Fragmentation is a Computer Disease that Continues to Progress When it is Not Treated
There are few things more important to a company than establishing and maintaining a reputation as being a reliable business. The value of being recognized as reliable not only keeps customers and clients coming back but also attracts new business, something every company needs if it wants to continue growing.
Many companies go to great lengths to earn that reputation as reliable. Whether it’s through a detailed hiring process designed to ensure the best candidate is hired for a position or a comprehensive set of procedures and practices is implemented to promote efficiency and consistency in the workplace there are no shortage of systems that can be executed to develop into a reliable company.
While several of these companies focus on employees, training, education and standard practices in an effort to make their name synonymous with reliability they often overlook a key element of their business that plays a significant role in their success and how customers and clients view them, their computer network system.
Every company that relies on their computer network system knows that if they were to experience a crash the results could be devastating to their business. Despite this realization many companies overlook how much they depend on their network system and the significant role it plays in developing a reputation of reliability.
Failing to recognize the importance of a network system and neglecting its health is a recipe for disaster that no company can afford. When it comes to reliability there really is no more important element of a business than its computer network system.
With that understanding there are certain precautions that every company should take to guarantee their network system never crashes. One such precaution tackles the problem of fragmentation and its effects on the computer network system.
Fragmentation is a computer disease that may appear harmless at first but, like any disease, continues to progress when it is not treated. At the heart of the problem is the manner in which the hard drive saves and stores files. This is a significant issue for companies because the amount of information stored on their network is extensive and if it is not protected from fragmentation they run the risk of losing everything.
A hard drive saves and stores files in a contiguous manner, taking each new file saved and storing it directly behind the last file saved. This manner of saving and storing files becomes problematic when a saved file is retrieved and modified, a common practice among employees in just about any company. The problems arise because when these files are modified and then resaved they no longer fit in the same space the original file was saved in. A hard drive’s answer is to cut the excess information and save it in the next available space, this is now a fragmented file.
As these files are continuously opened and modified they continue to be broken into more and more pieces until a single file has pieces littered across the hard drive. Each time that file is requested it takes the hard drive longer and longer to retrieve and this slowdown begins to be felt in other operations on the network.
A computer network will begin to take a serious hit to its speed with not just delays in file retrieval and page loads but also difficulty in accessing and sending email, sluggish Internet browsing and a slowdown in booting up the system. These delays can cause any number of problems for a company that has clients and customers relying on a quick response or accurate information. As fragmentation progresses a company will almost certainly see a hit to their business.
Companies that are serious about their reliability can take simple steps to ensure their computer network system runs at its optimal speed and keeps their business running smoothly. The solution is defragmentation software.
Once installed defragmentation software will scan the hard drive and repair all fragmented files, joining together the pieces of a broken file and saving them as a single unit in one place. After repairing the damaged files defrag will continue to monitor the hard drive to ensure files don’t become fragmented in the future. This process makes it easier for the computer network system to retrieve files in an efficient manner and ensures those files don’t become lost or damaged.
By doing this, a company can be sure they don’t lose communication with their clients and customers thus instilling a greater sense of reliability.
