To Defrag or not to Defrag Windows 7, this is the question!

[Youngbear]

I am confused. I have recently purchased an HP Pavillion desktop tower loaded with Windows 7 64bit OS. I am getting conflicting reports to my question, should I defrag my Win. 7? I get information that Windows 7 is an SSD and they defrag themselves automatically with a program called Trim. I get information that defragging can actually harm an SSD system. Then I read that not all Windows 7 systems are set up to enable Trim even though they support it. I am not a sophisticated enough user to understand everything I am reading. On Vista I always ran a morning "quick" defrag once a day and I never had any problems.

 

Do I or do I not defrag Windows 7? I need a solid, "basic" answer. Thank you and I appreciate your time,

 

YB

[Alan_B]

Welcome to the forum.

 

I get information that Windows 7 is an SSD

That is totally false. They coexist but are fundamentally different.

 

Windows 7 is Software, as is Linux.

An SSD is Hardware, as is an HDD

 

You can have Windows running in an SSD or an HDD

You can have Linux running in an SSD or an HDD

 

You can also have both multiple SSD's and HDD's in a computer.

 

It is advisable to NOT defrag an SSD, only defrag an HDD.

 

In your case HP now supply Windows 8 on 7200 rpm HDD, so it is unlikely that the earlier model would have an SSD.

http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/products/desktops/product-detail.html?oid=5359021#!tab=models

 

It will do absolutely no harm to launch Defraggler WITHOUT clicking on any buttons to Defrag or even Analyze.,

and then look at the top of the display which will list all the partition letters,

and in the second column it should indicate either SSD or HDD.

 

Do not Defrag any SSD