Drive: How to Defrag Windows 8

This updated guide examines Drive: How to Defrag Windows 8 and organizes the essential facts, background, and practical takeaways in clear American English.

Method 1of 3:

Opening the Optimize Drives Application

1. Open Search. Press theWindows + Sbuttons to open Search.
2. In the Search field, typedefragment, and then pressEnter.
3. Click Defragment and optimize your drives.
   • The Optimize Drives application opens.
   • You can also get to the Optimize Drives application by opening Computer, clicking a hard drive to select it, and then clicking theOptimizebutton.

Method 2of 3:

Optimizing a Drive

1. Analyze the drives. Click a drive to select it, and then clickAnalyze. You may be prompted for an admin password.
   • Windows analyzes the level of fragmentation on your drive.
   • If you have more than one hard drive, you'll need to do this for each one.
2. Choose a drive to optimize. Look for a non-solid state drive that is 10% fragmented or more. Click the drive to select it, and then clickOptimize.
   • If a drive is less than 10% fragmented, you won't need to optimize it, but you can still do so if you wish.^[2]
   • If the drive is a solid state drive, you will not need to optimize it. Optimizing, or defragging, a solid state drive can harm it.^[3]
3. Click the drive you want to optimize to select it.
4. ClickOptimizeto begin the defragmenting process. Defragmenting a hard drive can take hours.
   • You can still use your computer while it's optimizing, but only if you're not using a program or file on the drive that's being optimized.^[4]
5. When the optimization is done, clickCloseto exit Optimize Drives.

Method 3of 3:

Scheduling Optimization

1. Check the optimization schedule. By default, Windows 8 optimizes each drive on a weekly basis. If Scheduled optimization is set to On, then your drives are already being optimized on a regular schedule.
2. To change the optimization schedule or turn it on, clickChange settings.
   • You may be asked to enter an admin username and password at this point.
3. In the Optimize Drives dialog box, next to Run on a schedule, click the check box to add a check and turn on the scheduled optimization.
   • Removing the check will turn it off.
4. Click the Frequency dropdown menu to change how often the drives are optimized. The options are daily, weekly, and monthly.
5. Choose specific drives for scheduled optimization. Next to Drives, clickChoose. Check the boxes next to the drives you want have scheduled optimizations. Uncheck the boxes next to the drives you want to optimize manually. ClickOK. ClickOKagain to apply your schedule changes.
6. ClickCloseto exit Optimize Drives.