Will defragging make P3D v3 run smoother?

[captain420 3,099]

I have Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate. It's been awhile since I last defragged. And my HDD which P3D/FSX/XPX are installed on is getting almost full. I have about 50GB left on the drive. It's a 2TB HDD. 

 

So I was wondering what is the best defragging/drive optimization tool out there, and will it make a difference to my flight sim? I notice when flying I am getting decent frames, like 20-30FPS (Frames locked to 30). But I do see a lot of stutters at times, when loading up certain areas when I fly. Could this be the cause of drive defragmentation?

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

A hard drive is best managed with 20-30% free space.

 

I would move 500 GB off the drive and then defrag.

[captain420 3,099]

I'm not the greatest in math... so does that mean I should at least have 200GB free before I start to defrag?

[Robinson67 5]

According to the range by Bert it should have between 400 and 600 GB free of space.

[Luke 782]

If you want to prevent excessive fragmentation, you need free space. Above 30-40GB, that's probably enough. Proportional rules of thumb sometimes make less sense with higher numbers.

 

So long as you defagged after you installed your sims, you should be fine. It's not like contiguous files become fragmented on their own; they need to be overwritten.

 

Cheers!

Luke