Defragmentation VS Disc Clean up, Yeah I'm dense, but I know you guys can clarify ;) Options

[*Zatanna*]

I am in the process of doing a very long winded degraf right now. I do this periodically because when I start rubberbanding in the middle of playing the MMORPG I pay, it typically isn't so bad after I defrag.

So this morning I'm actually looking at what's going on during the defrag process. I noticed that the estimated disk usage before defragmentation is pretty much the same as the estimated disk usage after defragmentation. Also, the contiguous, fragmented and unmovable files look identical, as does the free (white) space. Forget that last sentence. Everything is still accurate.

I looked through some of the threads here and I noticed people talking about disc clean up versus defragmentation.

What really is the best maintenance method for good PC performance? And why? I would really like to have at least a bullet point type understanding of what's going on when the processes are run.

[think!IMAGINARIL...]

Well, defragmenting doesn't delete things. It just moves your files around.
Disc Clean Up deletes useless things like temporary internet files, setup files, stuff in your recycle bin, and things like that.

Defragmenting makes processes faster..
You should probably run that once a week or so.

I'm not exactly sure what good clean up is for, but I know that you should do a disc clean up before you shut down your computer.
I think it removes the useless things and makes things faster..

What I do is scan for spyware (and delete all cookies) and run Disc Clean Up right before I shut down my computer. I run Disc Defragmentation and virus/malware scans once a week.
I've been using my computer for over 2 years and I've had only very small problems! My computer has never froze.. Just minor problems with Microsoft Word and Firefox freezing up.
And firewalls definitely have to be set up.

I probably can't give you a bullet point type understanding, but I hope this helped.