You should carry out all the following Disc maintenance steps frequently. You will
be amazed at the difference to your computer. Response times will return almost
like the day you bought the PC.
Free Space
The Disc drive should NEVER be more than
70% full. Even between 50% and 70% full is unhealthy. I know that this means lots
of wasted gigabytes, but that is a price you need to pay for good response times.
Anyway, Disc drives are cheap – much cheaper than buying a new computer.
Here are Free Space guidelines:
- 15% Free Space is needed for the Disk Defragmenter to run
- 30% Free Space is the minimum for reasonable response times
- 50% Free Space provides optimal performance.
In Windows Explorer, right click the "C:" Disc drive. Then click Properties. You
will see a colourful pie graph that will quickly show how full the drive is.
Get
rid of junk files
On the same tab, you will see a button "Disc Cleanup". Click it, and it will calculate
how much junk can be deleted. This will include Internet files like Cookies (you
can easily accumulate a megabyte each time you access the Internet), Temporary files,
Setup files, the Recycle bin, etc.
Click the "OK" button to get rid of them.
Get
rid of Old Files
Do a search using Windows Explorer's search facility, of all files (use *.*) which
are more than 2 years old. Delete most of them – you have not used them for
2 years! Warning – delete your own files, not system files.
All deleted files are sent to the Recycle bin – you can recover any file inadvertently
deleted. Wait a few weeks before emptying your Recycle bin.
Search
for Large Files
Do a search using Windows Explorer again, listing all files of more than say 1,000
kilobytes. Keep only the ones that you really, really do want online. Those files
that you do not want immediate access to, and which are more than 2 years old, should
be stored offline to a CD. To sort the files in Date order, click the "Modified"
column.
One culprit is often Outlook.pst – where your Outlook emails are stored. You
may need to delete the attachments to messages – pretty pictures can be several
megabytes in size. When you have finished the deletions, you will need to compact
Outlook.pst – otherwise it will stay the same size. To compact it, in Outlook
select File/Data File Management/Settings and click "Compact Now".
Delete
system log files
Do a search for all "*.log" files. If you have logging enabled, these files can
accumulate quickly.
Buy
another Disc Drive
You will get much better throughput from two Disc drives. The advantages are:-
- It increases the free space on your C: drive.
- It allows you to split the files logically into system and user files.
- It allows simultaneous access to both Disc drives, providing better throughput.
Whatever you do, don't be talked into a single large Disc drive instead of two smaller
Disc drives. There is also little throughput advantage in having three or more Disc
drives.
Remove
unused Programs
Use the "Add-Remove Programs" routine to see what programs have been installed on
your system (you will find it in Start/Settings/Control Panel). Then uninstall any
software no longer in use. Frequently files relating to the uninstalled program
are not removed, so search for the deleted Program name, and delete the folder containing
the uninstalled program.
Make sure that you use the "Add-Remove Programs" routine before you do any deleting.
Defragmentation
is essential
After a while, the data files that reside on a Disc drive get spread further and
further from the centre of the Disc. The files that reside furthest will have slow
access times – up to 10 times slower than a well placed file.
Also, files are frequently split into smaller parcels (extents in computer jargon)
to allow them to slot into the available, scattered free space. Having to access
100 different extents will be slow. You should use a Defragmentation tool at least
once a week. It can take some time, so the job should be scheduled. I use Norton
SystemWorks, which as well as providing anti-virus software, has a very efficient
defragmentation routine.
If you don't have such a product, at very least, use the Windows tool. Right Click
the "C:" drive, select Properties/Tools then click the button "Defragment Now".
Scheduling Disk Cleanup
The first step is to select the files that are to be deleted
- Click Run from the Start Menu
- In the Open box, type "cleanmgr /sageset:1"
- Click OK
- Select all options except "Recycle Bin" and "Compress old Files"
It is important to empty the Recycle Bin frequently - but not at the expense of
loosing inadvertently deleted files.
There is not much to gain from Compressing old files. There will be little improvement
in free disk space, and the compressed files will be slower to open. Any space saved
will come from text-based files, but the real space hoggers like JPG and MP3 files,
are already compressed.
Next, Disk Cleanup should be scheduled.
- Click Control Panel
- Click System and Maintenance
- Click Scheduled Tasks
- Double-click "Add Scheduled Task" to start the Scheduled Task Wizard
- In the list of applications that you want Windows to run, click Disk Cleanup, and
then click Next.
- Select a frequency for the task, and then click Next.
- Select a day of the week and time for the task to run, and enter the name and password
of a user.
- Check the box to open Advanced Settings.
- In the Run box, add the following to the end of the path:" /sagerun: 1" and then
click OK. The full command will look like this "C:\Windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe
/sagerun: 1"
Scheduling Disk Defragmentation
All hard disks on your PC can be automatically defragmented at regular intervals.
- Open Scheduled Tasks
- Double-click "Add Scheduled Tasks" to start the Scheduled Task Wizard
- Browse the list of applications and locate C:\Windows\system32\defrag.exe
- Click Open
- Select the frequency for the program to run - this should be done at least once
a week.
- Check the box to open Advanced Settings. In the Run box, you will see C:\windows\system32\defrag.exe