Monday, October 8, 2001		Article

Avoid screensavers for faster output
Vipul Verma

IF one has to single out the most critical component of a computer, the answer would be the hard disk. Hard disk is not just critical but is also the most important.

Computer users complain that their computer has become slow over a period of time. Though there could be many reasons for this, the most prominent reason is that the hard disk does not remain optimised and therefore the performance becomes slow.

No matter how big hard disk you may have, eventually you will end up filling it up to the brim.

In case of a completely filled up hard disk, when some data is recalled, the hard disk has to search all written clusters that makes accessing the data slow. Thus the performance goes down. The preventive way to keep your hard disk healthy is to keep free as much space as you can. This does not mean that you do not install programs and data on your computer but it certainly mean that you should not load any unnecessary files and programs on your computer. The more the data you have on your computer, the more fragmented your hard disk becomes.

Though defragmenting may improve the performance of the hard disk yet this will not reduce the number of clusters on which data is written on the computer. So the performance of the hard disk cannot be optimised. When a file is opened or a program is being run then the hard disk searches for the files associated with that program and puts them in the right order. If the area to search these files is more then obviously the hard disk takes more time to look for that data.

For better and more efficient performance of the hard disk, precisely keep at least 25 per cent hard disk space free. More free disk space it is even better. Secondly, these days the hard disks are available in huge sizes like 40 GB. So, it is always better to partition your hard disk based on the size and install the programs as per the priority on these partitions. If you have to install a program, which is of critical nature and is used very often, then you should install it on the C drive. Those programs that are not very critical and have been just loaded for casual purposes should be installed in some other partition whereas the games, shareware, free programs should be stored in a separate partition.

This way, you can keep your data well-organised and also your hard disk well-tuned.

Another way to keep your hard disk healthy is to always keep it defragmented. Fragmentation of hard disk is normal and happens during the normal course of working on your computer. By defragmenting, the data is rearranged in correct order and thus the performance of this hard disk is optimised.

Defragmenting the hard disk is very essential as every time you work on your computer some data is added and deleted automatically. Defragmenting takes care of all this process of addition and deletion of data and organises it in such a form that all linked files are being put together for easy use of the hard disk.

Another factor, which can affect the performance of hard disk, is the compression. Some computer users compress the hard disk in order to save the space. But compression actually slows down the hard disk. Compressing a drive means that the CPU has to uncompress the file, use it, and then compress the file again. This not only involves a lot of CPU power but also involves a lot of time and hard disk operation. If you are looking for better performance then it is advisable not compress your hard disk. Even otherwise also these days the hard disk are present in huge capacity, so practically the hard disk space is in abundance and it is no use in compressing the hard disk.

Some people are in habit of using heavy graphics-based screensavers that may give a good visual impact but at the same time eat a lot of precious resources both in terms of hard disk and CPU power. Avoid using screensavers as far as possible, especially the after dark screensavers. These screensavers may be attractive, but they decelerate the performance of the computer as they keep running even when you are not using them. The best is to use blank screen in order to get the maximum output from your computer. But if you have to use the screensavers, the new version can use the default Windows screensavers as comparatively they do not consume much of the computer resources.

Another factor, which is though little known to the average computer users but is actually important for the better performance of hard disk is the advanced power management. Normally, computer users’ enable the advanced power management in order to save electricity. Sometimes, this comes as a default setting of the BIOS. But in any case the use of advanced power management settings slows down the computer. So if you constantly work on your computer and don’t leave it open quite often then it is better not to use the advanced power management setting. In case your work demands so, you can sacrifice the performance for power savings.

Next important factor affecting the performance of your hard disk is the presence of junk files on it. Normally, a lot of junk files like temporary, cache and a lot other junk files that unnecessarily clutter the hard disk get stored on the hard disk. Keeping the hard disk free of all such files would certainly boost the performance significantly.

The best way to eliminate these files is run the utility disk cleanup regularly. This utility will also keep your recycle bin empty, which is another important factor that affects the performance of hard disk.

Some persons may not believe but having a lot of shortcuts and icons on the desktop is also responsible for bringing down the performance of the hard disk. Since the CPU has to refresh the desktop icons frequently so it would obviously bring down the performance, if it has to refresh a lot of desktop icons. So as far as possible, keep the number of desktop icons to the minimum.

If you’re in habit of installing more and more drivers and fonts on your system, then you’re surely taxing your computer system unnecessarily. Remember all drivers are actually small programs that use a lot of your precious resources. If possible avoid using ActiveX drivers, unless it is necessary.