Sometimes you might need to Optimize and Defragment Hard Disk Drive in Windows 10 when system refuses to boot in normal mode. Recovery environment lets open Command prompt using which you can run the defrag commands for the optimization. 1) Open the Start menu and Select Gear icon to open Settings app. If Windows 10 is defragmenting the hard disk according to the schedule then you don’t need to do anything. Keep in mind, you must not defrag Windows 10 if you are using a solid state drive(SSD). SSD is built on a different technology than mechanical HDD. Open the Control Panel on your Windows Computer. On the Control Panel screen, make sure you are in 'Category' view and then click on System. On System and Security Screen, click on Defragment and optimize your drives option located. On the next screen, select the Hard Drive that.
- Disk Defragmenter Windows 10 Passes
- Free Disk Defragmenter Windows 10
- Disk Defragmenter Windows 10 Filehippo
- Disk Defrag
- Defragment your Windows 10 PC. Optimizing your drives can help your PC run smoother and boot up faster. To optimize them: Select the search bar on the taskbar and enter defrag. Select Defragment and Optimize Drives. Select the disk drive you want to optimize. Select the Optimize button.
- Microsoft Windows operating system comes with a preloaded utility to defrag the Hard Drive. All you need to do is follow simple steps to initiate the disk defragmentation process. For Windows 7/8/10. Press Windows key + R to open Run box. Type in dfrgui (Windows XP: dfrg.msc) and click on ‘OK’.
- Disk Defragmenter in Windows 10/8. Now, by default, the defrag tool only defragments files smaller than 64 MB, for according to Microsoft’s benchmarks, fragments of this size, which already consist of at least 16000 contiguous clusters, have a negligible impact on performance.
HomeHow ToHow to Defrag Windows 10 in 2019 (A Complete Guide)
Windows 10 is the most popular desktop OS in the world right now and Microsoft is continuing to improve it. However, there is a growing perception among users that Windows is not on par with other operating systems and the performance deteriorates over time. It’s true to some extent as it does have some underlying issues like disk fragmentation, BSOD, and various other Windows-specific problems. In this article, I will discuss the problem of fragmentation and share some easy steps to defrag Windows 10. So without wasting any time, let’s first briefly understand what exactly defragmentation is.
What is Defragmentation?
To understand defragmentation, we need to begin with fragmentation first. In simple terms, fragmentation is a process of spreading data across different sectors of the hard disk. It usually happens when there is no contiguous block of memory available to store a file. In such situations, the file is split into several data chunks and spread across different blocks of the hard drive. And defragmentation is, you guessed it right, a process to bring the scattered pieces of data at one place.
Fragmentation is not much of a problem if you have an ample amount of free storage on your PC. However, when there is a space constraint, it becomes harder for the hard drive to allocate data in contiguous blocks. The problem becomes worse when files are moved, deleted or modified from the hard drive over a long period of time.
In such cases, the data is spread across different sectors of the hard drive. It essentially means, the hard drive takes a long time to access the scattered data bringing the read/write speed and overall performance down. So we should defrag Windows 10 periodically so that chunks of files are kept closer to each other. And as a result, it will speed up your Windows PC.
Should You Defrag Windows 10?
Of course, you should. However, Windows 10 automatically defragments the hard disk every week. And the good thing is that it’s turned on by default. Whenever Windows finds your PC is sitting idle, it runs a scheduled task in the background which defragments Windows 10. If you want to check when was the last time your hard disk was defragmented, press Windows and R key at once and type dfrgui. Now, hit enter.
It will open the Defragmentation window. Here, you can check the details of the last defragmentation under the “Last run” label. If Windows 10 is defragmenting the hard disk according to the schedule then you don’t need to do anything.
Keep in mind, you must not defrag Windows 10 if you are using a solid state drive(SSD). SSD is built on a different technology than mechanical HDD. SSDs have limited read/write count and regular defragmentation will further decrease its lifespan. So you should absolutely NOT defrag Windows 10 if you are using an SSD. To find out the type of memory storage, open the Run window again by pressing Windows and R key. After that, type dfrgui and hit enter. Here, under the “Media type” label, you will find the required information.
