Just like its predecessor, Windows 11 also regularly optimizes all the connected storage drives. The optimization for hard disk drive includes defragmentation of all the fragmented files. Similarly, optimization for the solid state drives Windows 11 runs the “retrim” command. Basically both of the processes, whether it is defragmenting or retrimming, improve the performance of the storage drives and make it faster.
By default, Windows 11 is set to run the optimization of the storage drives everyday. But if you think it is too much optimization then you can change the drives optimization schedule on Windows 11. Here is how:
- Open Windows File Explorer and find the drive for which you want to change the optimization settings.
- Right-click on the target drive letter and choose Properties.
- In the drive property window, switch to the Tools tab and then click on the Optimize button.
- In the window that opens, click on the Change Settings button under the Scheduled Optimization section.
- From the new smaller window that opens, you can choose the frequency of how often the optimization is carried out. We can choose from daily, weekly, or monthly from the frequency list box.
- We can also click on the Choose button next to a drive to choose the drives included in scheduled optimization. We can choose all the drives or one or more drives from a list box. Click on the OK button to save the settings and close all the windows that opened in this process.
It is recommended that for the hard disk drives, you should choose daily optimization and for the solid state drives, you can set it to weekly or even monthly. You can also completely turn off scheduled optimization if you don’t want any optimization done on disk drives or solid state drives. But it is better to leave it enabled as optimization of the drives only improves the overall performance of the PC.