Windows wants to defrag my SSD

[matto97]

Its happened 2 times now that i can confirm, the first time was when i first installed it and to my knowledge i thought windows would automatically notice it was a SSD and not ever defrag it but it did. So i went in to the settings and disabled windows from defraging it in the defrag settings and told windows never to do it, but i noticed today that it did it again yesterday.

Why does windows want to defrag it and why wont it not do it when i tell windows not to ever do it?

[STRMfrmXMN]

Its happened 2 times now that i can confirm, the first time was when i first installed it and to my knowledge i thought windows would automatically notice it was a SSD and not ever defrag it but it did. So i went in to the settings and disabled windows from defraging it in the defrag settings and told windows never to do it, but i noticed today that it did it again yesterday.

Why does windows want to defrag it and why wont it not do it when i tell windows not to ever do it?

Windows 8 and newer turn it off by default so I assume you're on Windows 7 which was created when SSDs were far less common. Just turn automatic defragmenting off within the Defragmenting window.

[Uwillparish]

Windows 8 and newer turn it off by default so I assume you're on Windows 7 which was created when SSDs were far less common. Just turn automatic defragmenting off within the Defragmenting window.

from his profile: "Operating System: Win10 Pro"

[matto97]

Windows 8 and newer turn it off by default so I assume you're on Windows 7 which was created when SSDs were far less common. Just turn automatic defragmenting off within the Defragmenting window.

Im on windows 10 actually sorry, and i left auto defrag one for once a week for my 2 HDDs but disabled it for the SSD.

Edit- i put my OS down in my sig

[STRMfrmXMN]

from his profile: "Operating System: Win10 Pro"

 

well shit

Im on windows 10 actually sorry, and i left auto defrag one for once a week for my 2 HDDs but disabled it for the SSD.

@ionbasa might be able to help you. I'm not 100% sure as to why Windows would be defragging your SSD if you've not changed the setting. By default it should not defrag. What SSD is it?

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Windows 8 and newer turn it off by default so I assume you're on Windows 7 which was created when SSDs were far less common. Just turn automatic defragmenting off within the Defragmenting window.

 

Really? It was turned off by default for me... Win 7  

[matto97]

well shit

@ionbasa might be able to help you. I'm not 100% sure as to why Windows would be defragging your SSD if you've not changed the setting. By default it should not defrag. What SSD is it?

250GB Samsung Evo

[Godlygamer23]

It's not performing a defrag. It's performing system maintenance.

 

This is what the "defragging" program looks like with a mixture of SSDs and HDDs. Notice how the SSD sections don't say anything about fragmentation. In addition, when I just ran the program on my SSD, it sent out a Trim command.

[STRMfrmXMN]

Really? It was turned off by default for me... Win 7  

Not for me. Reminds me, I have to do it all over again as I just reinstalled Windows 7 a couple days ago...

[matto97]

It's not performing a defrag. It's performing system maintenance.

 

This is what the "defragging" program looks like with a mixture of SSDs and HDDs. Notice how the SSD sections don't say anything about fragmentation. In addition, when I just ran the program on my SSD, it sent out a Trim command.

Capture.JPG

Yeah thats pretty much how mine looks, what is the system maintenance then? like i know what it means but why does it look like it was defraged then?

[LapX]

Did you put the motherboard on AHCI mode ?

[Godlygamer23]

Yeah thats pretty much how mine looks, what is the system maintenance then? like i know what it means but why does it look like it was defraged then?

I don't know exactly what System Maintenance entails, but I imagine for SSDs, it's simply running Trim and maybe something else, but definitely not defragging.

[matto97]

Did you put the motherboard on AHCI mode ?

I duno, i think it is on that but its all on default settings

[Godlygamer23]

Did you put the motherboard on AHCI mode ?

It's not related to that.

[matto97]

I don't know exactly what System Maintenance entails, but I imagine for SSDs, it's simply running Trim and maybe something else, but definitely not defragging.

