Windows 8 Optimized Hard Drive Improves Performance

        One of the best ways to improve your computer's performance is to optimize your hard drive. The features included in Windows help optimize the various types of drives that computers use today. Regardless of the type of drive your computer uses, Windows automatically chooses the optimal way to fit the drive.

By default, Optimized Drives (formerly known as Disk Defragmenter) runs automatically every week. But you can also manually optimize your computer's drive.

Steps to manually optimize the drive

1. Open the "Optimize Drive" by swiping from the right edge of the screen to the middle and clicking "Search" (if using the mouse, pointing to the screen) In the upper right corner, then move the pointer down, then click Search, enter defragmentation in the search box, and then click or click Settings and defragment and optimize your drive.

2. Under Status, tap or click the drive you want to optimize. (The Media Type column shows the optimized drive type.)

3. To determine if you need to optimize your drive, tap or click Analyze. You may be asked to provide an administrator password or confirm your choice.

When Windows has finished analyzing the drive, check the Current Status column to see if you need to optimize the drive. If the drive's fragmentation ratio exceeds 10%, you should optimize the drive immediately.

4. Click or click "Optimize". You may be asked to provide an administrator password or confirm your choice.

Drive optimization can occur anywhere, from minutes to hours, depending on the size of the drive and the degree of optimization required. The computer can still be used during the optimization process.

Note:

If the drive is being used by another program or is formatted using a file system other than NTFS, FAT, or FAT32, the drive cannot be optimized.

Network drives cannot be optimized.

If the drive does not appear in the Optimized Drive, it may be because the drive contains an error. Try repairing the drive first, then return to Optimize Drive and try again. For more information, see "Steps to Repair a Drive" at the end of this article.

Steps to Change the Optimization Plan

1. Open the Optimize Drive by swiping from the right edge of the screen to the middle and clicking Search (if you use the mouse, point to the screen) In the upper right corner, then move the pointer down, then click Search, enter defragmentation in the search box, and then click or click Settings and defragment and optimize your drive.

2. Click or click "Change Settings". You may be asked to provide an administrator password or confirm your choice.

3. Do one of the following:

To turn off plan optimization, clear the Run on schedule check box.

To change the frequency of program optimizations, click next to Frequency or click the drop-down list, and then tap or click Everyday, Weekly, or Monthly. The default optimization plan is run weekly during Automatic Maintenance.

To select a drive to include in or exclude from the plan optimization, click next to "Drive" or click "Select", select or clear the check box next to the drive, and then click Or click "OK". If you don't want new drives to be added to the plan optimization, you can also clear the "Automatically optimize new drives" checkbox. If Windows cannot optimize a drive, it does not use this drive as an option for Automatic Maintenance.

4. Click or click "OK".

Steps to Repair the Drive

1. Open the "Computer" by swiping from the right edge of the screen to the middle and clicking "Search" (if using the mouse, point to the top right of the screen) Corner, then move the pointer down, click "Search", enter the computer in the search box, and then click or click "Apply" and then "Computer."

2. Press and hold down or right-click on the drive you want to repair, then tap or click Properties.

3. Click or click the Tools tab, then under Error Checking, tap or click Check. You may be asked to provide an administrator password or confirm your choice.

4. Follow the instructions. You may need to restart your computer after the error check is complete.