Defragmentation – do we need it at all and how to do it

Fragmentation is scattering one file into tens of pieces placed at non-consecutive locations on our HDD. In contrast, if we copy a 2 GB video clip on a new empty partition, all its parts will be consecutively placed on an HDD.

Let’s imagine another case – an old partition with thousands of files, to which we copied and from which we deleted thousands of files since its creation. If this has only 3 GB free left, and we copy the mentioned 2 GB video clip, it will be fragmented on the HDD, as there is almost no space left. Fragmented files are like going to a public library where tens of genres are mixed. In this case, even if you have each book location, extracting scattered children’s books from many shelves will be hard.

Defragmentation is rearranging the files’ parts so that all are located consecutively in the memory. It requires some free space. To use an analogy, if you want to arrange...