Does defragmenting the hard disk improve performance?

I used to defragment my hard disk regularly until the IT manager of the company I work in advised me not to . His reasons was that during defragmentation Windows could Hang/jam which would ruin the hard disk and possibly the opperating system.

What do you think?

Your IT manager is an idiot.
Defrag just moves data. Your HD is doing that all the time anyway.

Thanks stOx for your reply.

Please look in your PM

LOL I would advise your IT manager to get updated or upgraded!

Also just to say: No matter what anyone says there is NO WAY software can damage you Hard drive. NO virus no matter how great can break it!

A virus can delete all your stuff but NOT make your hdd unusable. (BELIVE ME! I have f**ked with my hdd so much had 100's of level 10 viruses and all i have had to do it re-install windows and im away...)

Dan

I would rather say that what your IT manager told you would have been correct if this had happened years back. Now their is no problem in defragmenting your hard disk. In fact it is advisable to defrag your hard drive.

dansgalaxy, what he meant was that during moving files, the defrag program copies files onto the RAM, removes them from a certain area of the HD then copies them on another area. What if the computer jams/hangs or there is a power failure before the copying step is done?

Yes, Mohab, that possibility is there. But I can tell you from my experience that once I had a power cut while defragmenting. I rebooted and found everything ok.

I feel these days the defrag utilities work differently, they only remove the data when the reallocation of the data is complete. I will though look for a confirmation.