A full hard drive can cause problems for your computer, but there are many things you can do to make sure it doesn’t. There are also some easy ways to ensure that your PC is running smoothly and efficiently. Read on for more information!
If you notice any issues with your computer’s performance like slow boot up times or programs taking longer than usual to load, then the first course of action would be to check your hard drive space. If you’re out of storage area, then this could definitely be causing an issue.
Although a full hard drive isn’t likely to cause catastrophes like blue screens of death (BSoD), it can lead towards performance issues and even crashes. When this happens, it’ll mean more time getting your computer back to normal instead of doing the things you’d like to do with it.
Drive stays
There are a few different ways that you can ensure that your hard drive stays at a reasonable level of fullness without sacrificing much storage space. For instance, try not downloading every song you come across to listen to later. If music is something that’s important enough for you to find space on your drive for, then make sure only the best tracks are getting downloaded. Deleting songs after listening isn’t strictly necessary at this point but it ensures that there’s always room for anything new and interesting you’re likely to come upon throughout the day.
Another thing that can take up a lot of space is photo or video. It might be worth investing in an external hard drive if you’re looking at getting a lot of video files that don’t necessarily need to be kept.
It’s also important to note that not all files are created equal when it comes to the importance of backing them up. For instance, photos might be worth more to you than some random document or email, but they’re very unlikely to cause any problems with your computer if deleted by accident. In comparison, it can take hours or days for a file that’s been corrupted from repeated copying and pasting to recover without professional help.
As long as you avoid things like downloading games and movies directly onto your hard drive, then taking up extra storage space shouldn’t cause too many problems.
Of course, there will come a point where you’ll need to delete and organize some files and folders. For those who already use a lot of their drive, this could be the first hurdle you come across. You might want to consider deleting videos or photos that can easily be uploaded again if required before starting with important documents.
If your computer’s performance is really bad at the moment, then it might pay off to look into disk defragmentation options on your system. A fragmented hard drive causes files to jump around all over the place instead of staying in one area – not only does this slow down your PC’s booting up time but it also makes many different types of file slower and harder to access and manage.
When picking out a hard drive for storage purposes, it’s important to consider the speed. For example, Solid State Drives (SSD) are much faster than traditional drives but also more expensive per unit of storage space. Traditional hard drives shouldn’t cause too many problems if you’re not concerned by them being a slight bit slower.
Hard Drive checking tools
Although there are many different ways that you can check whether or not your PC needs defragmentation, it’s always good to have a backup resource available just in case something goes wrong. For this reason, it might be worth making sure you also try out third party software like Auslogics Disk Defrag . This program aims to make your computer run even faster than before by getting rid of unnecessary file fragments and organizing the remaining data into neat sections on your system.
If you’re worried about losing any important files then don’t worry too much! Most defrag programs give users the option to undo changes made to the system. Although it’s always a good idea to make sure you do regular backups, Auslogics Disk Defrag even recommends using the default System Restore option as well – this way you can easily roll back your computer to previous working conditions if things go wrong.
One of the biggest advantages of third party software like Auslogics Disk Defrag is that they’re usually more advanced than anything built into Windows itself. This means that there are likely fewer issues with crashing or buggy download processes, for instance. You’ll also get access to new features on an ongoing basis which will ensure your drive stays at its best for longer periods of time.
