Acomdata m-hdxxxupe5-72 User Manual
6
A hard drive is a very sophisticated and sensitive device that
requires proper care and maintenance to ensure the longest pos-
sible life, reliable operation and—most importantly—the integ-
rity of your stored data.
Defragmenting and Optimizing a Hard Drive
A hard drive stores data on disks called platters. Each platter sur-
face is divided into concentric tracks. Each track is divided into
sectors. A group of sectors, called a cluster or allocation unit, is the
smallest unit of data storage space.
When data is saved to a new hard drive, it is written to the disk
When data is saved to a new hard drive, it is written to the disk
contiguously, one cluster after another. As old files are erased,
clusters that were previously occupied become available for new
data. However, there may not be enough space for the drive to
write a new file in a contiguous set of clusters. The drive uses the
clusters it can; if more are needed it searches for empty clusters
in other locations on the disk(s). The result is a fragmented file.
Over time, as old files are erased and new files are written, the
Over time, as old files are erased and new files are written, the
data becomes increasingly fragmented. The more fragmented a
disk becomes, the longer it takes to read and write data because
the Drive’s read/write mechanism spends more time searching
Maintaining your Drive