In the course of any given day most people feel the pressure to complete a particular assignment or task in a designated period of time. These situations can be work related, family related or just personal things that we need to complete in order to stay on top of things. We often look at these tasks and assess how long it will take us so that we can schedule our day accordingly. With time being so valuable it’s just a matter of practicing efficiency.
During the course of planning out our day we seldom take into account the little hiccups that could occur that could potentially hinder the completion of each of those tasks. As most of us know these hiccups are often unforeseen and typically result in things getting left undone.
Something as simple as a printer problem could cost somebody working on a presentation hours out of their day, a sick child might result in a parent sacrificing their day to head to the hospital, or a traffic jam on the way to the airport could result in a missed flight. These unplanned scenarios occur everyday and we find ourselves trying to squeeze an extra hours out of an already hectic day.
While life will always present these roadblocks that could hold us back from completing things in our timeframe there are plenty of examples of us wasting time without ever being fully aware.
A prime example of this relates to our computers. For the most part we believe our computers are a time saving method of gathering information, completing transactions or communicating with friends, family, customers, clients, etc. We’re usually of the belief that we need just a few minutes to find out background information about a company, purchase airline tickets or email a client but if we neglect the health of our computers these simple tasks can become time consuming practices in patience.
This is because our hard drives are breeding grounds for a computer disease known as fragmentation. This disease relates to the manner in which information is saved and stored on the hard drive and if we choose to ignore the problems that it presents then we could be in for a catastrophic crash.
Before the crash occurs we are given plenty of warning because a neglected hard drive will turn those simple tasks that we once completed quickly into frustrating battles to retrieve information. Anybody who has ever sat in front of a computer waiting for a page to load or a file to be retrieved knows the cost of lost time, usually it includes their sanity.
The delays that we sit through are directly related to the design of the hard drive. Getting back to the manner in which files are saved and stored, the hard drive is designed to place saved files in a contiguous order, meaning each time one is saved it is placed directly behind the last file saved. This is done to maximize space on the hard drive yet the problems that is causes far outweigh the benefits.
Each time a file is retrieved and modified it will no longer fit in the space that it originally occupied on the hard drive. The hard drive’s solution is to cut the excess information and save it in the next available space, thus creating a fragmented file. This means the next time you recall that file the hard drive will be forced to find both pieces that comprise the single file. While that may not sound that bad it is important to realize that a single file can be fragmented into thousands of pieces and the hard drive will have to find all of them before you see it on your screen.
This slowdown will be felt in all areas of your computer activity; things like booting up your system, loading pages and applications, retrieving files, accessing and sending email and browsing the Internet will all become problematic. Eventually the hard drive will become so bogged down with fragmented files that it will be incapable of completing any of the tasks and it will crash, costing you all of the important information that was once saved.
In order to prevent this crash and keep your computer moving at the speed that you desire it is important to protect the hard drive from these fragmented files. The solution is simple and only requires the installation of defragmentation software. By installing defrag software your hard drive will be scanned for the dangerous files and those files will be repaired and saved as a single unit.
Once the file is repaired and saved the hard drive can easily locate the information whenever it’s requested. This instantly gives you back the one thing that always seems to be lacking, time.
