teach-ict.com logo

THE education site for computer science and ICT

3. Defragmentation utility

Files are stored in memory. On a hard disk, memory is divided into chunks called 'sectors'.

When a file needs to be stored, the operating system looks for free sectors on the disk. However, these sectors are rarely sequential (i.e. next to one another), instead they are usually scattered in different places across the hard disk.

hard disk

If a file is broken up ("fragmented") across too many separate memory sectors, it becomes difficult for the hard disk to access all of the pieces of a file in a timely manner. This can make the computer appear to be running slowly.

To prevent this, defragmentation utilities juggle the contents of memory sectors around to keep files together as much as possible. This ensures that the computer runs quickly and efficiently.

 

Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: Hard disk defragmentation