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Salute Defrag

Meg A. Byte, a pseudonym for technology writer, educator, and educational technology consultant Constance Bleiler, is Education World's technology expert.

Dear Meg A. Byte,
I heard a tech expert on the radio tell listeners that they should regularly "defrag" their systems. What does defrag mean, and how do I do it Is there anything else I should be doing regularly to optimize the performance of my computer?
A Bit Confused

Dear A Bit,
Though it's very cliche, it's better to be proactive than reactive. I commend you for wanting to keep your computer operating at its peak. Defragmenting (or defragging) your hard drive is a good place to start.

To understand defragging, it's necessary to understand how a computer saves data. Every time you update (save) a file, the computer places it in the largest continuous space on the hard drive. Often, an update is stored in a different location than the original is. Although all components of the file are available, they are stored separately, and thus the file is fragmented. Each time you access the file, the computer must search the hard drive to find all the file's parts. The search slows down the response time.

Defragging reorganizes the file parts so they are all stored in a common, contiguous area on the hard drive. Because the pieces are stored together, the computer can access them faster.

Windows includes a defragger with its OS (operating system). Mac defraggers must be purchased separately.

A few additional maintenance tasks will also help keep your computer running well. Run Scan Disk (Windows 98) to check for file errors and Disk Cleanup (Windows 98 and 2000) to clean up rogue files on the hard drive. Both these utilities will identify and clean up files that were corrupted when your system froze or when you had to reboot because of a glitch. Windows includes Scan Disk and Disk Cleanup as part of the standard OS. Mac does not; you'll need to buy a third-party utility.
Meg