Optimise your hard disk

If you're noticing that programs are loading slower than before, your hard disk is probably near capacity and full of fragmented files. CNET shows you, in three easy steps, how to clean up and optimise your hard disk for improved performance.

WinDirStat gives you an idea of what's taking up space on your hard disk.

CCleaner purges many small unnecessary files, (potentially) saving you gigabytes.

Auslogics Disk Defrag pastes together the file fragments on your hard disk, making programs and documents load quicker.

We admit we're digital pack rats. We have thousands-upon-thousands of images on our local drives, not to mention gigabytes of MP3 files from music sites such as MP3.com.

We're good at regularly backing up our information to DVD and moving some files permanently to backups, but our 160GB hard drive is usually pushing full capacity. To keep our machine running at a speed we like (and deserve!), we have to perform regular maintenance. While there are lots of ways to optimise your hard drive, our basic method requires only three steps.

First, identify how much disk space you're using with WinDirStat. This free software, based on the Linux application KDirStat, offers you an informative visual display of your hard-drive usage. It can also analyse your local devices, but let's for now stay focused on just your local drive. Depending on the size of your disk, the initial WinDirStat scan may take quite a while. Grab a cup of coffee and come back.

When you return, you'll see all of your files (for the drive or directory you decided to scan) displayed in a rainbow of colours. WinDirStat assigns colours to each file type, such as MP3, ZIP, EXE, JPG, and so on. By default, the files that take up the most space are coloured blue, the second heftiest are red, and the third largest green. After the first 10 colour-labelled file types, the rest appear in grey -- but you can change these settings and colours through the Options menu.

Once you've identified where your disk space has gone, you can then more easily decide where you can save space. WinDirStat is loaded with features for managing your files, such as the ability to automatically delete files without even bothering with the Recycle Bin.

After you've analysed your usage with WinDirStat, it's time to quickly rid yourself of unnecessary files, such as application data for uninstalled software, temporary Internet files, and "recent document" lists. Enter CCleaner.

This helpful, free utility separates its optimisation process into two windows, one for Windows and one for third-party applications. Simply select the items that you'd like to clean, such as Windows log files, Chkdisk file fragments, or Flash player application data, and then hit "Analyze". Depending on how many items you're analysing, you'll soon have a list of files that you can delete.

Even though we're talking about smaller items on your computer, the number of files quickly adds up. Don't be surprised if CCleaner ends up saving you a few gigabytes of disk space.

So you've backed up and deleted the files you no longer need and cleaned your machine of unnecessary system and application files. If you've deleted enough, you'll immediately notice the extra room, but you might not see any improvement in your PC's performance. That's because you also need to defragment your disk.

When you save and delete files on your hard drive, you're sending different parts of the same file over different areas of the disk. Those parts, called fragments, make it harder for your system to quickly access them and can definitely degrade your disk performance in the long run.

Windows comes with a built-in disk defragmenter, but we find it to be rather slow and unfriendly. We're fans of Auslogics Disk Defrag, an excellent freeware program that offers one-click defragmenting and shows you information about the defragmentation process as it's happening with a helpful visual display. Also, while both programs can't fully defragment your hard drive unless you have 15 percent of drive capacity available, Auslogics can still provide a partial defragmentation if you have less.

If you haven't defragmented your hard drive in a while, you should see a noticeable improvement in your system performance. For some people, the difference will be negligible, but for digital pack rats like ourselves, a regular defrag is essential.

Let us know below if you're also a fan of any of these programs, or if you've got a better method for keeping your hard drive optimised.