Everyone has a situation where the speed of a computer drops significantly. It can be connected with anything. But in most cases, the low speed of data exchange with the disk is to blame. How to increase this very speed and make the computer run a little faster, we’ll think about it now.
Small educational program
Strictly speaking, the data exchange rate for each hard drive is different. And it is usually realized on a physical level. That is, it is still impossible to jump higher than the speed set by the manufacturer of the HDD. Software tools can only get rid of interference that reduces the speed of data exchange between the system and the disk. There are several ways to “tune” a hard drive. We will analyze some of them. You can increase the speed of data exchange with the hard drive using standard means of the Windows operating system.
In the case of new SSD-drives, an increase in speed is not necessary, as it were, but in some cases, these methods can also help solid-state drives. In general, a high read / write speed of SSDs is achieved by a completely different technology, unlike HDD. But all the factors described in this article are also relevant for SSDs. Over time, in such drives, the speed of data exchange with the disk also decreases. How to increase it? Same as with conventional HDDs. More about this below.
Method number 1. Defragmentation
Some underestimate the risk of fragmented files on disk. And very in vain. The more fragments of one file are scattered across different parts of the disk, the longer it takes the system to fully assemble it. Accordingly, the disk is slower. In addition, the constant movement of the head of the HDD over the entire surface of the disk contributes to its early failure.
So, suppose that due to the highly fragmented files on the disk, the speed of data exchange with the disk has dropped significantly. How to increase speed and put HDD back in operation? Using a system program to defragment disks. To start the program, right-click on the name of the required drive and go to the "Properties" menu item. In the window that opens, select the "Service" tab. There you will find the “Defragment” button. By clicking on it, you will see a system utility window for defragmenting. And then everything is as in standard programs. We select disks for "defrag" and click "Start".
After the process is complete, you must restart the computer. Defragmentation may take a long time, depending on how much information is on the disk. After rebooting the system, you will notice how much the speed of the computer as a whole has increased.
Method number 2. We use random access memory
We continue our discussion on how to increase the speed of the hard drive. Windows is able to create a special buffer in RAM that is used to work with interrupts. These same interruptions occur when exchanging data with the HDD. There is nothing to worry about. This is the standard way a hard drive works. But work with interrupts can be optimized using RAM.
So, first of all, we need to open the Windows console. In it you need to write the following: sysedit.exe. An editor window will open in which you should select the system.ini file. All edits will be entered in this file. In the file that opens, add the line lrq14 = 4096. It should be added immediately after line 386enh. After that, save the changes to the ini file and reboot. This method is also relevant for Windows 7. The speed of data exchange with the disk should increase at times. Provided that everything is done correctly.
Method number 3. PAT
It also happens that a low data exchange rate is due to the fact that the disk structure is broken. This means that sectors and clusters are not in the order in which they should be initially. Even with the smallest section shift, the read / write speed drops many times. To counter this problem, various programs exist. Probably the best one has been released by Paragon and is called the Alignment Tool (PAT).
So, we determined that violation of the partition structure can affect the speed of data exchange with the disk. How to increase speed with PAT? Very simple. The main thing is to start the program and click the “Analysis” button. The program will do the rest automatically. A powerful algorithm to identify the "wrong" sectors of the disk will not miss a single one of them. The process is quite time-consuming, so a lot of time will be spent on fixing errors. After the process is complete, you should restart the computer.
Conclusion
We just examined a system parameter such as the speed of data exchange with the disk. How to increase it several times, we also understood. If you follow all of the above recommendations at least once a month, then there will be no problems with the speed of write-read HDD. The same rules apply to SSDs. Having applied all the recommendations for speeding up data exchange, you will notice how much the performance of the computer as a whole has increased.