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The fundamental weak link in any computer system is the Disc drive. Performance tuning mainly involves reducing the size and the number of files on the Disc drive. You should carry out ALL of the following Disc maintenance steps – and do so 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 C: 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 the 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. If you have multiple RAID Disk drives, the Free Space guidelines can be relaxed. Remove 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. There is not much to gain from Compressing old files. There will be little improvement in the available 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 guzzlers, like music and video files, are usually already compressed. Use the compress option only if the files are large, seldom used, and on a separate Disc drive. Click the "OK" button to remove the Junk files. Search for 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 and videos 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. When 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. Delete Temporary Files Use Windows Explorer to open the folder C:\Windows\Temp. The files in this folder can accumulate quickly. Delete all files older than one week. 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 Operating System files and your personal files. It allows simultaneous access to both Disc drives, providing better throughput. When upgrading to a new operating system, there is less chance that your personal files will be lost. Think about buying a new solid-state drive (SSD). These drives are beginning to drop in price and can improve response times dramatically. 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 – unless they are RAID 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. Files relating to the uninstalled program frequently remain, so open the Program Files folder and search for the uninstalled Program name, and delete the folder and contents. But make sure that program has been uninstalled before any deletions with Windows Explorer. Clear Logged Events The Event log files can grow quite large over time. As each new entry is appended with a new extent, access times degrade significantly. To delete all the entries: Click Start/Settings/Control Panel Click Administrative Tools, then Event Viewer Select in turn: Application, Security, System, Internet Explorer Click the Action Menu, and then Clear Events 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. The time to access 100 or more extents will be slow. My Vista computer is a powerful 64 bit dual processor with 4 GB of memory. On Upgrading to Windows 7, I thought that the computer would be very fast. Instead it was very, very slow. I checked on disc usage, and found that temporary folders remained - namely $Windows and $INPLACE. These were soon deleted and the Recycle bin cleared. I then defragmented the C: disc drive. And for good measure, I defragmented the drive once again. And voila! Response times improved dramatically. Windows 7 allows defragmentation to be easily scheduled: In Windows Explorer, right click the C: drive Select Properties Select the Tool tag Click Defragment Now Click Schedule You should schedule the Defragmenter to run at least once a week. Regular Maintenance The suggested Disc maintenance steps should be carried out regularly. You will be amazed at the difference to your computer. Response times will return to that of a new PC (almost!). Seek Time The Seek Time of a hard disk is the amount of time required for the read/write heads to move between the tracks of a disk. Disc Seek Time is one of the most important performance indicators. Even a small reduction in the seek time can result in a large overall system performance improvement. The Seek Time is shown in milliseconds. Here comparisons of the average seek times for disc drives: Model Seek Time Ancient disc drives 35 ms Older disc drives 20 ms IDE/ATA drives 8 - 10 ms SCSI drives 4 ms SSD drives 0 ms The actual Seek Time for accessing files depend upon how scattered the files are, and how close the files are to the centre of the platter. A lightly loaded disc drive will always perform better than a full disc drive – however well the files have been defragmented. Solid State Disc drives The faster your hard disc drives are the better will be the performance. For a huge boost in responsiveness, you need a Solid State Disc (SSD) drive. Everything will be noticeably faster – all actions will be nearly instantaneous. The computer will boot faster, install faster, shutdown faster, launch faster. The second generation of SSDs are now available, overcoming problems of different read/write performance and write cycle reliability. The SSDs consume less power and are more tolerant of temperature and vibration variations. Note that older versions of Windows are optimised for hard disk drives – only Windows 7 is optimised for SSDs. Hybrid Disc Drives A Hybrid Drive Drive combines the features of a Hard Disk Drive and a Solid State Drive (SSD) in one unit. The hybrid drive, with up to 256MB of onboard flash, performs like an SSD. Hybrid disk drives are also reliable and cost-effective. There will be a noticeable improvement in performance – irrespective of the age of the PC or Windows Operating System. This is a cheap, quick and easy way of improving the performance of a computer.
Free Space
The C: 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 the Free Space guidelines:
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.
If you have multiple RAID Disk drives, the Free Space guidelines can be relaxed.
Remove 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.
There is not much to gain from Compressing old files. There will be little improvement in the available 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 guzzlers, like music and video files, are usually already compressed. Use the compress option only if the files are large, seldom used, and on a separate Disc drive.
Click the "OK" button to remove the Junk files.
Search for 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 and videos 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. When 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.
Delete Temporary Files
Use Windows Explorer to open the folder C:\Windows\Temp. The files in this folder can accumulate quickly. Delete all files older than one week.
Buy another Disc Drive
You will get much better throughput from two Disc drives. The advantages are:
Think about buying a new solid-state drive (SSD). These drives are beginning to drop in price and can improve response times dramatically.
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 – unless they are RAID 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.
Files relating to the uninstalled program frequently remain, so open the Program Files folder and search for the uninstalled Program name, and delete the folder and contents. But make sure that program has been uninstalled before any deletions with Windows Explorer.
Clear Logged Events
The Event log files can grow quite large over time. As each new entry is appended with a new extent, access times degrade significantly. To delete all the entries:
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. The time to access 100 or more extents will be slow.
My Vista computer is a powerful 64 bit dual processor with 4 GB of memory. On Upgrading to Windows 7, I thought that the computer would be very fast. Instead it was very, very slow. I checked on disc usage, and found that temporary folders remained - namely $Windows and $INPLACE. These were soon deleted and the Recycle bin cleared. I then defragmented the C: disc drive. And for good measure, I defragmented the drive once again. And voila! Response times improved dramatically.
Windows 7 allows defragmentation to be easily scheduled:
You should schedule the Defragmenter to run at least once a week.
Regular Maintenance
The suggested Disc maintenance steps should be carried out regularly. You will be amazed at the difference to your computer. Response times will return to that of a new PC (almost!).
Seek Time
The Seek Time of a hard disk is the amount of time required for the read/write heads to move between the tracks of a disk. Disc Seek Time is one of the most important performance indicators. Even a small reduction in the seek time can result in a large overall system performance improvement.
The Seek Time is shown in milliseconds. Here comparisons of the average seek times for disc drives:
The actual Seek Time for accessing files depend upon how scattered the files are, and how close the files are to the centre of the platter. A lightly loaded disc drive will always perform better than a full disc drive – however well the files have been defragmented.
Solid State Disc drives
The faster your hard disc drives are the better will be the performance. For a huge boost in responsiveness, you need a Solid State Disc (SSD) drive. Everything will be noticeably faster – all actions will be nearly instantaneous. The computer will boot faster, install faster, shutdown faster, launch faster.
The second generation of SSDs are now available, overcoming problems of different read/write performance and write cycle reliability. The SSDs consume less power and are more tolerant of temperature and vibration variations. Note that older versions of Windows are optimised for hard disk drives – only Windows 7 is optimised for SSDs.
Hybrid Disc Drives
A Hybrid Drive Drive combines the features of a Hard Disk Drive and a Solid State Drive (SSD) in one unit. The hybrid drive, with up to 256MB of onboard flash, performs like an SSD. Hybrid disk drives are also reliable and cost-effective.
There will be a noticeable improvement in performance – irrespective of the age of the PC or Windows Operating System. This is a cheap, quick and easy way of improving the performance of a computer.