How to Defragment and Optimize Windows 10 Disk Drive for free?
Is your Windows 10 PC slowing down despite having the best possible configuration? It can be due to the fragmented files and other optimization issues of your files, sectors, and folders on the Windows file hierarchy. You can use the built-in solution within Windows 10 to optimise your disk performance.
If you have been a regular user of the Windows operating system since Windows 7 or even before, you would be aware of at least some of the built-in tools that come along with the operating system. There is a built-in tool on Windows 10 to Defragment and Optimize Drives with ease. What is Defragmentation on Windows 10?
The files and data blocks that make up the files on your Windows system can get scattered to different locations as part of your computer's normal functioning. This phenomenon is called disk fragmentation and can make the PC work slower.
Defragmentation is a task or process that brings the data blocks together in a physical space and speeds up your system. This is achieved because the system can pick the files located close together instead of looking for the hard drive.
Most of the time, Windows 10 defragments the drive automatically, but if you notice any slower performance, it may be necessary to run the built-in option to optimise drivers. How to defragment Disk drive in Windows 10?
The option to defragment the drives is available as part of the disc management on Windows 10. You can locate the option to Optimise Drives on Windows settings and follow the instructions.
Here is how you can defragment disk drive in Windows 10 -
You can now repeat the procedure for other drives or partitions on your computer.
Do note that depending on the status of the optimization status of the drive you have chosen, the time taken for the defragmentation can take a right from a few seconds to a few minutes. Under ideal conditions, you should defragment your computer when you know you will not be working on it for a considerable time, or at least until the defragmentation is done.
It may also be noted that Solid State Drives do not need defragmentation. However, the system lets you try defragmenting and optimizing them if you suspect issues. In any case, we do not recommend defragmenting SSDs as that can cause performance issues and even reduce your drive's lifespan. If the SSD is listed on your Optimise drives built-in tool, because Windows does perform a few of the optimization options on the Solid State Drives to improve its performance. How to change the schedule to optimise drives?
By default, your Windows 10 system is designed to perform your computer's maintenance schedule once every week. However, there are instances that the scheduled maintenance can interfere with your work schedule. In such cases, you may need to change the schedule to optimise the drives on Windows 10.
Here is how you can change the schedule to optimise the drives -
That does it. You have successfully changed the schedule for optimising your drives. 
The Concluding Thoughts
While there was a need to perform defragmentation on previous versions of the Windows Operating system, Windows 10 does not need you optimise the drives manually. Your OS can automatically optimise the drives every week. However, if you have an external drive attached to your computer, you will need to defragment them manually.
The Optimise Drives tool is a great Windows 10 utility that keeps your computer hard disk in its best potential performance and helps you avoid unnecessary expenditure on third party tools.
