System Performance Analysis

Disk Performance Issues Disk performance is optimal when the right conditions are met, but several factors will change performance and may even cause the files to fail to load at all. Chief among the factors that affect performance are; fragmented file system and process load/number of running processes. When a file is downloaded, it is saved in clusters, the size of which is dependent on the size of the drive they are saved to, and are placed next to each other if the drive is freshly formatted. In this instance, they are loaded quickly when needed because they are physically next to each other, or contiguous. This will load them with optimal speed. If the disk is fragmented (caused by deleting old files, adding new data to files etc.) then any files saved to the disk will fill up the empty space left from deleted files first, or save in the first empty space available which may not be next to the files they were meant to be added to. This causes the data to be scattered all over the disk and it takes longer for the mechanical components to retrieve them because it has to seek them out, so to speak, on the disk. This is especially evident in video files, and gaming files, which can be massive in size. To combat this and restore performance, a disk defragmenter is used. This program rearranges, or defragments, the data on the selected disk, filling in empty space and moving pieces of the same file so they are next to each other again. Depending on the size and condition of the disk, a full defrag may take several hours. Another factor in disk performance is the process load and the number of running processes. These processes almost always run in the background, virtually invisible until you look at Task Manager and see how much stuff is running behind the scenes. You can equate the number of processes running to juggling (if you wanted to). Basically, the more balls you try to juggle at once or the larger or heavier the balls are, the more