Category: Hard Drives

Schedule a Defragmentation for your Hard Drive

Defragmentation Schedule

While most people are thinking of upgrading their computer, it remains that several preventive maintenance measures such as the usual hard drive defragmentation are still reliable if you sometimes wonder why your computer suddenly slows down. Similar to the old practices, we cannot avoid system crashes or sudden cases of lost files owing to unforeseen circumstances such as power failures or forced rebooting.

These instances are the main reasons why lost fragments are often present in computers. Improper shutdown of your computer will always provide problems and most of the time they will be identified once your computer starts to slow down.

We can always take the fast way out. Placing additional memory chips or upgrading to a higher processor is a good idea. But do remember, they are alternatives that you can save on if you think logical. Sometimes the problem is not in the hardware but the people-ware who do not know the standard means of maintaining their computer system.

It would be wise to schedule your defragmentation practices. They can really do a lot to improve your operating system and make sure that you get the best performance for your computer.

Defragmenting your hard drive is the process of putting all the scattered pieces of files back together. Microsoft Windows XP includes a tool that will defragment your hard drive for you. To keep your system performing well, it’s a good idea to have Windows XP automatically defragment your hard drive every week.

(Source) Microsoft

Windows Vista : Superfetch Explained

Now to set the ball rolling.. What is Superfetch?

According to Microsoft

SuperFetch

Windows SuperFetch enables programs and files to load much faster than they would on Windows XP–based PCs.

When you’re not actively using your computer, background tasks—including automatic backup programs and antivirus scans—run when they will least disturb you. These background tasks can take up system memory space that your programs had been using. On Windows XP–based PCs, this can slow progress to a crawl when you attempt to resume work.

SuperFetch monitors which applications you use the most and preloads these into your system memory so they’ll be ready when you need them. Windows Vista also runs background programs, like disk defragmenting and Windows Defender, at low priority so that they can do their job but your work always comes first.

To make the Story short, SuperFetch analyzes your behavior what programs you use often, then caches it and loads to memory for a faster loading next time you you use that specific program. And team it up with ReadyBoost expect a memory boost because it draws memory by extending Superfetch’s memory management by drawing available memory from a USB 2.0 flash drive to ensure that there is enough memory is available for optimum system and program performance.

Samsung Announces 64GB Flash-Based Hard Drive

Here’s some good news for laptop enthusiasts and modders. Samsung has recently announced its latest 1.8-inch solid-state disc (SSD) with capacities up to 64 Gigabytes. Sure, you can get hundreds of gigs’ worth with today’s laptop hard drives. But with this one, you get the advantage of solid state technology. This means lower power consumption, and less likelihood of moving parts crashing. And it’s reportedly faster than regular laptop 5400 RPM or even 7200 RPM hard drives.

Samsung_1 (Custom).jpg

The SSD is based on an 8-gigabit and single-level cell NAND flash technology, which means it should outperform traditional flash-based solid-state technologies. The read and write speeds have improved by 20% and 60% respectively, compared to the 32GB SLC-flash based drives that Samsung introduced in 2006.

Samsung also foresees that aside from being ideal laptop hard drives, these SSDs would likewise be ideal storage solutions for other mobile devices like PDAs, digital camcorders and personal navigation systems. Once Samsung develops hundred gigabyte-level SSDs, these will also be marketed for use with servers. These hard drives are meant to be drop-in replacements, meaning they can be plugged in to existing laptop parallel ATA ports.

Samsung plans to begin production of the 64GB SSD by second quarter of this year.

Mounting hard drives backwards?

case.jpgReading through my favorite pc forum sites, I encountered this thread about mounting your hard disk drives backwards .For many casual PC users the concept of mounting a hard drive backwards may sound very strange and even impractical. First of all, practically everyone has seen hard drives inserted only one way, with the pins sticking out into the inside of the case and not facing the front of the case. For them, the very idea alone will be quite hard to grasp. Secondly, with the pins facing the front of the case, it will be virtually impossible to get at the pins and cables without physically removing the hard drive from the hard drive bays – a very cumbersome task.

But why do PC case modders do this? For the very simple reason of better cable management. By actually putting the hard drive backwards all of the pins will be hidden by the drive bay and the front of the case, what you end up seeing is the front of the hard drive itself which is just one smooth and level piece. From an aesthetic point of view, it is a definite winner. I have seen a modded case that used this kind of solution and it really does look pretty. Additionally, putting the cables at the front allows for more creative solutions to actually hide those cables from view, which results in a very clean looking case. I have seen one modder do this and he was able to manage the cable in such a way that at first look you would think he was not using any cables except the wires that run from the PSU to the motherboard. It looked absolutely awesome.

