Defraggle rock

Entrepreneur,  Jan, 2006  by Amanda C. Kooser

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If your computer has been chugging along a bit sluggishly, ask yourself a question: When was the last time you defragmented your hard drive? It's a basic--but often overlooked--maintenance operation that takes fragments of files written all over the hard drive and joins them together in contiguous blocks so they load more quickly. One way to do this is with the built-in Disk Defragmenter in your Windows System Tools folder. Use it at least once a month--or once a week if you're a heavy computer user.

Several commercial utilities let you automate or customize the operation, which can be especially useful when dealing with an office full of computers. The original and best defragger is GRC's $89 (all prices street) SpinRite v6.0 (http://grc.com); however, the most widely used is probably the one in Symantec's $70 Norton SystemWorks 2006 (www.symantec.com). Raxco Software's PerfectDisk (www. perfectdisk.com) includes advanced management and scheduling features for $40, with volume pricing available. Finally, Diskeeper (www. diskeeper.com) has some preventive defragging maintenance features and comes in a $20 Home Edition or a $49.50 Professional Edition.

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