Several of our inSync readers have asked some variation on the following question:
“I am using a computer based hard disk recording system and I have been told I need to defragment and optimize the hard drive I am recording to. What is this and what do I need to do it?”
On most computer systems you do need to defragment your hard drive every once in a while. Defragmenting the hard disk should be part of the normal care you give to your system and is analogous to changing the oil in your car every 3000 miles. It should also be done any time your drive begins to have trouble keeping up with your digital audio or video recording system. It rearranges the data on your drive so that it and remaining free space are not “fragmented.” This allows the computer to read from and write to the drive much more efficiently, which is very important in digital audio or video applications. There are a variety of software programs you can run on your computer to accomplish this task. One of the best known, and arguably, best ones is Norton’s Speed Disk. Basically you just run the program and let it do its thing. The program comes with excellent documentation so just follow their instructions. Speed Disk cannot be run from the start up disk if that is the drive you are optimizing. Rather, Norton has a feature that allows you to create a start up floppy disk to use when using this and other Norton Utilities. Another option is starting up from another drive or CD-ROM.
