As we use our Windows PC, we keep performing hundreds of file operations every single day. We copy files, move files, delete files and more. On a typical hard disk drive, the files that are removed leave behind empty space. When new files are copied, they occupy this free space. But if the file being copied is larger than the available continuous free space in one place, the file is continued from one place to another available free space. This creates fragments of the same file located in multiple places on the hard disk drive.
All of this happens at the disk level and the users do not notice anything. They can access the files as usual. But when a file is heavily fragmented, the hard disk drive take a little more time to access it. As this fragmentation happens more and more, the computer’s performance is impacted. You might notice that your Windows PC is taking a longer time to boot or it takes many seconds to open a simple Microsoft Word file.
There are some free tools like xDefrag which can be used to reverse the fragmentation of files on a hard disk drive. xDefrag is a free portable application for Windows which can defragment your files. This tool has a very easy to follow user interface.
We begin by selecting a drive from the drop-down listbox and then we have to choose a method such as normal optimization or maximum optimization. After this we can just click on the Defrag button to start the defragmentation process. The progress of the defragmentation is displayed in the window through a couple of progress bars.
The tool also displays very common folder near the top-edge of the window. We can click on any of these folders to defragment the files inside those folders. These folders are specifically listed as they are the ones used most of the file to store or access files.
You can download xDefrag from http://orion-tools.bplaced.net/enxdefrag.html.