When do SSDs start slowing down?

[bungusboy81]

I believe I've heard that when SSDs get fuller, they start to slow down. How full do they have to be for them to slow down? Assuming I'm using a 1TB SSD, how much data can I have stored on it before it goes full slog mode?

[Kilrah]

Completely depends on the particular SSD.

[bungusboy81]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

Completely depends on the particular SSD.

Is there any general rule or can some slow down when you download solitaire and others don't when you literally stick the entire milky way in them?

[paddy-stone]

IIRC the most quoted slow downs are around 80% capacity or so... but yes depends on exact models.

[bungusboy81]

1 minute ago, paddy-stone said:

IIRC the most quoted slow downs are around 80% capacity or so... but yes depends on exact models.

Alright, thank you! I doubt I'll use that much storage up, so it shouldn't be a problem.

[shoutingsteve]

It is worth noting that CAPACITY is not what is causing it to slow down.  Well, it is and isn't.  It is writes that slow it down.  Every time you write to your ssd, you pushing it towards it's slowing point.  If you had a brand new 1,000 Gb drive and you write 1,000 Gb to it as two giant 500 Gb files, it would write at full speed the entire time.  But then if you deleted one of those and put on another 500 Gb file, you will not get the same speed.  Even if you deleted them BOTH and rewrote files, you won't get the same speed.  Capacity doesn't play as much as "percentage of usage" along the lifetime of the drive.

 

That is why SSDs are not the best solution for storage, they are better for programs and OS's.
 

You can clean the drive to restore it's speed, though, But it totally reformats the drive (it is a different process than reformatting, BTW.  [all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares])

 

Command prompt:

"diskpart" <enter>

"list disk" <enter>

find your disk on the table

"select disk #" <enter>

"clean" <enter>

And you are done cleaning that disk, it'll be completely unformated and like new.

 

[bungusboy81]

3 minutes ago, shoutingsteve said:

It is worth noting that CAPACITY is not what is causing it to slow down.  Well, it is and isn't.  It is writes that slow it down.  Every time you write to your ssd, you pushing it towards it's slowing point.  If you had a brand new 1,000 Gb drive and you write 1,000 Gb to it as two giant 500 Gb files, it would write at full speed the entire time.  But then if you deleted one of those and put on another 500 Gb file, you will not get the same speed.  Even if you deleted them BOTH and rewrote files, you won't get the same speed.  Capacity doesn't play as much as "percentage of usage" along the lifetime of the drive.

 

That is why SSDs are not the best solution for storage, they are better for programs and OS's.
 

You can clean the drive to restore it's speed, though, But it totally reformats the drive (it is a different process than reformatting, BTW.  [all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares])

 

Command prompt:

"diskpart" <enter>

"list disk" <enter>

find your disk on the table

"select disk #" <enter>

"clean" <enter>

And you are done cleaning that disk, it'll be completely unformated and like new.

 

So would it not be a good idea to just use a single 1TB SSD for all my storage? I've had my current PC for about 5 years and only have 200GB filled up on the HDD, so I don't exactly devour storage.

[shoutingsteve]

In theory, it wouldn't be a bad idea (if you access them often and rarely change them).  But it would be a total waste of money.  like, you should just buy a 250 GB HDD and donate the change to charity.

[bungusboy81]

2 minutes ago, shoutingsteve said:

In theory, it wouldn't be a bad idea (if you access them often and rarely change them).  But it would be a total waste of money.  like, you should just buy a 250 GB HDD and donate the change to charity.

Well would there be any dangers to only having an SSD? I've heard all over the place to have both a HDD and SSD, but I feel like I'd prefer just having the SSD.

[shoutingsteve]

You could have TWO SSDs.  That would be best.  I agree with whoever else you've been talking to, having a dedicated storage drive separate from your OS and programs is the best of both worlds: rock solid access to your files and speedy, REBUILDABLE WHEN IT SLOWS DOWN access to your OS and programs.  People never really talk about how you eventually will need to wipe and remake your system when you use an SSD.  It's kinda the dirty little secret of the hardware.

[metaleggman]

15 minutes ago, bungusboy81 said:

So would it not be a good idea to just use a single 1TB SSD for all my storage? I've had my current PC for about 5 years and only have 200GB filled up on the HDD, so I don't exactly devour storage.

