Whats So Bad about Fragmentation?
Fragmentation causes the hard drive to work harder. A file saved without fragmentation is stored as one big chunk of data, and the system can load it into memory without having to hunt for it. A fragmented file, though, could be scattered across a hundred different areas of the hard drive, forcing the operating system and the drive’s read head to wander all across the drive, gathering up the bits and pieces. The system runs slower and the hard drive itself wears out faster. Defragmentation Hard drive defragmenting programs gather up all of the pieces of those scattered files. A good “defragging” program will organize the files on the drive so that the read head has to do as little work as possible when reading the file into memory. Since the file now exists as a single chunk, rather than far-flung bits of data across the drive, the read head and the operating system do not have to work anywhere near as hard, and the operating system runs faster and smoother.
