How full can an SSD be?

[EST_FatBoy]

Okay so I have a HyperX Fury 120Gb SSD and I want to install GTA V on it. It should fit and leave around 15GB's free. I wanted to ask how full can my SSD be? I read somewhere that you can fill your SSD up 75% and the other 25% should be left free.

[Lotus]

SSDs are not like HDDs. Defragging isn't important in SSDs, and you don't necessarilly have to leave empty space in SSDs. Files don't have to be stored sequentially.

[Lolzious]

Um. You can fill it up completely, but if it's in the red in  "Computer" then it will most likely performing badly.

[MrSuperb]

is this your OS drive?

[EST_FatBoy]

Um. You can fill it up completely, but if it's in the red in  "Computer" then it will most likely performing badly.

 

Its already running on SATA2

 

is this your OS drive?

Yes it is

[Guest]

Don't put games on SSDs...

[EMENCII]

Its already running on SATA2

So what's the point not even of storing GTA V in it, but in having it at all??? .-.?

[EST_FatBoy]

So what's the point not even of storing GTA V in it, but in having it at all??? .-.?

Because its still faster than a HDD. An SSD is still a really really good upgrade even if its connected to SATA2.

[Captain_WD]

Okay so I have a HyperX Fury 120Gb SSD and I want to install GTA V on it. It should fit and leave around 15GB's free. I wanted to ask how full can my SSD be? I read somewhere that you can fill your SSD up 75% and the other 25% should be left free.

 

Hey EST_FatBoy,

 

SSDs require at least 12%-15% of free space in order to function optimally. The need the space for caching purposes. It should work even if it's full, but it's performance would degrade. Defragging shortenes the SSDs life so that is not recommended. 

My laptop is with SATA2 and I'm using WD Black2 and the speed boost that I get is still pretty good. The SSD is running at 375 MB/s read/write speeds because of the bottlenecking which is still about 3 times faster than regular drives. I would put the more demanding applications and games on it, but still leave some free space.

 

Captain_WD.

[hojnikb]

Um. You can fill it up completely, but if it's in the red in  "Computer" then it will most likely performing badly.

 

Thats not true. You can fill the ssd to 99% and it should still perform just fine. Some ssds to tend to drop write speeds (depends on the controller and overprovisioning), but most recent ones are just fine.

http://www.techspot.com/review/838-samsung-850-pro-ssd/page8.html

[hojnikb]

 

Hey EST_FatBoy,

 

SSDs require at least 12%-15% of free space in order to function optimally. The need the space for caching purposes. It should work even if it's full, but it's performance would degrade. Defragging shortenes the SSDs life so that is not recommended. 

My laptop is with SATA2 and I'm using WD Black2 and the speed boost that I get is still pretty good. The SSD is running at 375 MB/s read/write speeds because of the bottlenecking which is still about 3 times faster than regular drives. I would put the more demanding applications and games on it, but still leave some free space.

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

 

They dont specifically require that space. Some older drives do need a little bit more space to perform optimally, but most recent ones are just fine even when full.

 

Remember, ssds always have atleast 7% of free space even when they are full.

[Captain_WD]

They dont specifically require that space. Some older drives do need a little bit more space to perform optimally, but most recent ones are just fine even when full.

 

Remember, ssds always have atleast 7% of free space even when they are full.

 

True. From the link that you posted you can see that there is a slight decrease in speed. This is why I specified "optimal performance" since most users complain if they get 15MB/s-20MB/s lower than advertised (which happens at nearly full drive). It would work just fine, but for maximum performance, users should leave some free space. I've noticed from my tests and views that around 10%-12% is optimal win minimum loss of space. Put the reserved space that users don't have access to, and you get the recommended space

 

But what you say is true, I needed to explain it better. Thanks!

 

Captain_WD.

[Lolzious]

Thats not true. You can fill the ssd to 99% and it should still perform just fine. Some ssds to tend to drop write speeds (depends on the controller and overprovisioning), but most recent ones are just fine.

http://www.techspot.com/review/838-samsung-850-pro-ssd/page8.html

My bad, I shouldn't have based my answer off my own experience

I have a V300 from early 2013/when it was released with a decent controller.