Ok cool then

[Nacimota]

I don't know exactly what System Maintenance entails, but I imagine for SSDs, it's simply running Trim and maybe something else, but definitely not defragging.

 

Actually, Windows (I think from 8 onwards) will occasionally defrag SSDs under certain conditions.

[Godlygamer23]

Actually, Windows (I think from 8 onwards) will occasionally defrag SSDs under certain conditions.

Can you give me a source? I gave it a quick search earlier, but didn't actually find anything that answered the question.

[Nacimota]

Can you give me a source? I gave it a quick search earlier, but didn't actually find anything that answered the question.

 

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheRealAndCompleteStoryDoesWindowsDefragmentYourSSD.aspx

 

I dug deeper and talked to developers on the Windows storage team and this post is written in conjunction with them to answer the question, once and for all

"What's the deal with SSDs, Windows and Defrag, and more importantly, is Windows doing the RIGHT THING?"

It turns out that the answer is more nuanced than just yes or no, as is common with technical questions.

The short answer is, yes, Windows does sometimes defragment SSDs, yes, it's important to intelligently and appropriately defrag SSDs, and yes, Windows is smart about how it treats your SSD.

The long answer is this.

Actually Scott and Vadim are both wrong. Storage Optimizer will defrag an SSD once a month if volume snapshots are enabled. This is by design and necessary due to slow volsnap copy on write performance on fragmented SSD volumes. It’s also somewhat of a misconception that fragmentation is not a problem on SSDs. If an SSD gets too fragmented you can hit maximum file fragmentation (when the metadata can’t represent any more file fragments) which will result in errors when you try to write/extend a file. Furthermore, more file fragments means more metadata to process while reading/writing a file, which can lead to slower performance.

[ionbasa]

Its happened 2 times now that i can confirm, the first time was when i first installed it and to my knowledge i thought windows would automatically notice it was a SSD and not ever defrag it but it did. So i went in to the settings and disabled windows from defraging it in the defrag settings and told windows never to do it, but i noticed today that it did it again yesterday.

Why does windows want to defrag it and why wont it not do it when i tell windows not to ever do it?

 

well shit

@ionbasa might be able to help you. I'm not 100% sure as to why Windows would be defragging your SSD if you've not changed the setting. By default it should not defrag. What SSD is it?

Windows 8.0+ Will actually TRIM SSDs. They just added it as part of the WIndows Defrag Utility.

 

SEE: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheRealAndCompleteStoryDoesWindowsDefragmentYourSSD.aspx

 

Technically, yes, your ssd is being defragmented due to how the NTFS filesystem works, but the defrag and retrim utilities have been overhauled to work properly with SSDs. So, please keep it enabled.

[Nena Trinity]

Because Windows is stupid!

[matto97]

Windows 8.0+ Will actually TRIM SSDs. They just added it as part of the WIndows Defrag Utility.

 

SEE: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheRealAndCompleteStoryDoesWindowsDefragmentYourSSD.aspx

 

Technically, yes, your ssd is being defragmented due to how the NTFS filesystem works, but the defrag and retrim utilities have been overhauled to work properly with SSDs. So, please keep it enabled.

oooo k maybe i will leave it on? sounds good i duno yep

[BrightCandle]

We aren't in the dark ages anymore, your OS knows about SSDs are will act in the best way for that hardware. Just leave it be :-)

[Tsuki]

all it does is run a trim command. it doesnt actually defrag anything. basically it just tells windows exactly where the files are so it can find them faster later.  its totally ok to let windows do its thing.

[Bob.Dig]

Nope. Sometimes it is doing a light defrag. See this.

 

http://abload.de/image.php?img=defrags0toyn.png

 

http://abload.de/image.php?img=trims4aqph.png

[LapX]

It's not related to that.

Ok then, I thought that windows might not recognise it as an SSD because of that. All I know it does is enable Trim on WIn7 and higher but it was worth a shot.