Slow Computer Fixes - Speeding Up A Virtual Machine
Technology has a funny habit of solving one problem but then highlighting another. A typical example of this is the emergence of virtual operating systems, that is an OS that runs on top of another OS. While there are many advantages to many computer users in running these configurations they all rely the humble hard disk , and as fragmentation occurs, this can lead to instability and potentially data loss.
Just like any other software virtual machines still require (unless you have a very specialist setup) to be run from the hard drive, which is still and probably will remain so for many years to come, the slowest part of your system. Drives can be broken in sub parts know as partitions which can then be utilized as a different drive so to speak but hard disk fragmentation is still an issue.
Fragmentation occurs on all hard drives and is part of the way the operating system stores the data on a disk. It won’t lay it down nice and neatly in one continuous block, but will lay it wherever there is a space. One file could literally be split into many separate places on the hard disk and this is fragmentation. If you have one OS running it can be bad but if you are running virtual machines the problems is far more serious.
Fragmentation is the scourge of modern computers as most people fail to conduct even the most basic maintenance on their computers. The situation just get worse over time and some people have even been known to purchase a new system even though there is nothing wrong with the old. On servers and raid arrays fragmentation is far more serious as it slows down business applications and reduces productivity. In very bad instances data recovery is the only method of saving the data.
Operating systems handle fragmentation in different ways. Microsoft Windows, for example, pays little or no attention to the degree of fragmentation on a storage device, whereas Mac OS X goes some way to helping by automatically defragmenting files under 20 MB in size. Other Operating Systems handle file fragmentation in various ways, with varying levels of success.
Defragmentation utilities can take care of this problem, however, running them practically ties up the machine until completion, slowing the machine to a crawl. So what can be done to remove this issue? There are a number of possibilities that can be tried.
Scheduling a defragmentation is a good bet as you can let it run whilst you are doing another task or perhaps out to lunch. Third party applications can do this extremely well.
Invest in dedicated hardware. Not the cheapest solution but for business and power user home systems probably the most sensible route. Dedicated hardware could be an additional hard drive (internal or external) a dedicated raid array or even an SSD device. The actual solution will depend on how mission critical the application actually is.
Ensuring your systems are working in tip top condition is vital to maintaining a productive IT infrastructure. For more great computing tips visit the IT support Bury , or click here for hard drive recovery information and raid data recovery advice.