No matter how powerful the rest of the components in your PC are, perhaps the biggest performance bottleneck that makes or breaks system speed may be its storage. Setting up a system with top-notch hardware is a good idea, but not upgrading your hard drive or replacing it with a faster SSD will only cause performance degradation over time. time.
The slowdown won't be noticeable at first, but as you start filling up that existing storage it's only a matter of time before your impressive setup starts to behave like a system built there. in 10 years. There is actually a misconception that empty disk space will speed up your PC. So let's clarify this doubt first-
Freeing up disk space does not speed up computers, but reduces the chances of file fragmentation
Novice computer system builders often receive a helping hand: Freeing up unnecessary disk space helps you move forward in revitalizing your system. Simply put, remove programs and other pieces of files that you don't use on a daily basis, and your PC will immediately work like you turned it on for the very first time.
The truth is, freeing up disk space doesn't really speed up your PC. Instead, leaving a small space untouched reduces the chances of file fragmentation, which is the main reason why your hard drive starts to act slowly after a few months. In short, file fragmentation is the real problem and if it is not checked regularly, it will slow down your computer without a second thought.
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What is file fragmentation and should I be concerned about it?
In the simplest possible definition, file fragmentation occurs when files are scattered around the hard drive instead of being present in one continuous location. Fragmentation ends up being caused when you delete files from your hard drive, and small storage gaps remain in order to free up space for new data to be written.
So when you write newer data and if that data is written to the fragmented part of the drive, those files will take longer to access when you try to open them. For example, you have just finished downloading a brand new movie and want to watch it, but the media player is taking longer than usual to start playing that movie.
It is the result of fragmentation; the other files in the defragmented part of the hard drive will continue to function normally, but the newer file will suffer from this drop in performance because there are no more blocks of free space.
If you cycle through the process of freeing up space by removing unwanted files and programs and adding new data, you will only add small block spaces, further contributing to fragmentation.
So how can you prevent fragmentation from slowing down your hard drive and your PC as a result?
There are many ways to increase overall system speed and none of them are even closely related to freeing up disk space. The easiest way is to upgrade your existing storage to a SATA SSD. With flash-based storage becoming cheaper and cheaper to make way for much faster and longer lasting NVMe PCIe SSDs, SATA drives will make your system much faster than a regular hard drive ever could.
However, SSDs still cost a lot more than regular hard drives, and if your budget isn't right for making a purchase, things like caching, hardware-level buffering, and Adjusting the values in the registry should be your next goal. We understand that these are complex operations, so let's start with something extremely simple.
For starters, don't run a lot of programs in the background, especially the ones you don't need. This ranges from antivirus and installed software that starts up when you see the login screen. Defragmenting your hard drive after a blue moon is also a very useful suggestion, but if you defragment your drive every week, it will end up doing more harm than good by reading the entire drive and reducing its duration. life.
The rule of thumb is that freeing up the drive isn't the reason your system speeds up suddenly, but keeping the storage as less fragmented as possible by not cycling between removing and installing files. data will help keep this sluggishness at bay.
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