How to Defrag Windows 8
Defragging a hard drive groups all of the used segments of the hard drive together. This makes the hard drive more efficient, because it needs to spin less to get to different pieces of data. In Windows 8, defragmentation is called...
Method 1 of 3:
Opening the Optimize Drives Application
-
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 1
Open Search. Press the Windows + S buttons to open Search. -
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 2
In the Search field, type defragment, and then press Enter. -
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 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 the Optimize button.
Method 2 of 3:
Optimizing a Drive
-
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 4
Analyze the drives. Click a drive to select it, and then click Analyze. 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.
-
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 5
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 click Optimize.- 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]
-
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 6
Click the drive you want to optimize to select it. -
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 7
Click Optimize to 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]
-
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 8
When the optimization is done, click Close to exit Optimize Drives.
Method 3 of 3:
Scheduling Optimization
-
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 9
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. -
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 10
To change the optimization schedule or turn it on, click Change settings.- You may be asked to enter an admin username and password at this point.
-
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 11
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.
-
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 12
Click the Frequency dropdown menu to change how often the drives are optimized. The options are daily, weekly, and monthly. -
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 13
Choose specific drives for scheduled optimization. Next to Drives, click Choose. Check the boxes next to the drives you want have scheduled optimizations. Uncheck the boxes next to the drives you want to optimize manually. Click OK. Click OK again to apply your schedule changes. -
How to Defrag Windows 8 Picture 14
Click Close to exit Optimize Drives.
4.5 ★ | 2 Vote
You should read it
- How to Optimize Windows 8
- How to Transfer Data Between Two Hard Drives
- Looking back on 60 years of miraculous development of hard drives today
- How to Defrag Windows 10
- What is a NAS hard drive? What is a Surveillance Hard Drive?
- Differences between SSD and HDD hard drives
- How to Format FAT32
- How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows 8
- Experience gold when choosing to buy an external hard drive
- 7 best external hard drives
- 25 interesting things about hard drives you may not know
- How to create a Google Drive drive on your computer