System Defrag

Often users complain that their system(s) has become slow and what once was "fast as lightning" has become "fast as snail" (the really slow kind). While the main problems usually involves the fact that users have installed criminal applications (also known as junk from internet), it can also be that their system has become severely fragmented.

Here's an easy way to think about fragmentation. Think of the computer as a real person. When you first start off on a clean slate on the computer, everything is organized. Think of that person (the computer) as having everything in their house organized: clothes neatly ironed and folded into drawers and hung in clothes, books put on book shelves, DVD's properly organized into their rightful places on the shelves, etc. Now think what happens after a person uses the computer for a while without ever cleaning up the computer. It's pretty much like what happens when a person doesn't clean their house and you have everything a mess. So now if that person was to try and pick up a DVD from a pile of disorganized collection that's sitting infront of the TV (not even put in the DVD cases, just out there on the floor in a pile), then it would take the person a little while to pick up each DVD and search to see if that DVD is the one he wants. Now Imagine when that house is so dirty, that the pile of DVD is mixed with a pile of books. Now take that pile and mix it with a pile of clothes so you have one huge pile of books, dvd's and clothes. Imagine trying to search through that for a single item.

Similarly, the computer organizes information into certain parts of your hard disk. But over time when the computer gets used, information gets disorganized on the hard disk. What happens then is that it takes longer for computers to function optimally . So take for example the time it takes for you to open a folder and have it's content's displayed. It would take long if the hard disk is severely fragmented.

So let's really get down to it: the operation required to "organize" your system is defragmenting. In windows, there's various tools. Two that usually pop into my head are Disk Keeper and Windows free Defragmentation program. Disk Keeper is a commercial application so it will run you down a few bucks, where as the Free one from windows is free (duh). What's the difference you may ask? (Well i'm telling you anyway even if you didn't ask!) The free one from windows is slow as a snail and when using it, you cannot perform any other operation with your PC or it will restart the process again and take ages. Disk Keeper is FAST and much more efficient.

The free one from windows can be found in Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools

Disk Keeper can be found at http://www.diskeeper.com/