How to Defrag a New External Hard Drive

External hard drives are an excellent way to add storage to your computer or maintain a backup that's not integral to the computer. Defraging this drive is just as crucial to good computer performance as it is to defraging the hard drive that's in your computer itself.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• External hard drive

1. Install the new external hard drive on your computer, following the instructions in the manual. Most new external drives are USB "plug-and-play" devices that require very little setup aside from connecting the drive to the computer and plugging it in. To be on the safe side, read your manual first.

2. Test your new hard drive by loading some data onto it. Music files, pictures files and the like are often stored on an external hard drive--that way, they're easily accessible or transferable to another computer in case the main computer fails.

3. Locate the Defrag command on your computer. It's easy to find on a Windows-based machine. Follow these steps:Go to "Start">"Programs">"Accessories." Then select "System Tools" and find "Disk Defragmenter." You'll be prompted to select a drive. Select the external hard drive.

4. Wait while the drive is defragmented. Depending on the amount of data on the drive, this may take a while, so budget the time before you begin. Since you haven't had the drive in place for very long, it should be a quick process the first time around.

Tips & Warnings

• Defragging once is good; doing it on a regular basis is much better. Your computer will run more smoothly if you stay on top of this basic maintenance procedure.