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
Fragmentation on a hard disk still creates the same issues with slowed speeds as it did in the past. Modern disks are so much faster that a moderate level of fragmentation might not be noticed. Full defragmentation of a multi-terabyte disk would take too long and cause some wear on it. Hard disks are usually used for large multimedia files like video and music, which are copied in large blocks and rarely rewritten, and their level of fragmentation is therefore low.
Portable computers and many desktops today include solid-state Flash Memory instead of a hard disk. Data allocation on it is managed internally with intent to spread wear and allow speeds utilizing multiple chips. Flash memory can be written to a limited number of times before they fail. Defragmenting this storage device would not improve performance.
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
Fragmentation on a hard disk still creates the same issues with slowed speeds as it did in the past. Modern disks are so much faster that a moderate level of fragmentation might not be noticed. Full defragmentation of a multi-terabyte disk would take too long and cause some wear on it. Hard disks are usually used for large multimedia files like video and music, which are copied in large blocks and rarely rewritten, and their level of fragmentation is therefore low.
Portable computers and many desktops today include solid-state Flash Memory instead of a hard disk. Data allocation on it is managed internally with intent to spread wear and allow speeds utilizing multiple chips. Flash memory can be written to a limited number of times before they fail. Defragmenting this storage device would not improve performance.
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