How to Speed Up Hard Drive in Windows 11/10/8/7 [100% Working Solutions]

Updated by

Linda 

Authored by

Sherly 

Last updated on April 22, 2024

Hard drives are crucial to a computer system, but they can slow down over time. However, there's no need to worry, as you can easily address this issue and speed up your hard drive with proper maintenance. This article will guide you through the process of optimizing your hard drive in the Windows operating system. First, let's understand why hard drives might become sluggish.

What causes a hard drive to run slow?

Due to the constant reading and writing, an old hard drive will inevitably become slower and more prone to failure. When it fails, you may suffer from a "slow computer" issue, and your system might crash randomly. Here are some issues that could be slowing down your hard drive.

• Bad sectors: The more bad sectors your hard drive has, the slower it will run.
• Too many temporary files: These build up and take up space on your hard drive.
• Viruses and malware on the hard drive: Malicious programs can do anything from performing unauthorized operations to causing damage by planting viruses.
• Fragmented files: When a single file is fragmented and its pieces are spread out across your hard drive, it takes longer to access.

Of course, there can be many reasons for the slow hard drive, but whatever the reason is, it's essential to know how to fix the slow hard drive issue to boost your daily productivity. Let's get started.

By the way, here are some links about hard drives. Click on them to learn more.

How to Speed Up Hard Drive in Windows 11/10/8/7 - 8 Effective Ways

All of the above can cause your hard drive to slow down, but there are still ways to protect it in our daily use. In this section, you will see and learn eight effective ways to speed up your hard drive:

• Method 1: Partition Your Hard Drive
• Method 2: Check for Bad Sectors
• Method 3: Delete Temporary Files
• Method 4: Enable Write Caching
• Method 5: Defragment Your Hard Drive
• Method 6: Run the CHKDSK Command
• Method 7: Run Disk Cleanup
• Method 8: Uninstall Unnecessary Apps

So the first way is to partition your hard drive to speed it up.

Method 1: Partition the Hard Drive

Proper partitioning of a hard drive can greatly increase its speed. The more organized the structure of your hard drive, the faster it will run. There is a reliable disk partition tool – tools Partition Master, which supports all Windows editions and helps manage these partitions, such as resizing, merging, splitting, deleting, and creating partitions. Now, download this tool to partition your hard drive.

Step 1: Run AOMEI Partition Assistant and check the available space of the disk in "Partition Management".

• If you have unallocated space on your hard drive, skip to Step 3 to create the partition. • If you do not have any unallocated space, continue to Step 2.

Step 2. Shrink the partition to create unallocated space.

Right-click on the target partition with lots of free space, and select “Resize/Move Partition”.

Resize the partition to the right or left to shrink it and free up enough unallocated space. You can see how much you've shrunk the partition visually in the “Size” area. Click “OK.”

Click “Perform XX Task” and then “Apply” to save all changes.

Return to the “Disk Management” screen, where you should see the “Unallocated” space on the same drive. You can now proceed to create a new partition on your hard drive.

Step 3: Create a new partition on the target drive using the unallocated space.

Right-click the unallocated space, and then select New.

Create Partition Step 1

Here, you can customize the partition size, drive letter, label, file system (NTFS, FAT32, EXT2/3/4, exFAT), and more. Click “OK.”

Finally, click “Execute Tasks” and “Apply” to finish creating the partition with the unallocated space on the disk. Repeat these steps to partition the hard drive and create more partitions.

Method 2: Check for Bad Sectors

The more bad sectors a hard drive has, the slower it will run. You can use a tool like Partition Master to help with surface testing and scan for bad sectors on your hard drive. Here are the steps to scan for bad sectors using Partition Master:

Step 1: Launch Partition Master. Right-click the drive you wish to scan and click "Surface Test."

Step 2: The operation will start immediately, and all bad sectors will be marked in red.

After performing a hard drive surface test, you can locate all bad sectors on the hard drive.

Method 3: Delete Temporary Files

Should I delete temporary files? Yes, browsers like Chrome and Firefox store a lot of temporary files that take up space on your hard drive and can slow it down. Follow these instructions to free up space on your hard drive:

Step 1: Click the Windows logo, then select “Settings.”

Step 2: Click on "Storage" > "This PC" > "Temporary Files." Windows will show you a list of all the temporary files on your computer.

Step 3: Select the content you want to remove, and click “Remove.”

Method 4: Enable Write Caching

Enabling write caching can also speed up your hard drive, as it stores data on the NAND chips on your hard drive before recording it. Here's how:

Step 1. Press the "Windows" and "R" keys to open the "Run" window. Type in devmgmt.msc to open the "Device Manager."

Step 2. Select the target hard drive in the "Disk Drives" section.

Step 3: Right-click on it, and select "Properties."

Step 4: Click on the "Policies" tab in the "Properties" window.

Click "Best performance (default)" and press OK.

Method 5: Defragment Your Hard Drive

Over time, files on your disk can become fragmented, causing your hard drive to run slower. After deleting or accessing files, they may be broken up into several pieces and scattered around the disk, which is why defragmentation is necessary.

Step 1: Type optimize into the Windows search bar, then click on the “Defragment and optimize drives” icon to launch it.

Step 2. Select the target drive and optimize it.

Method 6: Run the CHKDSK Command

You can run the chkdsk command, which checks your storage device for bad sectors and attempts to repair them. Here's a guide on how to do it:

Step 1: Press the Windows key + R to open the "Run" window. Type cmd to open the Command Prompt.

Step 2: Type chkdsk e: /f /r /x in the new window (replace the letter e with the correct drive letter).

Be careful when typing commands, though – a typo can easily lead to data loss, so if you don't have much experience with computers, a tool like Partition Master might be a better choice.

By the way, here are some other links related to the CHKDSK command. Feel free to click on them if you want to learn more:

Method 7: Run Disk Cleanup

"Disk Cleanup" scans your storage device for any unnecessary temporary files and deletes them to improve hard drive performance. Here's how:

Step 1: Right-click on "This PC," select the target drive, and then choose "Disk Cleanup."

Step 2: It will show you a list of files that are taking up space and their sizes. Select the ones you want to delete, then click "OK."

Method 8: Uninstall Apps You Don't Want

You can uninstall programs that you no longer need to free up disk space and speed up your computer. Here's how:

Step 1: Right-click the Windows Start menu and select "Apps & features."

Step 2: Right-click on any programs you no longer need and select "Uninstall."

Step 3: Repeat this process to remove any other unwanted applications.

Conclusions

This article will introduce 8 ways to speed up your hard drive. Partition Master is a reliable disk partition tool. It can extend C drive to fix low disk space error and allocate space to the target drive. Besides, it can convert MBR to GPT without data loss. Download it without hesitation to help you with disk partition issues.

Frequently Asked Questions on How to Speed Up Hard Drive

We've covered eight ways to speed up your hard drive. Here are three more common questions related to our topic. Feel free to check the answers below if you need them.

< strong > 1. How do I fix a slow hard drive?

Slow hard drives can be fixed. You can try the following solutions:

• Run Disk Cleanup
• Check for bad sectors
• Defragment your hard drive
• Enable write caching
• Run the CHKDSK command
• Remove unnecessary apps and temporary files

< strong > 2. Why are HDDs so slow?

There are several reasons why an HDD might slow down, such as:

• Virus
• Bad sectors
• File fragmentation
• Too many temporary files

< strong > 3. Why are HDDs slower than SSDs?

Because SSDs use circuitry and have no moving parts, they have less latency when starting up, launching applications, or performing other compute-intensive tasks.