Optimize Drives - Defrag HDD and TRIM SSD in Windows 8

How to Use "Optimize Drives" to Defrag HDD and TRIM SSD in Windows 8 and 8.1​

   Information

Optimize Drives, previously called Disk Defragmenter, helps to optimize the different types of drives that PCs use today. No matter which type of drive your PC uses, Windows automatically chooses the optimization that's right for your drive.

By default, Optimize Drives runs automatically on a weekly schedule during the time you have set for automatic maintenance. You can also optimize drives on your PC manually any time you like.

This tutorial will show you how to open and use Optimize Drives or a command prompt to defrag hard disk drives and TRIM solid state drives in Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows 8.1, and Windows RT 8.1.

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

   Note

• If the drive is being used by another program, or is formatted using a file system other than NTFS, FAT, or FAT32, it can't be optimized.
• Network drives can't be optimized.
• If a drive isn't appearing in Optimize Drives, it might be because it contains an error. Try to repair the drive with chkdsk first, then return to Optimize Drives to try again.

   Tip

The real and complete story - Does Windows defragment your SSD?

OPTION ONE

To Use "Optimize Drives" to Manually Defragment and Optimize Drives

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1. In File Explorer, click/tap on Computer (Windows 8) or This PC (Windows 8.1), do step 1A or 1B below, then go to step 2 below.​

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A) Select a HDD or SSD, click/tap on Manage (Drive Tools) tab, and click/tap on the Optimize button in the ribbon. (see screenshot below)​

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B) Right click or press and hold on a HDD or SSD, click/tap on Properties, click/tap on Tools tab, Optimize button, and on OK. (see screenshot below)​

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2. Under Status, click/tap on the drive you want to optimize. (see screenshot below)​

NOTE: The Media type column tells you what type (HDD or SSD) of drive you're optimizing.​

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3. To determine if a HDD needs to be optimized, click/tap on Analyze. If prompted by UAC, then click/tap on Yes. (see screenshot below)​

NOTE: This is not available for a SSD.​

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4. Check the Current status column to see whether you need to optimize the drive (SSD or HDD). If the drive is more than 10% fragmented, then you should optimize the drive now.​

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5. To optimize the selected drive, click/tap on Optimize. If prompted by UAC, then click/tap on Yes. (see screenshot above and below)​

NOTE: Optimizing a drive might take anywhere from several minutes to a few hours to finish, depending on the size of the drive and degree of optimization needed. You can still use your PC during the optimization process.​

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6. When finished, you can close the Optimize Drives window.​

OPTION TWO

To Use Command Prompt to Manually Defragment and Optimize Drives

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1. Do step 2 or 3 below for how you would like to run the defrag command.​

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2. To Use an Elevated Command Prompt in Windows 8​

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A) Open an elevated command prompt, and go to step 4 below.​

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3. To Use a Command Prompt at Boot​

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A) Open a command prompt at startup.​

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B) In the command prompt, type diskpart and press Enter.​

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C) In the command prompt, type list volume and press Enter.​

NOTE: Make note of the drive letter that you want to optimize. The drive letter for the drive will not always be the same at boot as it is in Windows 8.​

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D) In the command prompt, type exit and press Enter.​

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E) Continue on to step 4 below.​

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4. In the command prompt, type in the following command below followed by one or more switches (flags) that you would like to use below with a space between each switch and press Enter.​

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Syntax:​

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defrag <volumes> | /C | /E <volumes> [<task(s)>] [/H] [/M | [/U] [/V]]​

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Where <task(s)> is omitted (traditional defrag), or as follows: /A | [/D] [/K] [/L] | /O | /X​

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Or, to track an operation already in progress on a volume: defrag <volume> /T​

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Commonly Used Commands:​

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defrag C: /O​

NOTE: Substitute C: in the command with the drive letter you want instead.​

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defrag /C /O​

NOTE: For all HDDs and SSDs.​

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Parameters:​

NOTE: Switches in red below are new to Windows 8.​

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Switch (value)	Description
/A	Perform analysis on the specified volumes.
/B	Perform boot optimization to defrags the boot sector of the boot volume. This will not work on a SSD.
/C	Perform the operation on all volumes.
/D	Perform traditional defrag (this is the default).
/E	Perform the operation on all volumes except those specified.
/H	Run the operation at normal priority (default is low).
/K	Perform slab consolidation on the specified volumes.
/L	Perform retrim on the specified volumes. Only for a SSD.
/M	Run the operation on each volume in parallel in the background.
/O	Perform the proper optimization for each media type.
/T	Track an operation already in progress on the specified volume.
/U	Print the progress of the operation on the screen.
/V	Print verbose output containing the fragmentation statistics.
/X	Perform free space consolidation on the specified volumes.

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

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• How to Change "Optimize Drives" Schedule Settings in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Add "Optimize Drive" to Context Menu of Drives in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Check and Enable or Disable SSD TRIM Support in Windows 7 and Windows 8
• How to Change the "Automatic Maintenance" Settings in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Check a Drive for Errors with "chkdsk" in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Open Advanced Tools in Windows 7 and Windows 8

 

[ZaLiTH]

Out of curiosity, I've seen many notes online that discourage defragmenting a SSD.. From the above tutorial, I see the CLI option still launches an executable called "defrag", so does this "Optimise" perform different actions specifically for SSDs?

On the other hand, am I completely misled by the assumption that running defrag on a SSD is a bad idea?

 

[Brink]

Hello Andre,

It does get a bit confusing when it's called "Optimize" now even though it uses the defrag.exe process.

