在过去，对 PC 进行碎片整理是每个人(something everyone)都会定期做的事情，即使您不知道自己在做什么。每个人都知道它以某种方式使计算机运行得更快。
过去我写过很多关于对硬盘、引导扇区(boot sector)、页面文件(paging file)甚至注册表进行碎片整理的文章。在Windows XP时代，碎片整理是必要的，它对性能产生了重大影响。
随着时间的推移，许多公司开始销售据称可以更快、更好、更准确地完成工作的第三方碎片整理工具。(party defragging)有些实际上相当好，但大多数几乎都与内置的Windows 碎片整理(Windows defragment)工具做同样的事情，甚至更糟。运行第三方碎片整理工具(defrag tool)并让您的计算机实际运行速度比以前慢也就不足为奇了。
第三方碎片整理方案
我唯一一次真正看到向任何人推荐第三方碎片整理工具(defrag tool)的理由是，如果该人在其 PC 上进行了复杂的设置，并且不同类型的数据存储在不同的位置。例如，如果您的 PC 上安装了四个不同的硬盘驱动器，每个都包含不同类型的数据，如音乐、视频、操作系统文件等，那么第三方工具可以让您以不同的方式对每个驱动器进行碎片整理。
如果一个驱动器有很多经常访问的小文件，您可以使用第三方工具对该驱动器进行碎片整理，以便文件按上次访问时间或创建时间(time or creation time)排序。对于包含大量不经常(t get)访问的大型音乐或视频文件的驱动器，您可以在磁盘上按(music or video files)文件夹大小或文件大小(folder size or file size)对它们进行排序。
如果需要，您甚至可以仅对某些文件或文件夹进行碎片整理，而不是对整个驱动器进行碎片整理。显然，正如您所看到的，这实际上只对某些特定场景有用，并且花费在所有这些上的时间和精力(time and effort)甚至可能不会产生任何显着的结果。
第三方碎片整理工具(defrag tool)运行良好的唯一其他情况是客户的硬盘驱动器几乎已满。我能够使用第三方工具将所有数据移动到磁盘的开头。这释放了一些额外的空间，并有助于加快 PC 速度。
Windows 内置碎片整理是最好的
对于 99% 的阅读这篇文章的人来说，Windows中内置的磁盘碎片整理工具(disk defragmenter tool)非常适合让您的硬盘平稳运行。
很多人实际上已经经历了测试很多不同的碎片整理工具（如Defraggler、MyDefrag等）的麻烦，并发现在Windows 7及更高版本中，它们并没有加快对硬盘上数据的读取或写入访问速度。驱动任何明显的量。
这是因为现在的硬盘驱动器更大，因此有更多的可用空间。有了额外的空间，Windows就不必过多地分割您的文件。
除了更大的硬盘驱动器，现代机器和硬盘驱动器可以比以前更快地访问数据。因此，即使您有一个部分碎片化的硬盘驱动器，它也很可能对访问数据的速度没有任何影响。只有当你有一个非常碎片化的硬盘驱动器时，你才会开始看到一些减速，但这实际上是不可能的，因为内置的Windows 碎片整理程序(Windows defragmenter)。
在Windows 7中，它称为磁盘碎片整理程序(Disk Defragmenter)，在Windows 8及更高版本中，它现在称为优化(Optimize)驱动器。默认情况下，它计划每周运行一次，这几乎可以使您的所有驱动器接近 0 % fragmentation。这是我的Windows 7 PC 使用 2 年后从未手动运行碎片整理。
我已经写了一篇关于在Windows 8和Windows 7中(Windows 7)优化(Optimize)驱动器和磁盘碎片整理程序(Disk Defragmenter)的详细文章，所以如果您想了解更多信息，请随时查看。
SSD 不需要碎片整理
最后，由于SSD(SSDs)（固态磁盘），即使是自动碎片整理的日子也快要结束了。SSD(SSD doesn)不像传统硬盘那样读写数据，也不需要进行碎片整理(t read)。实际上，Windows会自动禁用固态硬盘上的磁盘碎片整理，因为碎片整理会缩短(disk defragmentation)SSD的使用寿命。
如果您在读取和写入数据时正在寻找真正显着的性能提升，那么您应该升级到SSD。即使是最便宜和最慢的SSD(SSDs)也比传统的旋转硬盘快很多倍。
在我的 Windows 7 机器上，当我从 7200 RPM硬盘驱动器切换到 256 GB 三星 SSD时，(GB Samsung SSD)启动时间(boot time)从 40 多秒变为不到 5 秒。由于成本较高， SSD(SSDs)的尺寸通常要小得多，但即使您将所有其他数据存储在单独的速度较慢的硬盘驱动器上，只需将操作系统(operating system)加载到SSD上就可以产生巨大的影响。(SSD)
结论
希望(Hopefully)我上面所说的一切都是有道理的，但如果没有，这就是要点。如果您在旧机器上运行Windows XP ，您确实应该升级。(Windows XP)如果不能，则手动运行内置磁盘碎片整理(disk defragmenter)程序。如果您运行的是Windows Vista或更高版本，则无需执行任何操作，因为 Windows 会自动对任何传统硬盘进行碎片整理，并且会排除SSD(SSDs)。
如果您是技术极客(tech geek)，并且想从 PC 中榨取最后一盎司的汁液，请安装信誉良好的第三方碎片整理工具并(defrag tool and configure)根据自己的喜好对其进行配置。否则，请放松并享受您已经优化的硬盘。另一个比碎片整理更好的加速 PC 的好方法是卸载未使用的或垃圾软件(junk software)。享受！
The Best Free Defrag Tool for Windows is Itself
Back in the days, defragging your PC was something everyone did on a regular basis, even if you had no clue what you were doing. What evеryone did know was that it somehow made the computеr run faster.
