Flash+drive+defrag+?+No

Flash drive defrag ? No!!!

The simple answer is: you should never defrag a flash drive.

Let's first talk a little about hard drives. The files you have stored on your hard drive are usually saved in several little pieces, often in groups of 512 bytes. Sadly these chunks of data are usually never placed next to each other or even remotely close to each other. Consequentially, your files are generally spread out all over your hard drive, which is why defragging is so important.

The whole defrag process is done through a read/write head that rearranges your files and places them back together for you. That way, when you need to access a certain file, everything is put back together and your computer doesn't have to work as hard to find what you're looking for. Defragging simply helps speed up your system when you need to open a certain file.

Reverting to flash drives, these do not have a read/write head, so if you were to defrag one, you wouldn't get any extra performance benefits from it at all. In brief therefore, without a read/write head, flash drives don't have to work any harder to find your files.

Also if you wish to shorten the life of your Flash drive, defragging is a very quick way to do so. Why? Because you are adding thousands of extra writes to your device that just aren't necessary and the Flash drive will wear out quicker. 