Optimize Computer Performance—Should I Defragment the Disk Regularly?

In fact, it is without question that it is necessary for you to clean up the hard disks regularly. However, if there are few file fragmentations in the disk, but you still continue to defragment hourly, it is harmful to the hard disk and reduces the its usage. It is true that defragmentation may harm the hard disks, but on the precondition that you have defragmenting billions of times.

Actually, in most cases, regular defragmentation can lessen the abrasion in the hard disk. So, the usage of hard disks, which you defragment once a month or so, is definitely longer than that of you never clean up.

Of course, if you perform such operations excessively, it does harm to your hard disk. Because when defragmenting, it has to conduct in-depth analysis to the disk to decide which data can be removed or not, and then categorize the files. Before arranging such data formally, it may read and write data to other clusters. All of these operations take up a large number of CPU and disk resources.

I think the frequency of defragmentation can not only be judged by the time but also rely on the size of fragment files in the disk. If there are excessive fragment files, it can slow down the read-write speed of files and weaken the computer performance as well. This is the intangible loss of your computer.

All in all, as you are a computer fan, you have to defragment the disk regularly, like once a week or month. It can definitely optimize your computer.