I thought that drive defragmentation was no longer needed. If it is, PLEASE let us know.The problem is not always the computer speed but the drive speed especially with HDD, SSD are faster but tend to get slower once they get over 80% full and also not all SSD’s a created equal. The speed of the computer is not completely dedicated to the file copy operation. The OS itself and everything running on the computer requires CPU cycles and memory. Performance analysis can be done on windows systems with the performance monitor tool. These should be monitored at a minimum
%processor time
processor queue length
Disk queue length
%disk
%memory
it can get more complicated as you can analyze performance counters on a process basis. The performance monitor tool places an important burden on the system and the system should be monitored remotely.
Something we often forget is that drives gets fragmented over time and this has a big impact on drive performane.
I think my interpretation of the efficiency of programming is based on when hardware was so expensive that programs had to be written very well. Now a programmers time is more expensive than the hardware.SSD’s usually don’t require it. HDD may need It. If I remember correctly defragmentation is done automatically since Windows 7 I think. I could not comment on inefficient programming. Automatic processes is to some degree unavoidable ( mainly system processes) but you can configure startup applications and services. I agree with you that computers are much faster than they used to but I suspect that applications also require more resources than they used to. Real antivirus software, VPN just to name these two are often ressources hogs.
A lot of people have the system drive and data drive on the same physical disk, not necessarily a good thing performance wise.
In the end it’s never fast enough especially when we are waiting for the task to complete.
This may be true, i don't know much about programming. I did take a look a both my windows 11 systems and it looks like the drives are being automatically optimized once a week. I guess drive fragmentation is no longer an issue in modern Windows OS.I think my interpretation of the efficiency of programming is based on when hardware was so expensive that programs had to be written very well. Now a programmers time is more expensive than the hardware.
Thanks
Joel