Optimize Drives By Schedule In Windows 10

Optimizing your PC's internal disk drive is a very important process which improves your PC's performance. Luckily, Windows 10 includes a number of features to automate this important process. Today we will see, how you can configure it.

Out of the box, Windows 10 performs disk defragmentation once a week for hard drives and SSD TRIM operation for SSDs. During active use, hard drive performance suffers due to file system fragmentation which notably slows down the access time. SSDs have very fast access times for data stored in any part of the drive and do not need to defragmented but they need to be sent a TRIM command which tells the SSD controller to erase unused blocks which are no longer in use, so that when the time comes to actually write new data to those blocks, performance isn't affected.

Modern Windows versions are smart enough to pick the right optimization method and time period depending on your drive specifications. If you need to change the default schedule, you can do so for individual drives or disable it completely. Here is how.

Note: You must be signed in with an administrator user account for changing these drive optimization options.

To optimize drives by schedule in Windows 10, do the following.

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Navigate to the This PC folder.
3. Right click the drive you want to change the schedule for and select Properties from the context menu.
4. Switch to the Tools tab and click the button Optimize under Optimize and defragment drive.
5. In the next window, click on the Change settings button as shown below.
6. The next dialog will allow you to adjust the schedule settings. Untick the check box Run on a schedule to disable it completely.
7. When the schedule is enabled, you can select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly frequency according to your needs.
8. You can also turn on the option Notify if three consecutive scheduled runs are missed to stay notified about missed optimizations.
9. Next to Drives, you can click the Choose button to specify the drives you want to schedule optimization for.

You don't need to worry that your hard drive won't be defragged or your SSD won't get the TRIM command. Even if the scheduled run is missed, Windows Task Scheduler attempts the same operation again. The schedule is allowed to be customized so you can pick a time when your PC is on but not in active use. When hard drives are getting defragged, there is a slight performance hit on the rest of the PC operations for example.

You are done. It is safe to close the Optimize Drives window once you have set the right schedule.