Deffragment. Does we need it?

[IzzuddinFX]

Hi everybody, i want to know, what is the function of disk deffragment in windows? Many people say that it can make the HDD or SSD to corrupt faster, is it true? Thanks man :D

[L.E.D]

Hi everybody, i want to know, what is the function of disk deffragment in windows? Many people say that it can make the HDD or SSD to corrupt faster, is it true? Thanks man :D

 

Pulled from Wikipedia. 

 

In the maintenance of file systems, defragmentation is a process that reduces the amount of fragmentation. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the mass storage device used to store files into the smallest number of contiguous regions (fragments). It also attempts to create larger regions of free space using compaction to impede the return of fragmentation. Some defragmentation utilities try to keep smaller files within a single directory together, as they are often accessed in sequence.

Defragmentation is advantageous and relevant to file systems on electromechanical disk drives. The movement of the hard drive's read/write heads over different areas of the disk when accessing fragmented files is slower, compared to accessing the entire contents of a non-fragmented file sequentially without moving the read/write heads to seek other fragments.

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You only need to defragmentate a HDD, if you defrage a SSD you can lower the life span.

[Vitalius]

Defragment is for HDD's. It is only very detrimental to use on SSD's as they don't need it.

Basically, defragment takes all the files on your HDD and puts them together and in order so that the HDD has to work less to read them. Meaning it reads faster and thereby your performance is better. 

It used to be very important back when computers were old, but these days the performance increase is minimal to negligible.

[skullbringer]

never defragment a ssd! It can cause it to die much faster, due to the limited number of write cycles. HDDs will work a little faster after defragmentation, as the data gets sorted and easier to read. It wont affect the lifetime of an HDD

[Hyydrah]

It is only very detrimental to use on SSD's as they don't need it.

I wouldn't say it's very detrimental, just not beneficial. Intel did a stress test on some of their SSDs a few years ago where they wrote multiple gigabytes of data per day, and to make a long story short, the drive lived.

[Glenwing]

never defragment a ssd! It can cause it to die much faster, due to the limited number of write cycles. HDDs will work a little faster after defragmentation, as the data gets sorted and easier to read. It wont affect the lifetime of an HDD

 

It is not that much of an emergency if you defragment an SSD.  Of course there is no reason to do so since SSDs do not get fragmented, but it will not significantly degrade the SSD.  SSDs can withstand hundreds or even thousands of terabytes of writes.  It is effectively impossible to hit the write limit in an average computer, even if you defrag the drive a lot.

[MG2R]

It is not that much of an emergency if you defragment an SSD.  Of course there is no reason to do so since SSDs do not get fragmented, but it will not significantly degrade the SSD.  SSDs can withstand hundreds or even thousands of terabytes of writes.  It is effectively impossible to hit the write limit in an average computer, even if you defrag the drive a lot.

Technically, SSDs can get fragmented just as bad as HDDs. The difference with SSDs is that the access time is the same for every cell sequence you address, because there are no moving parts.

(e.g. reading two sectors sequentially on a HDD is faster than reading two sectors that lie on different tracks, because in the latter case, the head needs to move. On SSDs both actions would take the same amount of time)