BleepingComputer.com: How often do you clean up your hard disk?

I can't find a good place for this so it's landed here in General.

I remember back when my family first got Myst II:Riven and it took a massive 75MB of Hard Drive space, and we even had to upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 to run it! We had 56k dial-up internet that came with some awesome sound effects to.

Where I am going is that hard drive space was at a premium and computer speeds were very low, so it was very often that you were taught to dump your temporary internet files, delete old documents and generally do whatever you could to recover extra disk space (also ICQ, and Hotmail were cool but that's another story). Defragmentation was common due to the relatively large amounts created and destroyed by just making documents.

So now that we have fast computers with +2.0ghz Dual Core Processors, +1GB RAM, and relatively massive hard drives (500GB easy) the computer resources we get to work with aren't at the premium they once were. How often do people do maintenance on their computers. and how often do you Need to? If you have noticed that you don't maintenance like it's 1997 anymore, when did you stop doing maintenance like you used to?

Personally I have gone over a month before running disk cleanup, and almost never defragment anymore. Still my computer speeds along like nothing is phasing it. Still my hard drive has nearly 300GB of free space.

I clean up and defrag every Sunday at 3:00 AM (It's automatic - I am in la-la land at that time. )

I have always found it to be a good practice to do HD maintenance at least once a week. I schedule mine to occur while I am sleeping, because it can take a looong time to defrag a HD, today. I have found that registry maintenance is just as important as HD maintenance, as well.

I tell people to do maintenance at least once a month on their systems.
On mine, uhhh.... Its been a while
I better start practicing what I preach!

typically, personally, never unless i have a problem lol.

I generally reinstall the OS every 6 months.

MattV, on Jun 11 2010, 03:31 PM, said:

I have to disagree with this statement.

Unless you know what you're doing in the registry, it's best left alone. Even then, you should make a back up of the registry in case something goes badly wrong, which it can.

The Windows registry is a central repository (database) for storing configuration data, user settings and machine-dependent settings, and options for the operating system. It contains information and settings for all hardware, software, users, and preferences. Whenever a user makes changes to settings, file associations, system policies, or installed software, the changes are reflected and stored in this repository. The registry is a crucial component because it is where Windows "remembers" all this information, how it works together, how Windows boots the system and what files it uses when it does. The registry is also a vulnerable subsystem, in that relatively small changes done incorrectly can render the system inoperable. For a more detailed explanation, read Understanding The Registry.

• Improperly removing registry entries can hamper malware disinfection and make the removal process more difficult if your computer becomes infected. For example, removing malware related registry entries before the infection is properly identified can contribute to system instability and even make the malware undetectable to removal tools.

• The usefulness of cleaning the registry is highly overrated and can be dangerous. In most cases, using a cleaner to remove obsolete, invalid, and erroneous entries does not affect system performance but it can result in "unpredictable results".

Unless you have a particular problem that requires a registry edit to correct it, I would suggest you leave the registry alone. Using registry cleaning tools unnecessarily or incorrectly could lead to disastrous effects on your operating system such as preventing it from ever starting again. For routine use, the benefits to your computer are negligible while the potential risks are great.

• Ed Bott's Webog: Why I don’t use registry cleaners
  
• Do I need a Registry Cleaner?

Orange Blossom

To my way of thinking, having a defragmented drive has to be one of best ways of reducing wear and tear on your hard drive. If Windows can find everything it needs in one block, commonsense says that this will be easiest on the drive. To this end, I use Magical Defrag and install the free IOBit Smart Defrag on any other machine I have dealings with.

More good tools are in Revo Uninstaller. Install the free version then choose AutoUpdate and choose Install the Pro version. There are easy cleaners for Windows and most browsers. Leave the cookies unless you want to re-log in to each site again.

Disk Cleanup/ChkDsk - once in a blue moon. Might do it now, LOL.

boopme, on Jun 11 2010, 05:55 PM, said:

When I had XP thats about how much I reinstalled it. With vista or 7 I havent had to (Vista prolly coulda used it, but I got tired of messing with driver issues with vista each time, and so far 7 hasnt given me much fits. I dont modify my registry much, and I dont do a lot of surfing-so I dont much need to clean out or defrag my computer. Heck, im not even using 100 gigs of the 500 gigs I have available currently (I could have a terrabyte, but I decided to raid 1 them instead)

I run disk clean up and defrag once a week. IMHO if done often it takes less time to do them. I agree with rowal5555, it should extend the life of your hard drive. It spends less time spinning around looking for things.

Having been accustomed to computers with extremely small hard drives, I habitually clean up as I go as a matter of habit. Anything unneeded is either stored to disk and deleted, or simply erased, and Firefox is set to empty itself each time it closes. I agree that defragging is an important process, and monitor my drives at least once a month.

I have Bleachbit setup as a weekly cronjob. Deletes about 250MB of crap each time.

HI,

It's not possible for be do any clean up, Every year I just get the new one for putting down the new data. I have the hard-disk ranging from 2GB Samsung hard-disk when i had win 95 as my OS and finally now having 1TB hard-disk on my computer.

I clean it up every couple of days, and defrag every month or so.

I also do a msconfig/startup to see if anything cheeped it's way in there that shouldn't be. Sometimes when one downloads a program it will attach it's self there and you might not want it to.

Layback Bear, on Jun 15 2010, 09:01 AM, said:

But what if you never use it? It's like re-shelfing old library books that you never read, until their hardback covers peel off.
My point is, for unused data, defragging is more harm than good to your hard drive. I think this needs some real-life investigation