Most people trust that their computer is properly secured from any dangerous attack that may cause serious damage. That trust could probably be better defined as wishful thinking because the majority of computer owners don’t take the necessary precautions to ensure their computers aren’t susceptible to potentially devastating, yet preventable, diseases. Rather than actually taking the steps to safeguard their hard drive they opt to bury their head in the sand and hope for the best.
Unfortunately that approach usually results in a painful lesson that could include a computer crash and the loss of all the files and documents that were stored on the hard drive.
What’s even more amazing about the number of preventable computer crashes is the fact that a computer gives plenty of warning signs that indicate a problem exists but they’re either not noticed or foolishly ignored.
One of the most obvious signs that a problem exists with the hard drive is a noticeable change in the computer’s reliability. For the most part a healthy computer is capable of carrying out requests and loading pages and applications in a quick manner but a computer that is showing signs of reliability issues will typically take longer to produce those same results. It is that slowdown that all computer owners should take notice of and quickly rectify.
This is because a slowdown in computer speed is often attributed to the computer disease known as fragmentation and when left untreated a hard drive crash is almost certain to follow.
Fragmentation is directly related to how a hard drive saves and stores files. A hard drive is designed to save and store these files in a contiguous order, meaning each time a file is created it is placed directly behind the last file saved and so on. While that may seem harmless, over time it will cause serious problems. These problems are born when an existing file is modified and re-saved. Because the edited file can not fit in the same space as the original file the hard drive is forced to cut the excess information and save it in the next available space, this is now a fragmented file.
Each time a file is recalled and modified it increases the amount of fragmented files on the hard drive and this in turn begins to affect the speed of the computer. This is because the hard drive can no longer just deliver a file when it is requested; it is now forced to look for all the fragmented pieces that comprise that file. That can be a lengthy process because a single file can be fragmented into thousands of pieces. When you keep in mind that a hard drive has countless files stored on it the problem of fragmentation becomes evident.
The most noticeable signs of fragmentation are related to the speed. If it is taking a long time to boot up the computer, if your experiencing delays in accessing and browsing the Internet, having difficulty loading pages and applications, or finding it hard to access and send emails then chances are your hard drive is carrying a dangerous amount of fragmented files. If the hard drive is forced to continue searching for fragmented files it will eventually burn itself out and crash, most likely causing the loss of everything that had been saved on it.
To combat the dangers of fragmentation every computer owner should install defragmentation software on their hard drive. This simple step will not only clean your hard drive of fragmented files but will protect the hard drive from a reoccurrence of fragmentation.
Once installed defragmentation software will scan the hard drive and find the scattered information that belongs together. Those fragmented pieces are then saved as a single file in one space, effectively organizing the hard drive and creating a more efficient manner in which the hard drive can locate information. Because the hard drive is no longer forced to search for fragmented pieces the speed of the computer is returned and the health of the computer is intact.
Defrag takes the stress off your hard drive and by doing this it adds years to the life of your computer. The added upside of defrag is it continues to work once it has been installed so the computer user doesn’t have to worry about constantly cleaning the hard drive, defragmentation software will do this automatically.