A good newbie resource

006.jpgI have always contended that there should always be a way to make it easier for a person to do research or to find the information that he needs without jumping from one website to another. The most rudimentary of researchers will already tell you that researching for needed information is not as easy as it looks. When you research on the internet you need to employ so many skills. You need analytical skills in order to think of the best words and phrases you can use as search strings for your research. After you have received the results, you will need to use your detective skills in order to pinpoint the information that you will really need amidst the tremendous amount of pages that could possibly be generated by your search.A central repository of needed information is thus a very welcome concept and one that I am constantly on the lookout for. Whenever I do encounter sites or pages like these I immediately bookmark it for future reference.

It was a pleasant surprise when I saw this particular forum section in ocforums.com. The series of FAQs on various important topics that are PC related will definitely be a great help for those who are still new to PCs. The various threads in the subsection tackle practically all of the important topics that newbies will likely ask, like questions regarding drivers, power, storage, memory, among others. This is a great resource especially for those who are still quite unfamiliar about how computers work. A good read of the threads would be enough for a person to actually learn the basics of at least taking care of their PCs.

Keep your PC running optimally

Because of the high demands of a growing number of applications and utilities on computers it is always a good idea to keep your computer running at its full speed to avoid slowdowns, sluggish responses and even a crash.There are many ways that you can keep your computer running its best. Just follow these simple steps:

* Regularly update your operating system. This ensures that your OS has the latest security patches that makes it harder to penetrate your system by Trojans and other malicious code.

* Make sure that you have an anti virus program installed in your PC and always update it the engine as well as the database files regularly – even daily if it is possible. These updates have the latest information and cures for the viruses that crop up on the internet on an almost daily basis. You should also actively use your spyware detection applications by periodically scanning your PC for any malicious software

* Familiarize yourself with the applications and processes that are running on your PC so that you can more easily identify what is wrong with your PC if something happes. You can use the Windows Task Manager – opened through ctrl+alt+del – in order for you to more easily recognize what items are currently running on your system. You ca also use the MSConfig tool in order to find out what programs are loading during startup. You can remove the items that you think are not that important to free up ram space and also hasten the boot time.

* Remove unnecessary programs on the tool bar so that you won’t have to run any unimportant applications that can slow down your PC and also slow down the startup time

* Regularly defragment your Hard Drives so that they will run and access files more efficiently.

Defragmenting your Hard Drive

defragmentation

As a PC owner, it is your responsibility to take care of the precious (and likely expensive) hardware that you have bought. Taking care of it not only means wiping dust off the CPU case and on the monitor. You also need to do periodic maintenance on important parts of your PC. One of these very important tasks is to defragment your hard drive.Why is there a need to defragment the hard drive? Well to answer that, we must first explain what happens in a hard drive. When a computer uses a file or files it puts them into various parts of the hard drive. If a certain file is too big to fit in a particularly space then it is cut into many pieces and placed in different places all over the hard drive. As your hard drive becomes filled with more and more disjointed files it gets longer and longer for the computer to find the files that you need. The process of defragmentation will organize the files so that it will be able locate any file more easily.

When defragmenting you should really schedule enough time for this particular chore because it really takes a lot of time to defragment drives especially now when the capacity of hard drives have really dramatically increased.

When defragmenting your hard drive with a disk defragmenter program always remember not to use your computer when the actual process is being performed. Defragmentation is a time intensive process so it would really be best if you allocate a schedule when you will not be using your computer. If you religiously maintain your hard drive by defragmenting frequently, then the processing time of the hard drive will also be lessened because the level of fragmentation is kept low.

Speed up your hard drive the cost effective way

hard drive

Most casual computer users do not know this but keeping a “clean” hard drive is the most cost effective and easiest way of speeding up their computer. By optimizing their hard drive, seek times are cut short resulting in a more robust computer system. Don’t you think that it is harder to find what you are looking for in a file cabinet that is full of junk and unimportant or unnecessary files? That is the same case with hard drives. The CPU has a harder time accessing the files that it needs if there are so much junk in a hard drive. As a big improvement to your system’s performance you should remove all of the files that are obsolete or you do not need anymore. It will not only speed up your system it will also free up valuable disk space.One of the first things you should do when spring cleaning your hard drive is to look at your applications and documents. First, open System Tools and use Disk Cleanup to remove the unwanted files in your hard drive. You should then open all of your document folders and delete all of the documents that you do not need anymore. If you have important documents that you want to keep but will not access that often, copy it in a diskette or burn it to a CD or DVD, then delete the files from your hard drive after you’ve made the back-up.

You should then uninstall all of the unwanted applications in your system. Use a good uninstaller program to more thoroughly remove all of the program components from your system.