I was born in 1973, got my first computer in 1994, defragging was part of regular maintenance. I can’t remember the last time I defragged anything, even though I have several devices with hard drives, including a Windows laptop. Has storage technology changed so much that defragging isn’t necessary anymore? Is it even possible to defrag a smart phone hard drive?
edit to add: I apologize for posting this same question several times, I was getting an error message every time I hit “post”… but from looking around, it seems I’m not the only one having this problem today.
In: 821
A hard disk is fastest when reading sequentially (i.e. memory position 1, then 2, then 3 etc.), so defragging takes all the bits of data that should be together and puts them in a line. With an SSD, the read speed isn’t really affected by having the data spread out across the drive, so defragging won’t improve speed.
Side note as to why the data gets spread out in the first place: You start off writing stuff in order, but when you delete something it leaves a little gap. Next time you write something, you don’t want to leave that little gap unused, so part of the file goes there and part of it goes somewhere else. When your computer is writing and deleting loads of files, it quickly becomes a mess.
I was born in 1973, got my first computer in 1994, defragging was part of regular maintenance. I can’t remember the last time I defragged anything, even though I have several devices with hard drives, including a Windows laptop. Has storage technology changed so much that defragging isn’t necessary anymore? Is it even possible to defrag a smart phone hard drive?
edit to add: I apologize for posting this same question several times, I was getting an error message every time I hit “post”… but from looking around, it seems I’m not the only one having this problem today.
In: 821
A hard disk is fastest when reading sequentially (i.e. memory position 1, then 2, then 3 etc.), so defragging takes all the bits of data that should be together and puts them in a line. With an SSD, the read speed isn’t really affected by having the data spread out across the drive, so defragging won’t improve speed.
Side note as to why the data gets spread out in the first place: You start off writing stuff in order, but when you delete something it leaves a little gap. Next time you write something, you don’t want to leave that little gap unused, so part of the file goes there and part of it goes somewhere else. When your computer is writing and deleting loads of files, it quickly becomes a mess.
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