Windows 10: Optimize and Defrag Drives in Windows 10

How to: Optimize and Defrag Drives in Windows 10

How to Optimize and Defragment Drives in Windows 10


One of the best ways you can improve your PC's performance is by optimizing the drive. Windows includes features to help optimize the different types of drives that PCs use today. No matter which type of drive your PC uses, Windows automatically chooses the optimization that's right for your drive.

By default, Optimize Drives, previously called Disk Defragmenter, runs automatically on a automatic maintenance. But you can also optimize drives on your PC manually.

See also: The real and complete story - Does Windows defragment your SSD? | SCOTT HANSELMAN

This tutorial will show you how to manually optimize drives to defrag a HDD or TRIM a SSD in Windows 10.

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to optimize drives.

*note If the drive is being used by another program, or is formatted using a file system other than NTFS, FAT, or FAT32, it can't be optimized.

Network drives can't be optimized.

If a drive isn't appearing in Optimize Drives, it might be because it contains an error. Try to repair the drive with chkdsk first, then return to Optimize Drives to try again.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Optimize Drives in Optimize Drives Tool
• Option Two: To Optimize Drives in Command Prompt
• Option Three: To Optimize Drives in PowerShell

OPTION ONE [/i] To Optimize Drives in Optimize Drives Tool
1. Do step 2 (File Explorer ribbon), or step 3 (drive properties), or step 4 (Settings) below for how you would like to open Optimize Drives.


2. Optimize Drives from File Explorer Ribbon
A) Open This PC in File Explorer.

B) Select any hard drive, click/tap on the Drive Tools Manage tab, click/tap on Optimize button in the ribbon, and go to step 5 below. (see screenshot below)





3. Optimize Drives from Drive Properties
A) Open This PC in File Explorer.

B) Right click or press and hold on any hard drive, and click/tap on Properties. (see screenshot below)



C) Click/tap on the Tools tab, click/tap on the Optimize button, and go to step 5 below. (see screenshot below)




4. Optimize Drives from Settings
A) Open Settings, and click/tap on the System icon.

B) Click/tap on Storage on the left side, click/tap on the Optimize Drives link under the More storage settings section on the right side, and go to step 5 below. (see screenshot below)





5. Select a drive you want or need to optimize, and click/tap on the Optimize button. (see screenshot below)

• You can select a drive and click/tap on the Analyze button to see if it needs to be optimized.
• If the drive is more than 10% fragmented, then it should be optimized.
• Optimizing a drive might take anywhere from several minutes to a few hours to finish, depending on the size of the drive and degree of optimization needed.
• You can still use your PC during the optimization process.

OPTION TWO [/i] To Optimize Drives in Command Prompt
1. Do step 2 or step 3 below for how you would like to run the defrag command.


2. To Run Defrag in Command Prompt in Windows 10
A) Open an step 4 below.

3. To Run Defrag in Command Prompt at boot
A) Open a command prompt at boot.

B) In the command prompt, type diskpart, and press Enter.

C) In the command prompt, type list volume, and press Enter.

*note Make note of the drive letter that you want to optimize. The drive letter for the drive will not always be the same at boot as it is in Windows.

D) In the command prompt, type exit, press Enter, and go to step 4 below.
4. In the command prompt, type the command you want to use below, and press Enter.
Commonly Used Commands:

*Arrow defrag C: /O
*note Substitute C: in the command with the drive letter you want instead.

*Arrow defrag /C /O
*note For all HDDs and SSDs.


Syntax:

defrag <volumes> | /C | /E <volumes> [<task(s)>] [/H] [/M [n] | [/U] [/V]] [/I n]

Where <task(s)> is omitted (traditional defrag), or as follows: /A | [/D] [/K] [/L] | /O | /X

Or, to track an operation already in progress on a volume: defrag <volume> /T

Parameters:

[table][tr][td]Value[/td] [td]Description[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/A[/td] [td]Perform analysis on the specified volumes.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/B[/td] [td]Perform boot optimization to defrags the boot sector of the boot volume. This will not work on a SSD.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/C[/td] [td]Perform the operation on all volumes.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/D[/td] [td]Perform traditional defrag (this is the default).[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/E[/td] [td]Perform the operation on all volumes except those specified.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/H[/td] [td]Run the operation at normal priority (default is low).[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/I n[/td] [td]Tier optimization would run for at most n seconds on each volume.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/K[/td] [td]Perform slab consolidation on the specified volumes.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/L[/td] [td]Perform retrim on the specified volumes. Only for a SSD.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/M [n][/td] [td]Run the operation on each volume in parallel in the background. At most n threads optimize the storage tiers in parallel.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/O[/td] [td]Perform the proper optimization for each media type.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/T[/td] [td]Track an operation already in progress on the specified volume.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/U[/td] [td]Print the progress of the operation on the screen.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/V[/td] [td]Print verbose output containing the fragmentation statistics.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]/X[/td] [td]Perform free space consolidation on the specified volumes.[/td] [/tr] [/table]









OPTION THREE [/i] To Optimize Drives in PowerShell

*note For more Optimize-Volume command usage options, see: Optimize-Volume
1. Open an elevated PowerShell.

2. Do step 3 (analyze), step 4 (optimize), step 5 (TRIM), step 6 (defrag) below for what command you want to use.


3. To Analyze Current Optimization of Drive
A) Type the command below into PowerShell, press Enter, and go to step 7 below.

