Tips and tricks

Tips and tricks

• Many users start looking for defragmentation/optimization programs when their computer becomes slow. The main reason for a slow computer is a full harddisk. A full harddisk is slow because the distance between files is greater than on a fresh practically empty harddisk. Deleting half the data on a full disk will just about double the speed. The more free diskspace, the faster your computer will be.
• Buy a second harddisk (for example an USB harddisk) and move little used stuff from your primary harddisk to that secondary harddisk. The second disk can also be used for backing up the primary disk.
• The first partition on a harddisk (usually the C: partition) is significantly faster than other partitions. Place your important programs on this first partition and try to use other partitions only for data that is used less often (such as music, movies, archives, backups, logfiles). From a speed perspective it is best to have only a single partition.
• When buying a new computer, buy the biggest harddisk you can afford. Investing in a bigger harddisk gives more speed-per-dollar than investing in a faster CPU or investing in more memory. The same amount of data on a bigger harddisk is faster because the data takes up less physical space, so the harddisk heads have to travel less distance.
• Cleanup old junk from your harddisk before running MyDefrag. You can clean Windows files with for example "Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup", or with something like the freeware  CCleaner program.
• Reboot before running MyDefrag. This will release files that are in use, so they can be defragmented and optimized.
• Boot into Windows safe mode by pressing F8 when booting, and then run MyDefrag. It will be slower because the Windows disk cache is off in safe mode, but MyDefrag will be able to process (a few) more files.
• Stop your real time virus scanner before running MyDefrag. Some virus scanners check all disk activity, making defragmentation and optimization very slow.
• Move the swap file to another volume, reboot, defragment, and move the swap file back. If you don't have a second volume then temporarily make the swap file small, for example 100Mb.
• Package unused files with a packager such as  7-zip. The packagefile not only takes less harddisk space, but will also defragment and optimize much faster than the individual files. Note: This does not apply to Windows NTFS compression, which will actually make defragmentation and optimization slower.
• If you have 2 physical harddisks of the same speed, then place the pagefile on the first partition of the second harddisk.