Over time, your computer’s hard drive becomes fragmented from actions such as adding and deleting files and programs. As it becomes fragmented, the computer becomes slower accessing files and programs and it results in a slower computer.

Think of your computer’s hard drive as a bookcase full of books. At first, all the books are neatly placed in order either by category or alphabetically.  As you take books out to read them, add new books, and throw some out, inevitably some books get placed back in the wrong place and gaps appear where books have been thrown out. As this occurs finding a book becomes more difficult and takes more time to find. The same thing occurs to the hard drive on your PC. To make it easier and faster to find the books, it’s important to reorganize the books on your bookshelf once in a while. On a computer, this process is known as defragmenting or ‘defragging’ for short.

All recent versions of Windows have come with their own built in defragmenting utility but they can be very slow and sometimes not as intuitive. It’s still good to run the Windows version if you are willing to leave the system on for a while but it tends to feel like a chore to get it to run. As such, I’d like to introduce a freeware alternative to use on a more frequent basis. The program is called ‘Disk Defrag’ and is by a company called Auslogics. The program is very simple to use, works quite quickly, and best of all, free. So let me show you just how simple it is to use the program. You’ll need to first download the program from the link below:

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/download

If you need help installing the program, just click back on the link above and read on further down the page.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the program, click on the program icon to get it running. You should be presented with the screen below:

Disk Defrag - Main Page

So before proceeding further, let’s take a look at the ‘Settings’ options which can be accessed by the link to the upper right of the window.

Disk Defrag - Settings

On the ‘General’ tab, it allows you the option of changing the language. It’s a straightforward option so let’s look at the ‘Defragmentation’ tab. You’ll want to place a check mark in ‘Remove temporary files before fragmenting’. It removes temporary files from C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp (or C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp), and C:\Windows\Temp and helps improve the defragmenting time. There is also an option to ‘Display removable drives’ allows you to defrag memory sticks and other removable media.  I would recommend you check this option if you have large memory sticks as they can benefit from being defragmented. You can also select the level of CPU usage depending on if you plan on using the computer while it’s defragmenting and set it accordingly. Once you’re done, click ‘OK’.

Once back at the main page, select the disk you want to defragment and click ‘Next’. You’ll see the following screen showing the progress of the defragmentation process.

Disk Defrag - Defragmenting

The system I’m using for an example is a still quite clean as it’s just recently been reinstalled with XP, so the above is only intended as a sample of what the defragging process looks like.

Disk Defrag - Defragmentation Complete

The above screenshot shows the system reporting back the end result of the defragmentation of the drive. Hopefully, you’ll see an improvement in the performance of your computer upon completion of the defragmentation of the drive. As to how often you should defragment the system, it goes back to the analogy of the books in the bookcase that I presented at the start of the article. If you’re using and throwing out books on a frequent basis, it’s better you do it more frequently.

Finally, in regards to the program, there are a couple notable limitations. One, it requires contiguous space on a hard drive to move large files, and secondly it does not defragment the MFT.  The developers have stated on the website that they do plan on addressing this in future releases. If you’re looking for a more robust solution and don’t mind paying a few dollars for it, I would recommend PerfectDisk by Raxco Software.