Disk Defragmenter Windows 10 Passes
Having said that, if you are not happy with the scheduled defragmentation or want to manually defrag Windows 10 then move to the next section to learn about the steps in detail.
Defragment Windows 10
If you want to manually defrag Windows 10 then here are the three different ways to do it. You can choose any of them based on what you find convenient. So without wasting any time, here we go.
1. Defrag Windows 10 with the Inbuilt Tool
As we already know there is an inbuilt tool to defragment Windows 10. Here, we will learn how to manually analyze the hard disk and then defragment it. You can also configure various settings related to defragmentation. Here are the steps to do it.
1. Open the Run window by pressing Windows and R key simultaneously. Here, type dfrgui and hit enter.
2. In this window, select the drive you want to defragment and click on the “Optimize” button. In case, you want to defragment the whole hard disk, select all the hard drives at once and click on the “Optimize” button.
3. Windows will start the defragmentation process. Do note that the time to complete the process will depend on how long you have been using your PC. You will get a better idea of the degree of fragmentation under the “Current Status” label. The lower it is, the better.
4. Also, if you want to configure automatic defragmentation, then click on “Change Settings” under Scheduled Optimization. Here, you can change the frequency to daily, weekly or monthly. Also, you can choose the specific drives to be automatically defragmented. That’s how you can defrag Windows 10 without any third-party software.
2. O&O Defrag
If you found the inbuilt Windows Defragmenter tool unreliable then O&O Defrag is a great alternative. It is a popular defragmentation tool for both beginners and advanced users. You can simply click on “Optimize all” and it will begin the defragmentation process for all the drives. You can also click on “Analysis” to get a better idea of fragmentation. The great thing about O&O Defrag is that you can visually understand the memory fragmentation through pie charts and Disk Stats. It also shows allocated and available memory blocks. In addition, you get scheduled defragmentation similar to the native tool on Windows 10. All in all, if you are dealing with a high volume of memory storage with insufficient space then this utility can help you a lot in defragmenting the hard disk.
Install O&O Defrag (Free, Premium version at one-time purchase of $29.95)
3. Other Third-party Defragmenters
The inbuilt tool on Windows 10 and O&O Defrag should be enough for you. However, if you are still looking for an alternative, then Defraggler and Auslogics Disk Defrag are two popular choices out there. Both the utilities are pretty good and do the job sufficiently well. You have a one-click button to initiate defragmentation process.
There are a few modes available on Auslogics Disk Defrag which I found interesting. Among many other things, you can run the defragmenter stealthily in the background without slowing down your PC. If you are using a hard disk without much space, this mode can help you combat fragmentation in real-time. So to sum up, if you want to defrag Windows 10 without any fuss, both the utilities are pretty good and you can choose either of them.
Install Defraggler (Free, Premium version at one-time purchase of $24.95)
Install Auslogics Disk Defrag (Free, Premium version at one-time purchase of $16.47)
SEE ALSO: How to Speed up Windows 10 in 2019 [Effective Methods]
Defrag Windows 10 and Speed Up Your PC
As we went through the article, we can see that fragmentation is no longer an issue on Windows 10 since automatic defragmentation has become a part of the OS. Still, if you want to manually defragment Windows 10 then you can very well go ahead and do it. Also, you can use O&O Defrag if you want to dive deeper into the sectors of the hard disk. To conclude, this was our short guide on how to defragment Windows 10. If you liked the article and want to learn more about Windows 10, you can let us know in the comment section below.
