Rule of Thumb: Defrag Daily

Earlier in the week Microsoft’s site had featured an article on their landing page, 4 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer's Performance. In the article Microsoft mentions the problem of disk fragmentation, describing how it creates “significantly longer” system response times. They also mention the rule of thumb to defrag your system monthly and whenever:

• A large number of files are added.


• Free disk space nears 15 percent.


• New programs or a new version of Windows is installed.

If you look through the history of Microsoft updates alone you’ll notice that a lot of weeks 3 or 4 updates come out. Sometimes as many as 11-18 patches need to be installed in a given week! Add to this all the installs and updates needed for other application software and you’re talking about a lot of defrag jobs!

Additionally some systems are constantly pushing the 15% free space mark. And users doing things such as web or software development, graphic design or many other tasks are routinely creating lots of files.

Microsoft is doing a great thing by promoting ways to speed up systems and educating the public on the problem of disk fragmentation. Instead of trying to maintain a monthly defrag schedule and then doing additional defrag jobs when all of these common events occur each week, one should just stick with this rule of thumb: defrag daily.