| It's difficult to imagine contemporary life without personal computers. Their use has facilitated the life of people – a deal of mechanical work is performed by these machines. What's more, almost everybody in developed countries possesses a computer. We use computers for work and for amusement, to learn what's going on in the world and to communicate with people. Ways to use personal computers are diverse. When you get a computer it becomes your assistant in practically everything you do.
Computer industry is developing quickly. Modern technologies are invented every day. You shouldn't be an expert in computer branch to enjoy all the benefits of technical progress. But still, permanent computer users need to have an idea how it works to guarantee maximum performance of their computers.
When it comes to storing files on your PC you have probably heard the term fragmentation. If there is not enough free space to save the file as a whole unit, the system fills the gaps between other files with the parts of the file being written to the computer. The appearance of these gaps takes place when the system marks certain files as deleted and when there is excess space for the files at the beginning. Fragmentation leads to substantial loss in performance because the movement of the HD's read/write heads is much slower. That's the reason why regular defragmentation is highly advised.
Defragmentation represents a procedure of reducing the amount of fragmentation. This result is obtained by organizing the contents of the hard disk to keep the pieces of every file close to each other. Defragmentation also includes the procedure of compaction with an attempt to create larger areas of free space.
There are specialized defragmentation utilities designed to increased the performance of your computer. The process of defragmentation can take 15 minutes or a few hours depending on the speed of your hard drive disk and the amount of data kept on it. Take into consideration that this process can't be interrupted to ensure that all the data are saved. Regular defragmentation ensures high performance of your personal computer. |