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National Teaching and Learning Change ProgrammeInformation and Communication Technology: Dictionary

fragmented

After a disk has been used for a while, the files on it may become split up and different parts of the same file may be stored in different places on the disk - i.e. fragmented. This slows down disk operations. Defragmenting a disk is when these separate parts are collected together again, so speeding up the disk accesses.

Related terms
capacityimmediate access storememory management unit (MMU)hard diskhard drivefile operationsdefragmentmemory management
Term sub categories
Hardware › storage
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