Tom's Guide: Hard Drive Optimization Tips and Tricks

Upgrading to an SSD is one way to ensure faster hard drive performance, but we realize that this may not be an economical solution, especially when you consider how affordable it is to buy space in bulk when you're talking HDD storage versus SSD storage. Still, there are ways to ensure your HDD runs more smoothly and efficiently. The Tom's Guide has put together a list of HDD optimization tweaks, as well as a few tips on how to get the most out of your SSD by reducing unnecessary write operations and more. Check out 'Hard Drive Optimization Tips and Tricks' for the full list of tips.

The magnetic hard disk is now a venerable storage medium but it still delivers the best storage space bang for your buck. While not as fast as new-fangled SSDs, there are many simple ways to improve the performance and reliability of the classic hard disk. Even, if you're already running a solid state drive in your machine, there are still a few optimization tweaks to improve the reliability of your zippy new storage device. Read on for tips, tricks, and utilities to get the best out of your HDD or SSD!Hard Drive Optimization Tips and Tricks

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  • A Bad Day
    A shame you can't set the System Restore to use a different partition or hard drive other than the OS partition.
    Reply
  • I disable the page file and system restore before even installing drivers on new windows install
    Reply
  • A Bad Day
    I recall the last time I disabled system restore, I needed it but didn't have a backup. Fail...
    Reply
  • I do a system image backup weekly, system restore points can get corrupted, If something goes wrong it is useually easer just to re image my hard drive!
    Reply
  • danwat1234
    All those SSD tips, SSDs are tougher than you think. They can handle 100s of TB of writes before they start to wear out.
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    omg, people still use pagefile these days? turn it off, get more RAM instead.

    Unless u are running a old system which limits the upgrade of large RAM module, then this pagefile might be useful.
    Reply
  • livebriand
    Why do we have these "articles" that are just links?
    Reply
  • The-Darkening
    livebriandWhy do we have these "articles" that are just links?
    I was asking the same question for some time now...
    Reply
  • SAL-e
    You are missing the most important SSD optimization: Partition Alignment more details could be found here: http://blog.nuclex-games.com/2009/ -on-linux/
    Reply