Optimize Performance by Automatically Defragging on Idle

Hard drive speed is one of the biggest performance bottlenecks for computers today.  Because it's one of the few computer parts with physically moving parts, there are limitations in certain areas, such as how fast the drives can spin.  Hard drive performance hasn't kept up with many of the other technologies inside your computer, which makes optimization that much more important.  If your hard drive has fragmented files, it slows down the performance of your drive.

Until recently, I didn't recommend defragging very often because the difficulty and time required for running manual scans, but now I recommend Smart Defrag.  http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html

Smart Defrag automatically defragments your hard drive when it's idle.  And if you're going to be away from your computer for a few hours, run a 'Full Optimize' for maximum effect every few months.

So, what is defragging anyway?  If you've ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book, you know that at the end of each page you are presented with a couple of choices, and you continue reading by flipping to the page for that choice.  Likewise, when files are fragmented, your hard drive has to skip forward and backward to finish reading a file, which slows down performance.  Defragging fixes this problem by moving files so that they can be read sequentially.

Another advantage of defragging in the optimize mode, is that it places the most frequently used files first on the platter inside your hard drive.  Files that are optimized on the platter can be read up to twice as fast as other files, so you'll likely see slightly fast boot times, and other performance gains from frequently used applications.

Especially if you have had your computer for a while without running a defrag, the performance gains should be noticable.  Enjoy!