Howdy computin' sports fans! Yah .. I know, fashionably late .. again. .. I'm very sorry .. my Mom used to say .. "The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get." Some of the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray ... another saying-ism.
So, without further adieu, let's get right to it.
Back about 20 years ago, it was argued that defragging and/or optimizing did not make for much in significant return vis a vis your computer's performance improvement. But, that was when hard drive storage capacity was measured in megabytes. 10, 20 and 40 megabtyes was common; 80, 100, and 200 megabytes was considered pretty massively *filthy* with wide open space. And so the hard drive's read/write head did not have to traverse much platter area to assemble file pieces and quickly put them together in one piece in computer memory/RAM. But that didn't stop me from arguing the point that, at the electronic level, it did make a difference. And it certainly reduced mechanical wear on your computer's hard drive by doing less work; a *lot* less work.
Today .. we are well into the Gigabyte(s) capacities of hard drives. And, it is now possible to get drives rated in the Terabyte(s) sizes. >>> Quick reminder .. a Megabyte is 1,000 Kilobytes, or 1 *million* bytes; a Gigabyte is 1,000 Megabytes, or 1 *billion* bytes; a Terabyte is 1,000 Gigabytes, or 1 *trillion* bytes of data. <<<
So .. with all that vast *HUGE* amount of space .. we have larger file sizes, and larger total amounts of files all over the hard drives. The more the drive is used for saving and recalling of files, the more those files are broken up into smaller and more numerous pieces. Thus, as mentioned above, your computer's hard drive works progressively harder and harder, and takes longer and longer to assemble all the file pieces and get them into RAM where you see them displayed on your screen to use them.
So the answer to the title of this post. Yes, absolutely .. defrag. And optimize! I would suggest a frequency of about once a week if you consider yourself a major computer user. And if you are a light to moderate-type user .. perhaps once per month will do fine.
And, you may ask, just what is the difference between defragging and optimizing..?
I am just pleased as punch that you asked! Well .. err .. yeah, I asked for you, but the question may have logically crossed your mind .. so .. Anyway ..
Defragging .. is simply using a program/application to reassemble all the file fragments back into one-piece *contiguous* files. So that the hard drive read/write head can grab the entire file all in one quick seek.
Optimizing .. is defragging, *plus* rearranging all the files on the drive in priority order with respect to what files the computer needs to access either first, or most often.
You will notice a *significant* difference in overall performance of your computer as a result.
My 2 favorite defrag/optimize applications are: on the Mac side .. iDefrag. And on the PC side .. Auslogics Disk Defrag. They are both *free* and available for download at: http://www.download.com/ Both programs will give you a nice color-coded graphic of real-time file reassembly and priority placement. (Aulogics Disk Defrag image below; the red areas indicate files that are in a fragmented state; the green is defragmented)
And this is a *good* thing .. so you can see why this makes very practical sense. It actually extends the life of your hard drive to save you some green .. And you're actually being more *green-minded* by using less energy for file search and assembly after the process is done.
And speakin' o' green .. next posting .. I'll be expounding on some stuff you can do to be more *green-conscious* while using your computer and its peripherals (printers, scanners, modems, monitors, etc.) .. So you will be able to see how you can have a 'green machine'!
So .. until next time .. this is Ol' Doc CPU sayin' .. have a *deelishus* computin' Thanksgiving!
;-)
P.S. >>> If you find yourself in the Easley, SC area any Sunday between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. .. and feel like some good ol' fashioned *delicious* home cookin' buffet style at a really low price .. you might give some thought to stoppin' by my favorite restaurant out there.
Here's the website for the restaurant >>>http://www.sparrowsnest.com/sparrowmain.html Not only is the food made yummy fresh the same day, the dining rooms are an absolutely *beautiful* setting and wonderful environment to have a peaceful refreshing meal. Off the beaten path in a quiet country setting. And you just cannot beat the price for all you can eat. Check it out! It's where I get my vittles from .. and they don't pay me 1 cent to say this .. it's just that good!!
And they're doin' *Holiday Buffets* too! Jus' give 'em a call to make reservations for your Christmas Day Dining Delight! Home cookin' take out too!
;-)