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(Redirected from Disk Defragmenter (Windows))
Other names | Disk Defragmenter |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Microsoft |
Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
Type | Defragmentation software |
License | |
Website | www.microsoft.com.br |
Microsoft Drive Optimizer (formerly Disk Defragmenter) is a utility in Microsoft Windows designed to increase access speed by rearranging files stored on a disk to occupy contiguous storage locations, a technique called defragmentation. Defragmenting a disk minimizes head travel, which reduces the time it takes to read files from and write files to the disk.[1] Beginning with Windows XP, Microsoft Drive Optimizer also reduces system startup times.[citation needed]
From Windows 8, the program was renamed to Microsoft Drive Optimizer, with some references changed to say Defragment and Optimize Drives or simply Optimize Drives.
Early history[edit]
As early as the end of 1982, the IBM PC DOS operating system that shipped with early IBM Personal Computers included a Disk Volume Organization Optimizer to defragment the 5¼-inch floppy disks that those machines used. At this time, Microsoft's MS-DOS did not defragment hard disks. Several third party software developers marketed defragmenters to fill this gap. MS-DOS 6.0 introduced Microsoft Defrag.[2]Windows NT, however, did not offer a Defrag utility, and Symantec was suggested by others as a possible alternative for the utility.[3]
Initial releases of Windows NT lacked a defragmentation tool. Versions through Windows NT 3.51 did not have an application programming interface for moving data clusters on hard disks.[4] Executive Software, later renamed Diskeeper Corporation, released Diskeeper defragmentation software for Windows NT 3.51,[4] which shipped with a customized version of the NT kernel and file system drivers that could move clusters.
Microsoft included file system control (FSCTL) commands to move clusters in the Windows NT 4.0 kernel,[4] which worked for both NTFS and FAT32 partitions. However, Windows NT 4.0 did not provide a graphical or command-line user interface.[4]
Debut[edit]
Disk Defragmenter also shipped as part of Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me. It could be scheduled using a Maintenance Wizard and supported command line switches.[5] This version had the limitation that if the contents of the drive changed during defragmentation, it rescanned the drive and restarted the process from where it left off.[6]
The Disk Defragmenter in Windows 2000 was a stripped-down licensed version of Diskeeper, licensed from Diskeeper Corporation. It uses the following techniques:[4]
- Moving all the index or directory information to one spot. Moving this spot into the center of the data, i.e. one third of the way in, so that average head travel to data is halved compared to having directory information at the front.
- Moving infrequently used files further from the directory area.
- Obeying a user-provided table of file descriptions to emphasize or ignore.
- Making files contiguous so that they can be read without unnecessary seeking.
Free Disk Defragmenter Windows 10
In Windows 2000 and later operating systems, Microsoft Drive Optimizer has the following limitations:
- It does not defragment files residing in the Recycle Bin or files that are in use.[7] In particular, this includes the registry, page file and hibernation file.
- Prior to the Windows Vista release, only one volume could be analyzed or defragmented at a time and only one instance could run.[8]
- Only local volumes can be defragmented; network volumes are not supported.[8]
- The GUI version prior to Windows Vista cannot be scheduled. However, the command line utility since Windows XP and later can be scheduled.[citation needed]
- Unlike previous versions, the GUI version in Windows Vista does not display a map of disk fragmentation, nor does it display progress during defragmentation.[citation needed]
In addition, the Windows 2000 version has the following limitations which were removed in Windows XP:[8]
- Defragmenting NTFS volumes with cluster sizes larger than 4 kilobytes (KB) is not possible.
- It is not possible to perform fine-grained movement of uncompressed NTFS file data in Windows 2000. Moving a single file cluster also moves the 4 KB part of the file that contains the cluster.
- EFS encrypted files are not defragmented.
Windows XP and Server 2003[edit]
Windows Disk Defragmenter was updated to alleviate some restrictions.[9] It no longer relies on the Windows NT Cache Manager, which prevented the defragmenter from moving pieces of a file that cross a 256KB boundary within the file. NTFS metadata files can also be defragmented. A command-line tool, defrag.exe, has been included,[10] providing access to the defragmenter from cmd.exe and Task Scheduler. In Windows XP, if the Master File Table (MFT) is spread into multiple fragments, defrag.exe and the GUI version can combine the MFT fragments during defragmentation.[11]
Windows Vista and Server 2008[edit]
In Windows Vista, Disk Defragmenter includes an option to automatically run at scheduled times using Task Scheduler and uses low CPU priority and the newly introduced low priority I/O algorithm so that it can continue to defrag using reduced resources (less CPU and disk read/write activity) when the computer is in use. The user interface has been simplified, with the color graph, progress indicator, disk analysis and fragmentation information being removed entirely.