For all practical purposes, unless you're doing some sort of specific work load, you should be okay, and you'll likely benefit from better write and read speeds than a HDD (try booting windows 10 off a 5400 rpm drive nowadays hah).  The issues about writing over data has specifically to do with newer forms of NAND flash where each cell stores multiple bits of information.  However, that only really becomes a problem when you're maxxing out the cache, like downloading large files, or a ton of files at once (say, a game on steam), otherwise it will do that work in the background.  Afaik, most decent SSDs will do some amount of cleanup in the background to minimize these issues. 

Only reason to go HDD at this point is to have like 2-6TB of storage available.  For games, normal browsing, and a small cache of files, a 1TB SSD will likely give you the better experience, since it sounds like you're not going to have any incredibly large files.  Small Indie games will load just fine on mechanical HDDs, but if you're installing any larger 3D game, or any game that uses asset streaming, you'll definitely want an SSD.

For you, just make sure you don't got past 80-90%.  If you get to that point, either upgrade to an additional SSD or HDD, or delete some files.  Also, some manufacturers have their own software to help deal with keep your drive running smoothly, so try and use that every now and then.

 

8 minutes ago, bungusboy81 said:

Well would there be any dangers to only having an SSD? I've heard all over the place to have both a HDD and SSD, but I feel like I'd prefer just having the SSD.

What is your current setup?  Specifically, do you just have a single boot drive, and are looking to upgrade it to an SSD?

[bungusboy81]

1 minute ago, shoutingsteve said:

You could have TWO SSDs.  That would be best.  I agree with whoever else you've been talking to, having a dedicated storage drive separate from your OS and programs is the best of both worlds: rock solid access to your files and speedy, REBUILDABLE WHEN IT SLOWS DOWN access to your OS and programs.  People never really talk about how you eventually will need to wipe and remake your system when you use an SSD.  It's kinda the dirty little secret of the hardware.

Well in that case I'll probably use an SSD and HDD, but I've never used two different drives before. How can I install the OS and programs to one and other things to the other?

[bungusboy81]

1 minute ago, metaleggman said:

For all practical purposes, unless you're doing some sort of specific work load, you should be okay, and you'll likely benefit from better write and read speeds than a HDD (try booting windows 10 off a 5400 rpm drive nowadays hah).  The issues about writing over data has specifically to do with newer forms of NAND flash where each cell stores multiple bits of information.  However, that only really becomes a problem when you're maxxing out the cache, like downloading large files, or a ton of files at once (say, a game on steam), otherwise it will do that work in the background.  Afaik, most decent SSDs will do some amount of cleanup in the background to minimize these issues. 

Only reason to go HDD at this point is to have like 2-6TB of storage available.  For games, normal browsing, and a small cache of files, a 1TB SSD will likely give you the better experience, since it sounds like you're not going to have any incredibly large files.  Small Indie games will load just fine on mechanical HDDs, but if you're installing any larger 3D game, or any game that uses asset streaming, you'll definitely want an SSD.

For you, just make sure you don't got past 80-90%.  If you get to that point, either upgrade to an additional SSD or HDD, or delete some files.  Also, some manufacturers have their own software to help deal with keep your drive running smoothly, so try and use that every now and then.

Well I've read that after a while SSDs can slow down a lot, regardless of installing stuff. How can I help fight against that? Or is that even true? I'm not doing crazy computer work, just playing fairly light games and browsing the internet and doing homework.

[metaleggman]

1 minute ago, bungusboy81 said:

Well in that case I'll probably use an SSD and HDD, but I've never used two different drives before. How can I install the OS and programs to one and other things to the other?

When you install a program, it gives you the option to install to a different directory.  Simply install the programs to a new directory on the second drive.   You could name it program files for simplicity's sake.  I have two nvme ssds, along with some hdds, and I have a steam library on each (which you can setup in the steam app).

[shoutingsteve]

When installing the OS on your SSD, physically disconnect your secondary drive.  I don't know what fool at Microsoft thought it was a good idea, but windows installs hidden patricians on all detected drives during the install process.  I'm sure it helps with something, but I hate it.

[bungusboy81]

1 minute ago, metaleggman said:

When you install a program, it gives you the option to install to a different directory.  Simply install the programs to a new directory on the second drive.   You could name it program files for simplicity's sake.  I have two nvme ssds, along with some hdds, and I have a steam library on each (which you can setup in the steam app).

Alright, thank you. Can you also answer my other question about slowing down over time?

[bungusboy81]

Just now, shoutingsteve said:

When installing the OS on your SSD, physically disconnect your secondary drive.  I don't know what fool at Microsoft thought it was a good idea, but windows installs hidden patricians on all detected drives during the install process.  I'm sure it helps with something, but I hate it.

