Fragmentation: causes and effects

Fragmentation results from saving your files on your hard drive. Windows automatically looks for free space and saves the file there but in general, there isn’t enough contiguous free space to save the file in one block. This happens because of a normal saving process including the creation, modification and suppression of files. When you suppress a file, the space occupied by this file will be marked as free. New files then use this space. If a new file doesn’t exactly fit in this spot, Windows divides it up and saves the fragments in different places on the hard drive. When you open the file, Windows has to first find all the fragments, load them and put them back together. This process can be very time consuming, especially if you often create or get rid of files.

Defragmenting regularly is the only solution!

Even in times of affordable and fast hardware, an important part of a system’s performance is dependent on the operating system used and its integrated file management. The most frequent problem is file fragmentation. Files are separated in multiple single fragments and distributed over the user's hard disk. As a result, processing these files takes much longer, because all segments belonging to one file have to be relocated, read and put together. The impact is particularly dramatic in Windows - the longer a system is in use, the more intensive file fragmentation and therefore performance loss will occur. O&O Defrag reactivates this lost and hidden system performance and brings it back to save time and money

File- and database servers, but also workstations can substantially improve their system performance using O&O Defrag V4. Regular defragmentation prevents new hard disk fragmentation and will ease the use of Windows XP/2003, Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4 in the long term.

O&O Defrag is the best solution

O&O Defrag analyses and reorganizes your files. Fragmented files are moved to a block of contiguous free space where it can stay in one block. Accessing files takes less time because Windows doesn’t need to look for each separate file fragment, seeing as the file can be read in one block. This is how O&O Defrag brings back lost performance and helps save time and money.

O&O Defrag can easily be installed locally on each system (single computer version) or, by means of the Management console, over a network. Choosing settings and using it is done intuitively, and you can also choose to let O&O Defrag work automatically. Our sophisticated task manager brings you a variety of possibilities to optimize your systems individually and according to its needs.