Put the drive back in your hard disk.

In my recent article “Why is my computer running so slow?” I highlighted that a cluttered and disorganized hard disk can significantly degrade system performance.  In this article I’ll recommend some great free solutions to put the DRIVE back in your hard disk.

Remember, before doing any sort of aggressive cleanup or tuning I recommend Backing up your system first.  If you are not regularly backing up your system, START NOW!  See my recent blog “backup-your-computer-now” to get started or get ideas on how to make your current backup strategy even better.

All in One

If you want easily and quickly cleanup and optimize your Hard Drive and PC check out IOBit’s Advanced System Care.  Like a Swiss army knife it has all the tools you probably need and does a good job.  It is my recommendation for the average user who just wants to remember to run one application every so often.   If you want it to run automatically allowing you to set it and forget it you will need to pay $20 for their pro version.  It also has the benefit of backing up and forcing system restore points allowing you to undo.

Stand Alone Applications

All in one solutions are great but its hard to find one tool that is the best for everything.  Here is a list of what I have found are the best specialty standalone applications.  They will do a better job but you will have to run each one separately.

1. Clean up your hard drive Part 1: There are a number of great free solutions to remove unnecessary files cluttering up your hard drive.  My favorite stand alone tool is : http://www.ccleaner.com/ great review and alternatives listed here http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-file-cleaner.htm
2. Clean up your hard drive Part 2: You can also have old files you no longer need like installers, pictures, music you accidentally saved as wav file vs mp3, that DVD you ripped and left of your drive, or just old files you no longer need.  The automated cleaners in step 1 won’t erase these for you and its probably not worth your time to look at every file on your PC and decide if you need it or not.  There are a number of great utilities that help you visualize the space being used by files and folders on your drive.  My favorite is: WinDirStat
3. Defragment your hard drive: Reorganize the files for faster access and improved responsiveness. My favorite free stand alone tool is http://mydefrag.com/.  If you like CCleaner to clean up your drive, you might also want to check out http://www.defraggler.com/.  More info and alternatives herehttp://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-disk-de-fragmenter.htm

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