Step-by-step Guide to Schedule Defrag Server 2022, 2016, and 2012

Can you defrag a Server?

Over time, your Windows computer, no matter it’s Server 2022, 2016, 2012, or Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7, can become really slow and sluggish – load time is long, the cursor gets frozen, and the OS is less responsive than before. Although there could be many causes like hardware issue, virus and bundleware attack, and an outdated GPT driver, the most common one is that your hard drives are highly fragmented – files’ segments are scattered across the hard drives which makes the system harder to find each file.

In the case mentioned above, you’re supposed to optimize the hard drives by defragging them – reorganizing the files and making them all together. Both Windows series and servers offers their own ways for defrag – the feature “Defragment and Optimize Drives”. Once your hard drive is over 10% fragmented, you may consider running this program.

How to schedule defrag a Server computer?

Hard drive defrag is a reliable way to keep your hard drives in good status by reorganizing their files. Defragging the hard drives on a regular basis is necessary when the files are saved/resaved or deleted too often which causes fragmentation. But how to do it? Here, 2 methods will be given – the traditional Windows built-in defraggler and a third-party software utility for disk management. Both of them are able to schedule defrag Server 2022, 2016, and 2012.

Method 1. Use Windows Server built-in defrag tool

If you’re a computing novice, you may not know how to set a schedule for disk defrag on Windows Server. So, read on and check the step-by-step guide as follows.

1. Type “defrag” in the search bar on the lower left of the desktop.

2. Select “Defragment and Optimize Drives” under “Best match”.

3. In the popup window, click on “Change settings” for scheduled optimization.

4. Now, tick the option “Run a schedule” and then, you’re able to set frequency for defrag and choose which drives to defrag. After these steps, click on “OK” to save the changes.

Method 2. Try a more powerful third-party utility

Indeed, the Windows built-in defraggler helps schedule defrag Server 2022, 2016, and 2012. However, don’t think it’s too simple and lacks in many features that a defraggler should contain? Here, I’ll recommend another more useful third-party disk defraggler – AOMEI Partition Assistant Server – to help schedule defrag your server computer (Server 2025/2022/2019/2016/2012) more efficiently.

More than set defrag frequency among daily, weekly, and monthly, with this software, you can choose whether to defrag at startup or logon as well. Meanwhile, you can decide on what conditions to defrag your computer. Apart from disk defrag, this tool contains other features for disk management including SSD secure erase, SSD 4k alignment, and hard drive wiping.

Download the demo of this impressive defraggler to make your computer work better.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Sever, wait until all disks and partitions appear on the home interface, and then, right-click the disk, and choose “Disk Defrag”.

Step 2. In the “Disk Defrag” Window, click on the “Schedule” button.

Step 3. Now, you can choose which drive to defrag and decide whether to run a defrag daily, weekly, or monthly. Then, you can consider presetting on what conditions to defrag.

Besides preset how often your hard drives should be defragged, you can set whether to defrag at startup or logon.

How often should you defrag your computer?

Defragmenting your computers helps organize the data in the hard drives and improve its performance tremendously, especially in terms of speed. If your computer is running slower than before, it might be caused by fragmentation where a defrag is required.

But how often should you defrag your computer? Does defragging too often harm the hard drives. Usually, you should run a defrag on your computer at least once per month especially when the disks are more than 10 percent fragmented and meanwhile, defragmentation doesn’t do any damage to your hardware. But it may not help that much if you defrag too frequently.

Conclusion

How to schedule defrag Server 2022, 2016, and 2012? Like the Windows series, Windows Servers provides their own built-in utility for scheduling defrag. In this post, you learnt how to use this tool to plan defragmentation for hard drives on your Server computer. However, there’s an even more powerful software utility with more useful features – AOMEI Partition Assistant Server – that helps both schedule disk defrag your hard drives and manage hard disks and partitions. Features like partition splitting, partition check, and free space allocation are all involved.