It is correct that you do not want to defrag a SSD, and only defrag a HDD. Instead, you would want to TRIM a SSD.

The included "Optimize Drive" feature in Windows 8/10 will automatically only defrag a HDD and TRIM a SSD.

Using the /O switch with the defrag command will also automatically only defrag a HDD and TRIM a SSD.

 

[ZaLiTH]

Awesome, thanks for the clarification Shawn.. Makes me feel a tad bit better about letting Microsoft do what they think is best for my rig.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome.

 

[Mooly]

A couple of things I've wondered over in the past. When you add switches, does it matter in what order you enter them to the program line ?

I use a click to run batch file that runs the command defrag C: /H /U /V and it seems to work well showing the progress of each 'pass' with sometimes up to 11 or so passes being made in a particular run. Each pass consists of 'Free space consolidation', 'Defrag' and 'Eviction'.

What actually is 'Eviction', what's it doing there ?

Last question I spotted in your list a Boot Files optimise command of /B and that made me wonder if 8.1 optimises boot files automatically. I think Vista did that every three days or so. If so, does that still happen even if scheduled defrag is turned off ? Could I safely add that to my line above or should something like that be run separately ?

 

[Brink]

Hello Mooly,

Nar, it doesn't matter what order you have the switches in.

Eviction is the act of removing data from the cluster when additional storage space is required.

If I remember correctly, optimizing the boot files is also part of the scheduled automatic maintenance by default.

 

[Mooly]

That's great, thanks once again for the info Shawn.

 

[Brink]

Anytime.

 

[xbliss]

So I have a Win 8.1 that I cloned from an SSD to a HDD. Despite trying to change status on the HDD, it wont allow me to Defrag. In fact, DevMngr shows the drive as HDD, but Defrag Opt still is stuck to the OLD SSD as if underlying hardware has not changed.

Suggestions? Thoughts? So that I can enable that

 

[Brink]

Hello xbliss,

Odd. Have you already tried to defrag using the command prompt?

 

[xbliss]

Hello xbliss,

Odd. Have you already tried to defrag using the command prompt?

Yes. It says it cant do what I asked due to underlying hardware. It believes that I still have an SSD underneath.

Somehow I need to make Windows 8.1 realize that I copied this partition volume to a HDD. Is there some way to remind it? Some kind of place inside a Registry key or INI or config file where I can make it REALIZE or RESET this little OLD MEMORY that its stuck to?

 

[Brink]

I'm not sure other than a clean install.

 

[xbliss]

Found this way to make Windows reassess & check what hardware really exists. It worked on my HDD.

WinSAT formal

hard drive - I cloned my SSD to a HDD, but Windows still thinks its solid state - Super User

 

[Brink]

 

[Mooly]

I recently fitted a new SDD drive to my laptop and clean installed W8.1 onto it but there is one thing I'm not sure about. In the external link in post #1 (The real and complete story...) there is mention that 'Volume Snapshots' or 'VSC' needs to be enabled for the 'Optimise' function to run on schedule, and which as I understand it means that the standard Restore Points utility in Windows should be active and not disabled..

Now I have System Restore turned OFF simply because I use disk imaging instead.

So a couple of questions...

Is having System Restore disabled the reason I have now over run the first scheduled weekly 'Optimise' ?
Is this also the reason I don't see the 'Analyse' option, (its greyed out) and so consequently I don't see how fragmented the drive is.



Any recommendations (I could turn System Restore on if it would help) but you don't normally have that function enabled for other partitions and so what about those.

Or should I just manually run 'Optimise' every once in a while. When I do this though, it all seems to be over with in seconds.

Edit... trim is enabled when I check using a command prompt.

 

[Brink]

Hello Mooly,

That would only be the Volume Shadow Copy service that needs to be enabled instead. You do not need to have System Protection turned on for restore points and System Restore.

The "Analyze" button will always be grayed out for SSDs. It's only available for HDDs.

The optimize schedule should run as part of automatic maintenance if your computer wasn't running at the time you have scheduled.

 

[Mooly]

Thanks for the reply Shawn so I can see I have a bit of reading up to do here as I'm confusing what some of the services actually do. Looking in 'Services' and I see that Volume Shadow Copy is set to manual. Now I've never altered that (or anything in services)...... so I'm sort of wondering why its now 9 days (its just rolled past the time in my screen shot above and added another day) and nothing seems to have happened.

 

[Brink]

"Manual" is the default setting for that service, and is fine.

Optimization won't run if determined it's not needed though.

What did you have your optimization schedule set to, and has the computer been running at that time?

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/8616-optimize-drives-schedule-change-windows-8-a.html

 

[Mooly]

Ah, now that's interesting to know. It may well not need any maintenance, at least based on how I was used to defragmenting manually the previous HDD and rarely seeing more than 1% fragmentation when performed weekly. A big round of updates would push that to perhaps 3% at most.

So perhaps that is actually a likely reason.


The frequency is set to 'Weekly' but the PC probably wasn't on at the exact time. The standard Windows Maintenance ? routine seems to run daily in the mornings if I just leave it idling for a 3 or 4 minutes... I see the action centre flag change to show its running. I don't know if the SSD optimise would occur then if a time were missed.

I'll leave it be and see how it goes, like many things in Windows I'm sure it knows what its doing even when its owner is left wondering (lol).

Performance of the SSD is terrific though, things like a full image backup taking around 2.5 minutes compared to 10 minutes with old drive. So I just want to keep it like this.