{"id":14332,"date":"2019-05-16T07:56:34","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T07:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/?p=14332"},"modified":"2019-05-16T07:59:42","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T07:59:42","slug":"optimize-and-defrag-drives-in-windows-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/optimize-and-defrag-drives-in-windows-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Ways to Optimize and Defrag Drives in Windows 10"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As files are created or deleted over time, your disk will become fragmented, causing your system not to run as efficiently as it used to. To improve the performance of your PC, you have to defrag hard drive on a regular basis. Here are some free ways to optimize and defrag drives in Windows 10.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Method 1: Using the Built-in Optimization Drive tool<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/5-methods-to-open-file-explorer-in-windows-8-1\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">File Explorer<\/a>, right-click on the drive you want to defrag and select <strong>Properties<\/strong> from the context menu. When the Properties window appears, select the <strong>Tools<\/strong> tab and then click on <strong>Optimize<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/drive-tools.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"363\" height=\"429\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14338\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A new window will appear with details about your hard disk drives. You can click on the <strong>Analyze<\/strong> button to tell you how fragmented the drives are, and then click on the <strong>Optimize<\/strong> button to begin the defragmentation.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/optimize-drives.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"459\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14339\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Method 2: Optimize and Defrag Drives with Command Prompt<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/open-elevated-command-prompt-from-standard-user-in-windows\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Open the Command Prompt as administrator<\/a>, and then run the following command to optimize and defrag a specific drive in Windows 10:<br \/>\n<code>defrag D: \/O<\/code><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/defrag-drive-with-command-prompt.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"581\" height=\"407\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14340\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Remember to replace <em>D:<\/em> with the actual drive you want to defrag. If you need to perform a boot-time defragmentation, try <a href=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/boot-windows-10-into-advanced-startup-options\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">boot into Advanced Boot Options<\/a> and access Command Prompt. From there you can run the above command to defrag your drives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Method 3: Optimize and Defrag Drives with PowerShell<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/5-ways-to-run-powershell-as-administrator-in-windows-10\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Open Windows PowerShell as administrator<\/a>, and type the following command to analyze your drive. Look at the bottom of the output, it will advise whether or not you need to defrag the drive.<br \/>\n<code>Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter D -Analyze -Verbose<\/code><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/analyze-drive-with-powershell.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"581\" height=\"486\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14341\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If you decide to defrag a drive, execute this command:<br \/>\n<code>Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter D -Defrag -Verbose<\/code><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/defrag-drive-with-powershell.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"581\" height=\"314\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14342\" \/><\/p>\n<p>For Solid State Drive, defragging can cause performance issues and even reduce the life of the drive. You should use the <em>trim<\/em> command to erase unused blocks which are no longer in use:<br \/>\n<code>Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter D -ReTrim -Verbose<\/code><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/trim-solid-state-drive.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"581\" height=\"316\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14343\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are also many free defragging tools (such as Auslogics Disk Defrag Free, Defraggler) that can make disk defragmentation easier and faster, but I think the built-in defrag tool in Windows 10 should be enough.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As files are created or deleted over time, your disk will become fragmented, causing your system not to run as efficiently as it used to. To improve the performance of your PC, you have to defrag hard drive on a regular basis. Here are some free ways to optimize and defrag drives in Windows 10. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10,1894],"tags":[4218,4217,4219],"class_list":["post-14332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-others","category-tips-tricks","category-windows-10","tag-defrag-command-prompt","tag-defrag-windows-10","tag-disk-defragmenter-windows-10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14332"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14349,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14332\/revisions\/14349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}