If the fragments of a file are over 64 MB in size, the file is not defragmented if using the GUI; Microsoft has stated that this is because there is no discernible performance benefit since the time seeking such large chunks of data is negligible compared to the time required to read them.[12] The result, however, is that Disk Defragmenter does not require a certain amount of free space in order to successfully defrag a volume, unlike performing a full defragmentation which requires at least 15% of free space on the volume. The command line utility, Defrag.exe, offers more control over the defragmentation process, such as performing a full defragmentation by consolidating all file fragments regardless of size.[13] This utility can be used to defragment specific volumes or to just analyze volumes as the defragmenter would in Windows XP.
Disk Defragmenter is maintained by Microsoft's Core File Services. The Windows Vista version has been updated in Windows Vista SP1 to include the improvements made in Windows Server 2008. The most notable of these improvements is that the ability to select which volumes are to be defragmented has been added back.[14]Notably, the Windows Vista defragmenter is much more effective than the version included with XP.[15]
Windows 7 and later[edit]
Windows 7 reintroduces the analyze function and showing percent complete of the defragmentation, both of which were removed in Windows Vista. It can also defragment multiple volumes simultaneously.
According to Scott Hanselman of Microsoft, Windows 7 and later do defragment a solid-state disk (SSD) but in a completely different way. There is less incentive for defragmentation of SSDs because file fragmentation has less performance impact on them and they handle a finite number of storage cycles before their lifespan expires. However, file systems cannot support infinite file fragmentation as they reach their metadata limit. In addition, Microsoft Drive Optimizer is also responsible for performing the TRIM command on SSDs.[16]
See also[edit]
Disk Defragmenter Windows 10 Filehippo
References[edit]
Disk Defrag
- ^'How to make a computer faster: 6 ways to speed up your PC'. Microsoft at work. Microsoft. Retrieved 2011-11-07.
- ^Wolverton, Van (2003). Running MS-DOS Version 6.22 (20th Anniversary Edition), 6th Revised edition. Microsoft Press. ISBN0-7356-1812-7.
- ^'How do I run Microsoft Defrag?'. Computer Help. Computer Hope. Retrieved 2011-11-07.
- ^ abcdeRussinovich, Mark (20 March 2007). 'Inside Windows NT Disk Defragmenting'. TechNet. Microsoft. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
- ^Windows 95 Defrag.exe Command-Line Parameters
- ^Description of the Disk Defragmenter Tool in Windows 98/Me
- ^Disk Fragmentation and System Performance
- ^ abcDisk Defragmenter Limitations in Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003
- ^Russinovich, Mark; David Solomon (2005). 'Memory Management'. Microsoft Windows Internals (4th ed.). Microsoft Press. p. 728. ISBN0-7356-1917-4.
- ^'Description of the new command line Defrag.exe included with Windows XP (MSKB283080)'. Microsoft. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
- ^How NTFS reserves space for its Master File Table (MFT)
- ^Disk Defragmenter FAQs
- ^'Disk Defragmenter'. User Guide. Windows Vista User Guide. 27 January 2007. Archived from the original on 13 February 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-27.
- ^Disk Defragmenter in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008
- ^'21 Essential Steps to Make Your PC Better/Faster/Stronger – Page 4'. Maximum PC. Future. 2009-05-28. Archived from the original on 22 June 2011.
- ^Hanselman, Scott (3 December 2014). 'The real and complete story - Does Windows defragment your SSD?'. hanselman.com. Sef-published. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microsoft_Drive_Optimizer&oldid=916918754'