Just a little - the ability to defragment individual specific files.
To make it clear, defragmentation is the movement of fragments of information scattered throughout the drive to neighboring areas. The benefits from it are undoubted. The read-write head does not need to make large jumps, which increases performance and reduces overall wear and tear on the drive itself.
Now to the question of why defragmentation of individual specific files is needed. Let's consider this example. The user does not indulge in experimental installation and removal of programs. Does not do video or photo editing. His main worker Microsoft tool Word. Which he uses one hundred percent. Every day creating dozens of new files, editing and copying existing ones, and so on.
As a result, the bulk of new fragments will be occupied by Microsoft files Word. So why defragment the whole hard drive, if you can limit yourself to office files.
How to defragment individual files.
To defragment individual files, there is also a free Contig utility. can be found on the manufacturer's website.
Unzip the utility. Since she doesn't have GUI, but works from command line, place a copy of the utility in a convenient location. In my opinion, the most convenient directory would be C:\Users\username. Why this one? Because when you start the command line, this parameter is specified automatically. All you have to do is add your parameters, this time for the Contig utility.
The basic syntax of the utility is: contig [-v] [-a] [-q] [-s] [filename].
Parameters:
- parameter [–v] displays information about file defragmentation operations performed by the utility
- parameter [-a] fragmentation analysis
- parameter [-q] switches the utility to hidden mode, only summary information is displayed
- parameter [-s] recursive processing of subdirectories.
Now let's set up a utility to defragment office files located in the "My Documents" directory. That is, all files with the .docx extension located in the folder will be defragmented.
contig -s C:\Users\username\Docunents\*.docx.
Another option for the utility is to create a new file that has already been defragmented during the creation process.
The syntax for creating such a file is: contig [-v] [-n filename length].
In this case, the utility for defragmenting individual files will itself find free space on the media and optimize the file in adjacent areas.
Devices for recording information need so-called optimization. First of all, this concerns the computer's hard drive, which can contain a huge amount of content. In Windows xp, the hard drive optimization procedure is based on 3 pillars: enabling dma mode, disk write caching and defragmentation.
If the first two parameters are already configured in the system by default, then the last of them always raises the question of how to defragment. Since it is this that requires periodic intervention from the user.
Process description
Before considering how to do defragmentation, we will describe the process of this procedure itself. Then we’ll look at the utilities built into xp and the auslogics software package, which also has a separate defragmenter application.
So, the above procedure has the following features. When the user launches it, it expects the result - speeding up the work with the computer and running everyday tasks.
On a hard drive, data is stored in small portions in sectors. A file or folder with files fits entirely within one sector. But over time, with the constant addition of new content to the HDD, these same objects shift relative to their original position in such a way that one part of a file or folder may be in the initial sector, and the remaining parts in other non-adjacent sectors. You end up with scattered pieces of content that take longer than usual to access.
Thus, in order to speed up reading data from disk and, therefore, reduce the time it takes to open an application or document, you need to combine these fragments. We will now look at how to do this using the example of a standard Windows xp utility - the defrag.exe program
This utility has and can be called through the working system management console - MMC. There are two ways to launch this console.
- In the “start” menu, open the “run” item, then enter mmc into the working command window, but I recommend doing something more wisely.
- Namely: right-click (touchpad) on the “computer” icon and select the “computer management” option.
- The control panel will open windows console, divided into two parts. In the one that is smaller and located to the left, we will finally see how to defragment.
- Select the item “disk defragmentation” and click on it. A window will open in which you can perform this procedure on specific hard drive partitions.
- Let's say we need to find out if there are additional fragments on the system partition WITH. Select the icon of this section by clicking the mouse and clicking “disk analysis”. The program will analyze the current state of the partition and display a detailed summary of whether defragmentation is needed for the selected volume.
- If the disk needs processing, click the “defragmentation” button and wait for the result. After completing the procedure, the application will display a report on the work performed. If some files could not be optimized, there may not be enough free space on the partition. Then, before defragmenting, free up additional space and then try again.
We use it for optimizationauslogics 5
The above set of programs was created to optimize Windows. The auslogics series 5 also includes a defragmenter. Here's how to defragment it using it (assuming that this complex is already installed):
- Launch the application using a shortcut on the Windows desktop.
- Click on the blue ball icon in the tray (near the clock).
- Right-click to sequentially use the submenu list “Tools” - “disk maintenance/defragmentation”.
- In the program window that opens, analyze or defragment partitions. The utility from auslogics has advanced capabilities when compared with the optimizer built into the system. Otherwise, its functionality is similar to the defrag.exe interface
