Law Office Computing
September 2001
Winton Woods
Hard Drive
Maintenance Revisited
A few years ago in
this column I discussed the problem of data fragmentation on hard drives and
the need to “defragment “ drives on a regular basis. At that time drives of 10 GB were considered large. Today drives
of up to 100 GB are readily available. With those larger drives defragmentation
is even more important. Let me recap my earlier comments:
One of the things
that most people don't realize about the way digital information is stored on a
computer's hard drive is that the bits and bytes information that make up file
are not stored in contiguous places on the disk. When you load up a file into
your word processor, for example, the hard drive brings together information from
sectors all over the disk to create the final image that you see on your
screen. Think of the old trick that you see on TV and in the movies where the
film is run backwards and a broken glass magically reconstructs itself in
someone's hand. That is what happens when your hard drive pulls up a file. When
that file is sent back to the hard drive it doesn't necessarily go to the place
where it was before, and as a result, over time, the files on your disk enter
an advanced state of what is called "fragmentation." Fragmentation
occurs on every computer and the more you use it the worse the problem becomes.
Before fragmentation becomes critical you may start to notice that your
computer has slowed down dramatically. It will continue to slow down until it
finally stops and one day you seek to open a file and the hard disk will simply
fail. The short of it is that your computer has then suffered brain seizure and
you are in serious trouble. It is possible to recover much of the information
on the disk by sending it away to specialists who have developed their skills
in data recovery. When they are not working for the FBI or the DEA, those
people can, for a substantial fee, recover most if not all of your data. You
will make your insurance carrier happy, however, if you avoid problems of this
kind because they are so easily avoidable. If you do your own computer
maintenance, then read on. If you don't do your own computer maintenance, clip
out this column and give it to whoever in your office handles those tasks. What
I am about to describe should be done on a regular basis, certainly no less
than once a month and once a week in a busy office. A full backup of your
critical data should always, I repeat ALWAYS, precede the following procedures.
In all Windows
versions Microsoft has provided free utilities as a part of the Windows system.
In recent versions of Windows 98 you will find in the System Tools submenu on
your Start menu a utility called Disk Degragmenter. Defragmenter will actually
group your files on the disk so that the ones you use most often will be given
the fastest access possible. The increase in the operating speed of your system
is really very noticeable.
Defragmentation
You do need to
defrag at least once a month.
Fortunately, in Windows 95/98/2000 defragmentation is basically
automated. The only thing you really have to be aware of is that the process
will stop and restart with any disk access. If you are on a network make sure
you have gone off the network before you start defragmentation. Close down any
program that might automatically do something during the process. In other
words, stun your computer=s brain with care.
Defragmentation is
oddly interesting to watch because you can see the files on your hard disk
being moved around to create a more efficient pattern of access. Of course you
are not actually looking at your hard disk but you are seeing a representation
of those files as they are read and moved around. While this is not a procedure
that one wants to do for hours, it is in some bizarre way, a very calming,
non-chemical sedation. If you have had a very really hard day, watching your
disk defrag itself is a bit like meditation. Depending on which of the options
you choose, the defragmentation process may take anywhere from a minute to several
hours. Indeed, it may take many hours on a large drive or one that has been
compressed and I suggest you do it late at night and let the computer run until
morning.
A Better
Solution
Obviously, this is
a very time consuming process. Because of that computer users are apt to avoid
defragmenting for years. Eventually their drive crashes and they lose
information and even more time rebuilding their machine. I recently discovered
a product that will run in the background of your machine and keep the drive in
a constant state of perfection. It is
called Diskeeper and you can get it from Executive Software at http://www.executive.com/products
for 49.95 for a single license with bulk pricing available for offices with
large networks. A new feature called “Smart Scheduling™” dynamically configures your defragmentation
schedule based on the condition of your disk. It eliminates the need for you to
know how often to defragment each of your disk volumes for maximum performance.
Diskeeper will take note of fragmentation levels and adjust run time frequency
anywhere from every hour to one week. Executive Software claims speed increases of 50% to
80% as well as dramatically reduced time for the defragmentation process. It
has consistently received awards from the likes of PC Magazine and InfoWorld.
It is also a Microsoft certified product. You can download a trial version from
the website. I think you will like a lot!
PS-Don’t forget to
back up the first time you run any defragmentation system!