Windows 10 - Defrag an external drive

Ah ok. That makes sense.

But disk access on one of my drives is 'sluggish'. That's why I thought it needs a defrag.

Any ideas please?

If the drive is a hard drive and not SSD, and if you can ensure a solid, uninterrupted connection, back it up and try defragging it. You may need Perfect Disk or like product. That is what I use.

Sluggish performance may be the result of a failing drive. Normally this sort of thing is monitored and alerted using S.M.A.R.T. technology but USB drives tend to bypass much of that. You could try a drive monitoring utility but I'm not certain that they'll work on a USB device. You may need to remove the drive from the external enclosure and attach it directly to a SATA connection.

http://www.hdtune.com/

 Or, since hard drives are so cheap these days, just replace the darned thing.

I would try checking the disk for errors. Open File Explorer. Right click on the problem drive and go to Properties. Then click on the Tools tab and click on Check.

By all means check for errors, but I would expect errors to show up and not just as slowness. Please let us know.

hindersalva, how is it going?  do you want more info ?

Thanks all. I had 3 external hard drives connected to the laptop via USB x4 box. It all became ok when I plugged in the 'defective' hard drive directly into the USB port by itself.

Also ran Check Disk as one point. That may have helped also.

thanks

i hope that usb box has it's own power supply..if not - that is the cause of the problems

Right. The box has no power supply. Just a splitter x4.

with usb 2 i Always recommend a powere USB hub

They call it an Active hub as opposed to passive.

i prefer using powered, because it explains what it is