What goons

[shoutingsteve]

2 minutes ago, metaleggman said:

When you install a program, it gives you the option to install to a different directory.  Simply install the programs to a new directory on the second drive.   You could name it program files for simplicity's sake.  I have two nvme ssds, along with some hdds, and I have a steam library on each (which you can setup in the steam app).

This method is correct, but I disagree with the idea of putting programs on your storage drive.  Put all your programs and OS on the same C drive.

[metaleggman]

1 minute ago, bungusboy81 said:

Well I've read that after a while SSDs can slow down a lot, regardless of installing stuff. How can I help fight against that? Or is that even true? I'm not doing crazy computer work, just playing fairly light games and browsing the internet and doing homework.

Within a reasonable consumer computer's lifetime with reasonable use, you're never going to get close to the write limits on an SSD, and even when you do, it's not going to really slow down afaik.  Rather, it's going to throw a bunch of SMART errors at you, telling you the drive is dying.  If you want to be sure your SSD won't slow down, get one with an SLC NAND cache, or, if you go cacheless, get something like the WD SN550, which gets around this with some really smart firmware.

As to preventing drive aging, though, like I said, use the manufacturer's drive utilities every few months to a year to keep it healthy and clean.

[bungusboy81]

Just now, metaleggman said:

Within a reasonable consumer computer's lifetime with reasonable use, you're never going to get close to the write limits on an SSD, and even when you do, it's not going to really slow down afaik.  Rather, it's going to throw a bunch of SMART errors at you, telling you the drive is dying.  If you want to be sure your SSD won't slow down, get one with an SLC NAND cache, or, if you go cacheless, get something like the WD SN550, which gets around this with some really smart firmware.

As to preventing drive aging, though, like I said, use the manufacturer's drive utilities every few months to a year to keep it healthy and clean.

Alright, thank you so much! I'll keep that in mind. Anything else I should know as a first time SSD user?

[shoutingsteve]

1 minute ago, metaleggman said:

Within a reasonable consumer computer's lifetime with reasonable use, you're never going to get close to the write limits on an SSD, and even when you do, it's not going to really slow down afaik.  Rather, it's going to throw a bunch of SMART errors at you, telling you the drive is dying.  If you want to be sure your SSD won't slow down, get one with an SLC NAND cache, or, if you go cacheless, get something like the WD SN550, which gets around this with some really smart firmware.

As to preventing drive aging, though, like I said, use the manufacturer's drive utilities every few months to a year to keep it healthy and clean.

What is "afaik"?  You keep referring to this and I've never heard of it.

[bungusboy81]

Just now, shoutingsteve said:

What is "afaik"?  You keep referring to this and I've never heard of it.

I'm pretty sure it means "as far as I know"

[metaleggman]

6 minutes ago, shoutingsteve said:

This method is correct, but I disagree with the idea of putting programs on your storage drive.  Put all your programs and OS on the same C drive.

I mean, theoretically, having a specific nvme drive for your OS and a specific nvme drive for your programs, and then a SATA SSD for certain files and a HDD for others would be the optimal storage topology.  For the average user, it doesn't matter.  For most people a "storage drive" is just where they put some files, work documents, maybe a movie and some music.  It doesn't reasonably matter.  I try not to put games on my boot drive specifically, and if I didn't have all the crap I do, I'd put my files on the game drive as well.  No harm, no foul.

Now on the other hand, if you have, say, an 8TB+ data hoard setup with parity, then I'd agree with you.  You generally don't run programs off of your storage array, unless that storage array is serving VMs or something.  But at that point, you'd be running enterprise hardware in a TrueNAS or Proxmox box, so it doesn't really matter then.

And of course, make sure anything important to you is backed up.  Doesn't matter if its a HDD or an SSD, back your stuff up.

And yes, AFAIK means As Far As I Know.

[steelo]

54 minutes ago, bungusboy81 said:

I believe I've heard that when SSDs get fuller, they start to slow down. How full do they have to be for them to slow down? Assuming I'm using a 1TB SSD, how much data can I have stored on it before it goes full slog mode?

In general, I try to keep at least 10% free space on my SSD. I believe this is when it really starts grinding (figuratively) to a halt.

[bungusboy81]

Just now, steelo said:

In general, I try to keep at least 10% free space on my SSD. I believe this is when it really starts grinding (figuratively) to a halt.

Oh, I'll likely never get anywhere near that! Thank you!