Monday, February 7, 2011

Rearranging and Compressing Files for Increased Speed

Rearranging and Compressing Files for Increased Speed is the fifth post in a series of tips and advice on cleaning your sluggish computer.


Disk Defragmenter - Disk Defragmenter is a Utility included in Microsoft Windows designed to increase access speed by rearranging files stored on a disk to occupy contiguous storage locations, a technique commonly known as defragmenting. The purpose is to optimize the time it takes to read and write files to/from the disk by minimizing head travel time and maximizing the transfer rate. As of Windows XP, Disk Defragmenter is also used to improve system startup times. [Source: Wikipedia]


Before you begin defragmenting, you may want to go back and perform the Disk Cleanup steps given to you in the first post in this series How to Free Up Disk Space on Your Computer's Hard Drive. If you don't think it is necessary to repeat that step, at least empty your recycle bin before beginning this process. Emptying your recycle bin is a very simple process. Just follow these three steps: