Hello! You have probably noticed how your PCs hard disk is getting slower and slower as time goes by. In fact, read and write times are getting longer and longer. However, this is something we can understand if we think that the storage unit has less and less free space. In addition, bad sectors are appearing, and the data is becoming more and more fragmented, etc. On the other hand, Windows tends to accumulate processes running in the background. Likewise, it has applications that start on startup. Furthermore, the Windows registry suffers as we use the computer. In short, the hard disk ends up losing its performance. Consequently, today, we will look at how to improve hard drive speed in Windows 10/11.
I have an SSD, can I also increase its speed?
No. It is important to differentiate between hard disks and solid-state drives (SSD). As we can imagine from the size of SSDs, these storage units have no moving parts. These parts are the heads and platters found inside a traditional hard drive. Instead, the information is stored in NAND flash memory. This is why SSDs are so fast. In fact, they only need to find free space to write the data. Therefore, SSDs become slower the less free space they have. In effect, the controller has a harder time finding free space on which to write data.
Optimization tools generally do not work with SSDs. In fact, many experts recommend avoiding them so as not to reduce their lifecycle. If you want your SSD to run faster, free up storage space or format it.
4 tips to improve hard drive read/write speed on Windows
Hard disks, on the other hand, are made up of moving parts. Over time, we erase data, rewriting new information. As a result, many files end up lost and scattered all over the hard disk. Many files even end up divided into small parts, spread over very distant sectors. Therefore, in the end, it makes the reader have to go a longer way to read the whole file. This obviously makes reading/writing slower.
The goal of most optimization tools is to reorganize the entire hard disk. This way, all files and their respective parts are as close to each other as possible. This way, the disk will have less work and will take less time to read the information.
Defragments and optimizes the hard drive
This is a basic maintenance task. Open Windows Explorer and right-click on the hard disk drive. Select Properties and in the Tools tab click on the Optimize button.
This will open the Windows defragmenter, which will optimize the drive. With this in mind, it will put all the data fragments together in nearby sectors to make the information more accessible to the disk reader.
Enables write cache
The write cache is used to take workload off the hard disk. So, when we copy a file, instead of writing it directly to the hard disk, it is written to the cache first. As the cache memory is faster, this improves performance substantially. Before activating the cache, keep in mind that it is also a double-edged sword. If the PC shuts down unexpectedly or there is a system failure, this can result in data loss or damage.
That said, you can enable the write cache like this:
- Open Windows Explorer.
- Right-click on the hard disk drive (usually C:) and select Properties.
- Go to the Hardware tab, select the hard disk drive and click on the Properties button.
- Finally, go to the Policies tab and check the Enable write cache on device box.
Optimizes the paging file
The paging file is a file used by Windows as virtual memory. It is used to use part of the hard disk as if it were RAM. Specifically, in moments in which the memory is full. Something that comes great when we use programs that consume a lot of RAM. According to Microsoft, the recommended size of the paging file should be 1.5 times the maximum size of the RAM. So, if you have a RAM of 4 GB, the paging file should not be larger than 6 GB.
- Open the Windows search engine and type System (you can also find this option by opening the Control Panel). You can also get it in the Windows Settings. Just press Win+I and go to the corresponding option.
- In the new window, go to the Advanced system settings option.
- A new window will open. Once there, click on the Advanced tab. Next, scroll down to the Performance section. Finally, click on Settings.
- In the subsequent sale, again select Advanced and in the Virtual Memory section select Change.
- Finally, uncheck the box Automatically manage paging file size for all drive and select Custom size. In the “Maximum size field set the maximum limit, which should be 1.5 times the size of our RAM.
Remove unnecessary applications and do a good cleanup
As we say, a hard disk with little free space is a slower hard disk. Open the Windows settings menu and locate the Add or Remove Programs section. Lu and uninstall all the programs that are unnecessary or that you no longer use.
Also take the opportunity to do a good cleaning and delete all those heavy files that you no longer need, or if you prefer, move them to an external hard drive to free up some space. Okay, so we have seen how to improve the hard drive speed on Windows. Bye!
