Sorry is this is a bit if a stupid question, but I want to know in depth about hard drive fragmentation, what it is and why it happens, also what is actually happening when you de-frag a drive.
FYI - I couldn't find a previous forum post with this specific question, if i missed it please link it to me!
hard drive fragmention is where the files on you hdd are spread out accross all the plates and it has to work a lot to find the files its searching for this happens when you download and install programs they get put anywhere on the hard drive e.g. a third of a program is on the 1st plate and the rest are on the third plate and it takes a while for the os to find the files to start the program when you defragment a drive it groups all of the most used data closer to the top of the hard drive so it takes less time to find it and start the program
It also groups the similar file types, which is why you will be able to see an array of colours on the de-fragmentation program.
Oh, and never defrag an SSD. It will shorten the life of it and is unnecessary anyways since it doesn't get slower the farther in to the disk you go.