How to Defrag Windows 11 PC Drives

Any Windows 11 PC would require its drives to be optimized. Having an optimized drive is important as it helps in making your PC run smoother and can at times make your system run like new. Defrag is usually done on HDD drives because of the moving mechanical parts whereas SSDs don’t require it. The best part of defragmenting your drives? You do not need to use any third-party software at all. Read on to know how to defrag drives on Windows 11 PCs.

Before we begin to talk about the various defragmenting methods, there are a few things you should know. Optical drives and drives connected over a network cannot be defragmented. Also, if you have got a hard drive or a storage drive that is not in the NTFS format, it cannot be defragmented. Also. none of your data would be lost or deleted while performing a defrag. Let’s take a look at how you can defragment drives on a Windows 11 PC.

How to Defrag Windows 11 Drives

There are two methods that you can use to defrag files on a hard drive. Both methods can be done using tools that are available in Windows 11 itself. So, let’s get started.

Defrag Windows 11 Drives via Disk Defragmenter

The first method is by making use of the Defrag app that is present within the Windows 11 OS. This is a simple yet handy tool that can be used to defrag files on your system’s hard drive.

  1. Open the Start Menu and type in Defrag.
    How to Defrag Windows 11
  2. When you get the app result, hit the enter button.
  3. In the app windows, you will see a list of connected hard drives.
  4. Select the hard drive and then click on Analyze.
    How to Defrag Windows 11
  5. The hard drive will now be analyzed. This process should take you less than a minute or so.
  6. While that completes, the drives will now begin the fragmentation process. This fragmentation can take around some duration of time, depending on the storage capacity of the said hard drive.
  7. The drive will undergo a few passes and should be completed within 10 to 15 minutes or so.
  8. Usually, disk defragmentation is done automatically. You can adjust those settings by clicking on the Change Settings button.
    How to Defrag Windows 11
  9. And that is how you defrag your files with the built-in defrag tool for Windows 11.

Defrag Windows 11 Drives via Command Prompt

The Command Prompt is a great way to get a lot of functions done with a few lines of commands that can be executed right away without needing to open a specific type of application to the particular function. Here is how you defrag files using the Command Prompt.

  1. Press the Windows and letter X key on the desktop.
  2. Select the Windows Terminal (Admin) option from the context menu. You can also open up Windows Powershell to defrag your drives.
  3. To begin defragmenting your files, simply type in defrag /C. This will invoke the defragmentation process of your hard drive.
    How to Defrag Windows 11
  4. To analyze a drive simply type defrag(drive name) /A. It will show you details such as the drive’s total storage space and the available space on the drive.

You can even make use of the following commands when defragmenting the drives.

  • defrag /v will give you details of the defrag
  • defrag /x consolidates free space on your drives
  • defrag /h defrag process begins at normal priority process
  • defrag /t track currently ongoing defrag process
  • defrag /e defrag all drives except mentioned drive
  • defrag /m defrags all drives

So, there you have it. Two simple methods to use to defrag Windows 11 drives. Do you need to make use of third-party apps to defrag your files? Absolutely not. The defrag tools in Windows 11 are powerful enough to defrag the drives and help you get more free space easily without any sort of trouble or worry. As a matter of fact, one shouldn’t consider using a third-party tool that might claim to defrag your files faster as it involves your hard drives, and such should be treated with care as well as ensure that data is not being deleted by such a third-party app.

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Joshua D'souza

Enjoy games, 90's hip-hop, and tech. Loves exploring the infinite world of laptops and food. Every ready to provide assistance in anything that rocks his boat. Will gladly enjoy capturing memories through various lenses. Worked previously at PiunikaWeb as an author and researcher.

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