An administrator is getting reports that a file server is responding slowly. Which of the following steps should the administrator take FIRST?

Removing unnecessary files to free up disk space is a potential solution for a specific problem, not the first diagnostic step to determine the underlying cause of general server slowness.

Defragmenting hard disks can improve disk performance, but it is a solution for disk-related issues and not the initial step to diagnose the cause of overall server slowness.

Comparing current monitoring results with a server baseline is the initial diagnostic step to understand what has changed and pinpoint the root cause of the performance degradation. This helps identify if the slowness is due to increased CPU, memory, disk, or network utilization compared to normal operations.

Adding additional memory is a solution for memory bottlenecks (like excessive paging), but it should only be considered after diagnosing that memory is indeed the performance constraint.