Would defragging my hard drive be recommended right now?

[Zales]

For some reason my computer runs games slower than it should, and the only thing that I haven't tried is defragging my hard drive.

Now, 2 things:
1 - Is this recommended?
2 - How do I do it? I know that there are guides on the internet but I want to make sure that it is accurate by having someone who has personally done it to clarify for me what I need to do.

Thank you in advance.

P.S. - I figured that I would say that I am on Windows 10.

[Omega]

1. No, you don't need to manually defrag. Windows already does that for you automatically.

2. This Computer > Rightclick any of the storage drives > Properties > Extra > Optimize
Now simply select the drive you wish to defrag from the list and press the button which says "Optimize".


- Don't download shady tools from the internet to defrag like most of those "guides" tell you to.
- Don't defrag solid state drives.

[OLDMAN🎅]

Windows Does Defragment SSDs, But It's Okay. You've likely heard before that you should never defragment your SSD. Conventional wisdom says not only do solid state drives not need defragging, doing so would cause unnecessary writes to the drive. This is only partially true
https://lifehacker.com/windows-does-defragment-ssds-but-its-okay-1666753409

[tacoshy]

Originally posted by Zales:

For some reason my computer runs games slower than it should, and the only thing that I haven't tried is defragging my hard drive.

Now, 2 things:
1 - Is this recommended?
2 - How do I do it? I know that there are guides on the internet but I want to make sure that it is accurate by having someone who has personally done it to clarify for me what I need to do.

Thank you in advance.

P.S. - I figured that I would say that I am on Windows 10.

If you really have a HDD defragging does not hurt but doesnt add much speed to it at all. If you use a SSD defragging is absolutly senseless and just drains life of the SSD.

If you have a slow PC because you collected to mcuh virtaul trash on it, then reinstall the OS.

[Omega]

Originally posted by OLD*MAN:

Windows Does Defragment SSDs, But It's Okay. You've likely heard before that you should never defragment your SSD. Conventional wisdom says not only do solid state drives not need defragging, doing so would cause unnecessary writes to the drive. This is only partially true
https://lifehacker.com/windows-does-defragment-ssds-but-its-okay-1666753409

Windows is not stupid and does NOT defrag SSDs.

[Carlsberg]

Nand storage that ssd's use has a finite life and each data cell can only be written to so many times and then its worn out, trimming cmd is used to delete data in unused cells so they can be reused by the OS. Defragging causes uneccessary writes to these cells and therefore decreases their life span. That being said i do not know about current ssd's because i have read that some tools claim their defragging can actually increase performance.

I always defrag HDD but for my SSD's which are Samsung i use Samsung Magician to optimise if i think its needed. (which may well do same thing i don't know).

[Omega]

Originally posted by Carlsberg:

Nand storage that ssd's use has a finite life and each data cell can only be written to so many times and then its worn out, trimming cmd is used to delete data in unused cells so they can be reused by the OS. Defragging causes uneccessary writes to these cells and therefore decreases their life span. That being said i do not know about current ssd's because i have read that some tools claim their defragging can actually increase performance.

I always defrag HDD but for my SSD's which are Samsung i use Samsung Magician to optimise if i think its needed. (which may well do same thing i don't know).

Defragging is simply moving data so it can be accessed in the most efficient way possible. A SSD does not need to spin a disk and move a read arm to read data. The access times will be the same on the SSD no matter where the data is stored. Defraging a SSD will not make it perform any better.

[Aliquis Freedom & Ethnopluralism]

Originally posted by Zales:

For some reason my computer runs games slower than it should, and the only thing that I haven't tried is defragging my hard drive.

Now, 2 things:
1 - Is this recommended?
2 - How do I do it? I know that there are guides on the internet but I want to make sure that it is accurate by having someone who has personally done it to clarify for me what I need to do.

Thank you in advance.

P.S. - I figured that I would say that I am on Windows 10.

Run afterburner or such and see if you have 100% load on cpu or gpu also check frequencies and temp for throttling. What spec do you have?

I kinda won't recommend defrauding because I doubt it will solve your problem but feel free to try. Do you have at least 10% free space on drive? If it's very full defragging will take even longer time.

Windows got its own utility for it. I guess you can just type defrag in the start menu. NTFS doesn't need it as much as FAT32 did though. And i doubt it's your problem.

[Astro_80 (WASH YOUR HANDS!)]

Originally posted by Zales:

For some reason my computer runs games slower than it should, and the only thing that I haven't tried is defragging my hard drive.

Now, 2 things:
1 - Is this recommended?
2 - How do I do it? I know that there are guides on the internet but I want to make sure that it is accurate by having someone who has personally done it to clarify for me what I need to do.

Thank you in advance.

P.S. - I figured that I would say that I am on Windows 10.

If the Hard Drive in question is Mechanical, then yes, you should defrag it at least once a month. Windows 10 will do it for you automatically at the time schedule you set, or you can just leave it at it's default configuration. For SSD's, DO NOT defragment them. They do not need it.

[Aliquis Freedom & Ethnopluralism]

Originally posted by Omega:

Originally posted by OLD*MAN:

Windows Does Defragment SSDs, But It's Okay. You've likely heard before that you should never defragment your SSD. Conventional wisdom says not only do solid state drives not need defragging, doing so would cause unnecessary writes to the drive. This is only partially true
https://lifehacker.com/windows-does-defragment-ssds-but-its-okay-1666753409

Windows is not stupid and does NOT defrag SSDs.

Can't it be about arranging partial writes into a page or whatever they call the larger sections into full ones to free complete ones and erase those once rather than have them erased and rewritten when.. things happen. For whatever reason.

[Squirrell]

Defrag only if you add and delete things frequently. That's what creates the fragmented structure. If you just load and rarely delete, then the drive won't be fragmented. Most defreggers do a pass to tell you if it's worthwhile.

[Arya]

There's clearly something else going on. A fragged drive shouldn't cause much of a slowdown.

Have you checked the Usual Suspects yet? Overheating, Malware and Obsolete Hardware?

[TehSpoopyKitteh]

Originally posted by Omega:

1. No, you don't need to manually defrag. Windows already does that for you automatically.

2. This Computer > Rightclick any of the storage drives > Properties > Extra > Optimize
Now simply select the drive you wish to defrag from the list and press the button which says "Optimize".


- Don't download shady tools from the internet to defrag like most of those "guides" tell you to.
- Don't defrag solid state drives.

^^^This

[EliteGamer]

In Windows 10, you don't defrag a SSD, you TRIM a SSD.

[Astro_80 (WASH YOUR HANDS!)]

Originally posted by EliteGamer:

In Windows 10, you don't defrag a SSD, you TRIM a SSD.

Right.

[stealthptr]

defrag will only increase disk speed, obviously.. so just load times. marginally.