I’ve written many articles in the past about defragmenting your hard drive, the boot sector, the paging file and even the registry. During the days of Windows XP, defragging was necessary and it made a significant difference in performance.
Over time, many companies started selling third party defragging tools that supposedly did the job faster, better and more accurately. Some were actually fairly good, but most pretty much did the same thing as the built-in Windows defragment tool or even worse. It wasn’t surprising to run a third-party defrag tool and have your computer actually run slower than before.
Third Party Defrag Scenarios
The only time I have actually seen a reason to recommend a third-party defrag tool to anyone was if the person had a complex setup on their PC with different types of data stored in different locations. For example, if you have four different hard drives installed on your PC, each containing different types of data like music, videos, operating system files, etc, then a third-party tool can let you defrag each drive in a different way.
If one drive has a lot of small files that are accessed often, you could use a third-party tool to defragment that drive so that the files are sorted by the last accessed time or creation time. For a drive that has a bunch of large music or video files that don’t get accessed very often, you could sort them on the disk by folder size or file size.
You could even defragment only certain files or folders instead of the entire drive if you wanted. Obviously, as you can see, this is really only useful for certain specific scenarios and the time and effort spent doing all of this may not even yield any dramatic results.
The only other scenario where a third-party defrag tool worked well was with a client who had a hard drive that was almost full. I was able to use a third-party tool to move all the data to the beginning of the disk. This freed up some extra space and helped speed up the PC a bit.
Windows Built-In Defrag Is The Best
For 99% of the people reading this article, the built-in disk defragmenter tool in Windows is perfect for keeping your hard drive running smoothly.
A bunch of people have actually gone through the trouble of testing out a lot of different defragment tools like Defraggler, MyDefrag, etc and have found that in Windows 7 and above, they don’t speed up read or write access to data on the hard drive by any noticeable amount.
This is because hard drives nowadays are much larger and therefore have a lot more free space. With the extra space, Windows doesn’t have to fragment your files as much.
In addition to larger hard drives, modern machines and hard drives can access data much faster than earlier. So even if you have a partially fragmented hard drive, it most likely won’t even make any difference in how fast the data can be accessed. Only if you have a very fragmented hard drive will you start seeing some slowdowns, but this is virtually impossible because of the built-in Windows defragmenter.
In Windows 7, it’s called Disk Defragmenter and in Windows 8 and higher, it’s now called Optimize Drives. By default, it’s scheduled to run once a week, which pretty much keeps all your drives near 0% fragmentation. Here’s my Windows 7 PC after 2 years of use without ever manually running a defrag.
I’ve already written a detailed post about Optimize Drives and Disk Defragmenter in Windows 8 and Windows 7, so feel free to check that out if you want more info.
SSDs Don’t Need Defragmenting
Lastly, even the days of automatic defragmentation are dying because of SSDs (solid state disks). An SSD doesn’t read and write data like a traditional hard drive and doesn’t need to be defragged. Actually, Windows will automatically disable disk defragmentation on a solid state hard drive because defragging can reduce the life of an SSD.
If you are looking for truly significant performance gains when reading and writing data, then you should upgrade to an SSD. Even the cheapest and slowest SSDs are many times faster than traditional spinning hard drives.
On my Windows 7 machine, the boot time went from over 40 seconds to under 5 seconds when I switched from a 7200 RPM hard drive to a 256 GB Samsung SSD. SSDs are usually much smaller in size due to their higher cost, but just loading the operating system onto an SSD can make a huge difference, even if you store all your other data on a separate slower spinning hard drive.
Conclusion
Hopefully, everything I said above made sense, but if not, here’s the takeaway. If you are running Windows XP on an older machine, you really should upgrade. If you can’t, then manually run the built-in disk defragmenter. If you are running Windows Vista or higher, there is nothing you have to do becauseWindows will automatically defragment any traditional hard drives and will exclude SSDs.
If you’re a tech geek and want to squeeze every last ounce of juice from your PC, then install a reputable third-party defrag tool and configure it to your liking. Otherwise, relax and enjoy your already optimized hard drive. Another good way to speed up a PC that is better than defragmenting is uninstalling unused or junk software. Enjoy!
