What exactly does defragmenting a Windows PC’s hard drive do, and how is it beneficial to the system?

Question

And do Mac systems do this automatically?

EDIT: and does this apply to SSD’s?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Mac’s don’t need to be defragmented. It comes down to how the files are stored. Windows likes to write files right next to each other. Then if a file grows it has to be split up (because it’s sandwiched by 2 other files). This can cause slow reading since the drive has to find multiple parts of the file. Think of it like taking notes on a sheet of paper. If you write single spaced and really close together it’s hard to go back and add in more information.

Other operating systems don’t put the files so close together. They’re much more spread out on the disk. This means when a file needs to expand it usually has plenty of room to do so. Going back to the notes analogy, this is like double spacing so you can make future edits to your notes.