How to Defragment Attached Network Storage
Defragmenting any hard drive on your computer means that you are letting the computer rearrange the data on that drive so that it can locate the files more quickly. Attached network storage means that you have some sort of removable hard drive or USB flash drive that is shared over your entire network. Occasionally you may need to defragment this type of storage drive if you have added and deleted a great deal of data.
- Make sure the drive you wish to defragment is attached to the computer and is accessible from the computer. If your computer cannot find and open the drive, it will not be able to defragment the files. If your computer does not recognize the drive, try removing it and re-inserting it.
- Click the "Start" button in the main toolbar of your computer.
- Click "All Programs" to fully open the program menu.
- Click the "Accessories" folder. The folder will expand in the same window once you click it.
- Click "System Tools" to expand the folder in the same window.
- Click "Disk Defragmenter." The disk defragmenter program is a built-in component of your computer's operating system. It will open in a separate window with a list of all of the hard drives you can choose from in order to defragment.
- Select the name of the attached drive you wish to defragment. This highlights the drive so the computer knows which drive to defragment.
- Click "Defragment." Your computer may want to analyze the drive first before it defragments the data. Leave the drive attached until the defragmenting process is fully complete, otherwise you may lose or corrupt some data from the drive.