*Arrow Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter <drive letter> -Analyze –Verbose

*note Analyzes the volume specified for fragmentation statistics. Performs analysis only and reports the current optimization state of the volume.

Substitute <drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter you want to analyze.

For example: Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter C -Analyze -Verbose





4. To Automatically TRIM or Defrag Drive for what is Proper
A) Type the command below into PowerShell, press Enter, and go to step 7 below.

*Arrow Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter <drive letter> -Verbose

*note Automatically performs the proper optimization (TRIM or defrag) for the drive.

Substitute <drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter you want to optimize.

For example: Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter C -Verbose





5. To TRIM a SSD (Solid State Drive)
*Warning Do not use this command on a hard drive (spinner).
A) Type the command below into PowerShell, press Enter, and go to step 7 below.

*Arrow Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter <drive letter> -ReTrim -Verbose

*note Generates TRIM and Unmap hints for all currently unused sectors of the volume, notifying the underlying storage that the sectors are no longer needed and can be purged. This can recover unused capacity on thinly provisioned drives.

Substitute <drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter of the SSD you want to TRIM.

For example: Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter C -ReTrim -Verbose





6. To Defrag a Hard Drive
*Warning Do not use this command on a solid state drive (SSD).
A) Type the command below into PowerShell, press Enter, and go to step 7 below.

*Arrow Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter <drive letter> -Defrag -Verbose

*note Indicates that the cmdlet initiates defragmentation on the specified volume. Defragmentation consolidates fragmented regions of files to improve performance of sequential reads or writes.

Substitute <drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter of the hard drive you want to defrag.

For example: Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter C -Defrag -Verbose





7. When finished, you can close PowerShell if you like.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Change Schedule Settings for Optimize Drives in Windows 10
• How to Change Automatic Maintenance Settings in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Optimize Drives context menu in Windows 10
• How to Enable or Disable TRIM Support for Solid State Drives (SSD) in Windows 10
• How to Check a Drive for Errors in Windows 10
• How to Use Storage Diagnostic Tool in Windows 10

:)

 

How can one do a disk defragment?

How to Optimize and Defragment Drives in Windows 10

 

Cannot defrag all my drives

When I go to defrag my Drives on windows 10 The defrag and Optimize will not defrag Volume (d064.... and it shows that it's 15% fragmented. How can I get this to Optimize?

 

Hello Joanne,

You could optimize the System Reserved volumes, but usually they don't need it since nothing is saved or deleted from them once created during installation.

 

All right, thank you Brink

I would like to ask you to make a tutorial on something. I peg your pardon but I have not found the appropriate thread to place this request. Anyway, have you made or can you make a Tutorial on how can the average user benefit the most from the usage of the Event Viewer?

For example, how can I see which program requires the most time on Start up or the total time of start up itself?
If something like this already exists please provide a link.

Thank you!!

 

That would be a broad topic. For now, you could look under E for Event Viewer in the tutorial indexes below for some options to help. *Smile

Windows 7 - Tutorial Index - Page 2 - Windows 7 Help Forums

Windows 8 - Tutorial Index

 

I've always found it odd that when you type "defrag" in the search, the one that has the defrag icon isnt the actual exe file. The exe file doen't have an icon.

Computer newbies would be confused by that.

 

Is SSD optimization needed? There should be internal trash collection done by the drive itself, right?

 

Hello Silentheero, and welcome to Ten Forums.

While TRIM is not required for today's SSDs, it does help garbage collection, and extend the life of the SSD. Here's a good article I found that explains this very well.

 

Hi guys,

A quick question; on my own PC (running Windows 10) I can select to 'optimize' my SSD (which will trim it most probably).
However on my mother's PC (also running Windows 10) the SSD is not being shown, only her harddisk (which is being used for backups and pictures)?

Is there a Windows registry setting which I can change, so I can also select the SSD in Windows defrag program, so I can 'optimize' the SSD as well?

Thank you.

 

Hi, HHawk. You might want to run, from an elevated (admin) command prompt:

winsat formal

and see if this reassessment by Windows then allows it to recognize the SSD properly for optimization.

 

Awesome man. That fixed it. Now it's showing up. *Smile
Thank you once again. *Smile

PS: I am gonna create a new thread for a different problem. Which couldn't be solved on a different forum. I have much more trust in this site. So hopefully this can be resolved as well. *Smile

 

You're quite welcome, HHawk - glad that sorted it!

 

Hey, new guy to the forums here, and I have a major problem in regards to defragmenting my Windows 10. I was one of those people who upgraded the OS directly from 7 on my Tower computer, and, as such, I don't have an SSD on my computer to help me defrag my OS.

Does anyone know how to best defrag a Windows 10 with non-SSD drives? Thank you very much for the help (if any).

 

Welcome, to TenForums, Xamusel.

SSD stands for Solid-State Drive. Perhaps you misunderstood what we're talking about. HDD, would stand for Hard Disk Drive, i.e., one that spins magnetic platters and I suspect you may have on your PC.

Windows 10 is likely set up by default to defragment and optimize your HDD(s) on a weekly basis and wouldn't normally be something for you to be overly concerned about.

Let us know if I misinterpreted your question.