[hojnikb]

My bad, I shouldn't have based my answer off my own experience

I have a V300 from early 2013/when it was released with a decent controller.

 

Well, V300 is an entirely different "beast".

 

Firstly, its not the controller, that was the issue with v300. They switched nand to a much much slower one. Controller itself stayed the same crappy sandforce.

 

Secondly, sandforce has this wierd issue where it loses write performance over time no matter how full it is. You can lose up to 30-40% of write speed regardless of space usage (obviously uncompressible performance). This is because sandforce relies heavily on compression and doesn't reserve much of the spare nand for garbage collection but instead uses the space, gained by compression for that. That combined with pretty much non working trim means that when you use the drive a lot (especially with non compressible files) it drops write performance pretty badly.

[Lolzious]

Well, V300 is an entirely different "beast".

 

Firstly, its not the controller, that was the issue with v300. They switched nand to a much much slower one. Controller itself stayed the same crappy sandforce.

 

Secondly, sandforce has this wierd issue where it loses write performance over time no matter how full it is. You can lose up to 30-40% of write speed regardless of space usage (obviously uncompressible performance). This is because sandforce relies heavily on compression and doesn't reserve much of the spare nand for garbage collection but instead uses the space, gained by compression for that. That combined with pretty much non working trim means that when you use the drive a lot (especially with non compressible files) it drops write performance pretty badly.

You seem to know your shit, so I'm gonna trust you on this. Lol

[ManIkWeet]

Don't put games on SSDs...

Yes, let us absolutely NOT speed up the thing that has the longest loading times...

[flibberdipper]

 

Hey EST_FatBoy,

 

SSDs require at least 12%-15% of free space in order to function optimally. The need the space for caching purposes. It should work even if it's full, but it's performance would degrade. Defragging shortenes the SSDs life so that is not recommended. 

My laptop is with SATA2 and I'm using WD Black2 and the speed boost that I get is still pretty good. The SSD is running at 375 MB/s read/write speeds because of the bottlenecking which is still about 3 times faster than regular drives. I would put the more demanding applications and games on it, but still leave some free space.

 

Captain_WD.

 

I trust this guy.

[shirokado]

Don't put games on SSDs...

Why not. If you don't you're missing out on the fast loading. The small ssd+large hdd for games option is for people who can't afford Nice large SSD to put all their software on.

[Guest]

Why not. If you don't you're missing out on the fast loading. The small ssd+large hdd for games option is for people who can't afford Nice large SSD to put all their software on.

 

 

Yes, let us absolutely NOT speed up the thing that has the longest loading times...

 

Because then you wanna put more games on it but it's full.

[hojnikb]

I trust this guy.

 

I also trust PR departments

/s

[ManIkWeet]

Because then you wanna put more games on it but it's full.

You remove the games that you're not playing anymore, then install the ones you want to play.

 

They're fast, it happens in a breeze!

 

(Admittedly I do have some older games installed on an HDD, most of them being either quite small (<5GB) or consisting of a lot of mini-levels (like pinball). That's just because I only have a 120gb SSD... )

[KaminKevCrew]

Because then you wanna put more games on it but it's full.

But that's like saying you just bought a pie, but you won't eat it because then you won't have a pie anymore! Also, you can get space back by uninstalling things.

[wpirobotbuilder]

You can fill it to the brim, every last byte. You'll definitely notice a performance drop, though.

 

Depending on your model, the performance hit will be less -- some SSDs are shipped deliberately under-provisioned (i.e. they have more NAND than they advertise) so that the drive always has some headroom to handle garbage collection.

[Captain_WD]

You can fill it to the brim, every last byte. You'll definitely notice a performance drop, though.

 

Depending on your model, the performance hit will be less -- some SSDs are shipped deliberately under-provisioned (i.e. they have more NAND than they advertise) so that the drive always has some headroom to handle garbage collection.

 

Very well explained. And because of the performance drop, if avoidable, I would not fill up a SSD to more than 90%. But you will still have a functioning drive.

 

Captain_WD.