Too many files slowing down computer?

I have two hard drives of 80gb each. On the first one containing my OS I have almost everything, including music files, documents and various other space-hogging materials. I was wondering if I transferred all my big folders of the above materials to the second drive would it improve the efficient working of my main drive by not clogging it up? Thank you.

 

As long as the drive isn't too full (80% for FAT32 and 90% for NTFS) the number of files should not give you problems and moving files elsewhere won't help unless the drive you move them to is mechanically a faster device than the one they are on now.

Usual causes for a PC starting to slow down
- spyware/malware
- too many temp files, temp internet files, etc.
- drive badly fragged and FAT32 will respond badly to this sooner than NTFS

 

Newt,
Where do the % come from? How do they impact performance?

Also, do the number of objects in a directory have any bearing on performance? It seems to bog me down when I open a directory containing a lot (more than 1000??) of files.

Thanks,
Tim

 

Thanks, Newt. I don't have a particularly slow machine, but was just concerned lest the large amount (20%) of material on the main drive might be detrimental to my computing. I use Ad-Aware ,Ewido Security Suite, and likewise Norton Speed Disk several times a week.

 

Lugwalker - if you are using Norton Speed Disk, you need to disable the onboard defrag app since it fights with Norton. They are both effective but take very different approaches. Since the one that ships with XP (a lite version of diskkeeper) will defrag registry hives while the PC is running, I opted to not use Norton Speed disk. Your choice but pick one and you need to understand that unless you disable the feature, diskkeeper will do some background defragging.

I know HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
and Enable (right side of screen) will need to be set to N to disable. Not really sure if any other changes would be needed. I have read snippits about
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OptimalLayout
but nothing I would be comfortable suggesting you make changes.

TCY - I have forgotten where I got the percentage numbers but wherever, they are pretty good. I have found over the years that if I keep a drive below those numbers, things run pretty well. And yes, as you noted, a huge number of files in a single folder/directory can cause some performance hits. All I could suggest there is to split things up until you are running to suit you.

 

I actually have Diskeeper Version:8.0.480.0 installed, which I have on the 'Set it and forget it' mode. So I really shouldn't be using Speed Disk at all. I'm just being overly fussy, I suppose. Thanks for the information, Newt.

 

I would have more concerned for Data protection rather than preformance. Especially if the 1st HD is all one partition. If the main HD should happen to decided to take a trip South on you, ALL would be lost.

It may not do much for preformance but moving the mentioned files to the 2nd HD might DO A LOT for protection of same. Unless you have them backed up some other way.

BillyBob

 

Too many files in a folder? Interesting question...

I have a lot of MP3s, and some of the folders are huge, and have subfolders. I click, they show up in a snap. But in my screensaver folders (jpgs), the bigger folders hesitate a second before they open, and since they don't open in thumbnails, that's not the delay. It is a slight delay, but it is certainly there, and only noticeable when a folder gets more than 100MB or so.

Lugwalker Put your data files on your second drive, if they mean anything to you. I doubt it will affect performance one way or another, but they will be "safer" there, away from the OS.

Johanna

 

I think that might be the best thing to do, folks, moving my files onto the other HD. Thanks again for the help