Did you know that the demands you put on your trading computer are excessive? You are asking your computer to take a continuous data stream from eSignal and put it on your hard disk drive in one sector and, then, allow you to access it to display dozens of charts on your display screens.

Guess what? The data stream coming into your hard disk drive is broken up into many pieces that are being written, resized and spread across the entire hard disk drive -- not just in one place, but everywhere.

This is a natural occurrence that happens with streaming data. It causes fragmentation of your drive, which slows it way down depending on its severity. The computer takes longer to read and write data when fragmentation happens. And, it causes slow performance, long boot times, random crashes and freeze-ups -- and even an inability to boot up at all. I think you know what I am talking about. Every trader has experienced these problems.

How do you defragment your drive to return it to a normal condition and run faster? You can go to your computer and click start > all programs > accessories > system tools > defragment. Run this program, and it will rearrange the data bits on your drive, so they are much more accessible. It may take up to 20 minutes to complete the task. Your computer should then run the speed that it is supposed to.

Unfortunately, there is a problem with this. The fix is only short-lived, and within an hour, you might have to defragment the drive again. So, as you can see, continually defragmenting your trading computer does not really make sense in the long term.

However, there is some really good news. Just recently, a quantum leap in system performance was developed. An automatic defragmenter program was just released. It allows continuous defragmenting of your drive in real time without using system resources. It permits your trading computer to run at its maximum speed with no scheduling and no resource drain, which enables you to concentrate on your trading. It also has an additional benefit: It can extend the typical trading computer’s life up to 4 - 5 years or even longer.