installing windows on a small ssd?

[dreamcast4599]

is it worth it to install windows 11 on a 128 gig m.2 SSD? i have a dell optiplex 3060 it shipped with a 128 gig m.2 ssd and a 256 gig 2.5 inch sata ssd wanted to install windows on the 128 gig ssd and install her web browser and apps on the 256gig ssd alongside using it to back up her photos in stuff

my concern is given all the windows updates will the 128 gig ssd be large enough

[Kobathor]

Windows takes up a lot of space compared to its peer operating systems, but it is much smaller than 128GB. It would work just fine. Installing other programs etc. could fill up 128GB, though.

[dreamcast4599]

1 minute ago, Kobathor said:

Windows takes up a lot of space compared to its peer operating systems, but it is much smaller than 128GB. It would work just fine. Installing other programs etc. could fill up 128GB, though.

what about wear leveling on the ssd lets say i install win 11 on the 128 ssd and then chrome and her other apps on the bigger 256 gig ssd?

[Kobathor]

Just now, dreamcast4599 said:

what about wear leveling on the ssd lets say i install win 11 on the 128 ssd and then chrome and her other apps on the bigger 256 gig ssd?

Unless the 128GB drive is really old, I would not worry about wearing it out. Even really cheap SSDs have many TB of write endurance.

[dreamcast4599]

3 minutes ago, Kobathor said:

Unless the 128GB drive is really old, I would not worry about wearing it out. Even really cheap SSDs have many TB of write endurance.

no idea how old it is but i guess ill just use it till it dies then replace it

[Lurking]

Just install it all on the m 2 as it is faster. If you run out of space or wear it out in 5 years, that is a problem for then. SSD are cheap. A used 128 GB SSD maybe has a $10 street value, so you are not wearing out a lot of value 

 

Keep your system clean and don't install every crap software. Enable storage sense, clear temp files and trash every once a while.

 

Once the time comes, get a 1 or 2 TB. 

[Timme]

Ok, so the drive won't serve you for 5 years. Yes, theoretical TBW and specsheet, bla, bla... But reality is a bit different in the OS drive scenario, where Windows is constantly reading, writing, and erasing data - a lot of mechanical wear that tends to hit some blocks of data more than others.
TL;DR A 128GB is good for about 2 years in Windows service.
 

Spoiler

Let's say that all Windows system and user-related data will take up 50-60GB, and another 18GB for a recovery image partition, leaving 60GB of free space.
As a reference, my 970 Evo Plus, serving as an OS drive (+Chrome and Windows apps, games are on a separate drive), has 32TB of host reads and 61TB of host writes in 1.5 years. That is with DRAM and without a pagefile, which reduces wear considerably.
So a 128GB SSD, which most likely has neither DRAM nor a great controller, will suffer around 35-40% health damage at best. Past this point, the degradation becomes much more rapid, and further use as an OS drive is inadvisable.

 

[TudorFinalBosz]

Small size SSDs usually have the worst specs, because corporations put the best chips on the more expensive, higher-capacity drives.

So I would expect these small-capacity drives to last less than average 1TB drives.

[AnoN38X]

8 hours ago, dreamcast4599 said:

is it worth it to install windows 11 on a 128 gig m.2 SSD? i have a dell optiplex 3060 it shipped with a 128 gig m.2 ssd and a 256 gig 2.5 inch sata ssd wanted to install windows on the 128 gig ssd and install her web browser and apps on the 256gig ssd alongside using it to back up her photos in stuff

my concern is given all the windows updates will the 128 gig ssd be large enough

Your fine, if its a few lightweight/basic apps and one or two browsers space wise you will be fine, unless the SSD is absolute garbage it will last you quite a few years. Ignore the ones that says it will only last for around 2 years, unless the drive has been previously overused that should not be the case.

 

4 hours ago, Timme said:

Ok, so the drive won't serve you for 5 years. Yes, theoretical TBW and specsheet, bla, bla... But reality is a bit different in the OS drive scenario, where Windows is constantly reading, writing, and erasing data - a lot of mechanical wear that tends to hit some blocks of data more than others.
TL;DR A 128GB is good for about 2 years in Windows service.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Let's say that all Windows system and user-related data will take up 50-60GB, and another 18GB for a recovery image partition, leaving 60GB of free space.
As a reference, my 970 Evo Plus, serving as an OS drive (+Chrome and Windows apps, games are on a separate drive), has 32TB of host reads and 61TB of host writes in 1.5 years. That is with DRAM and without a pagefile, which reduces wear considerably.
So a 128GB SSD, which most likely has neither DRAM nor a great controller, will suffer around 35-40% health damage at best. Past this point, the degradation becomes much more rapid, and further use as an OS drive is inadvisable.

 

 

3 hours ago, TudorFinalBosz said:

Small size SSDs usually have the worst specs, because corporations put the best chips on the more expensive, higher-capacity drives.

So I would expect these small-capacity drives to last less than average 1TB drives.

I don't like to do this but why the heck are you fear mongering and talking without any experience just regurgitating what you want to think rather then something from actual experience at the very least ? I have 2 active PC's running with 120GB budget SDD's Kingston UV series (UV is the most budget of the budget when it comes to kingston) that have been in use as OS drives since 2016-2018 for simple tasks, browsing, media consumption etc, and they are fine. and i also have 1 other 120 gb SSD which is temporarily retired but was also used for 7+ years and once i finish the build its intended for will likely work for a few more years. And this is just with my own experience, i know quite a few people still using budget drives of many brands in their own PC's just fine. when looking at the specs the numbers may not feel impressive, but the actual use you can get out of this drives especially as a simple user is staggering.

[TudorFinalBosz]

8 minutes ago, AnoN38X said:

I don't like to do this but why the heck are you fear mongering and talking without any experience just regurgitating what you want to think rather then something from actual experience at the very least ? I have 2 active PC's running with 120GB budget SDD's Kingston UV series (UV is the most budget of the budget when it comes to kingston) that have been in use as OS drives since 2016-2018 for simple tasks, browsing, media consumption etc, and they are fine. and i also have 1 other 120 gb SSD which is temporarily retired but was also used for 7+ years and once i finish the build its intended for will likely work for a few more years. And this is just with my own experience, i know quite a few people still using budget drives of many brands in their own PC's just fine. when looking at the specs the numbers may not feel impressive, but the actual use you can get out of this drives especially as a simple user is staggering.

I too am talking based on my own experience with a low-capacity Intel SSD I had since 2016 which still works but it has a rating of 64% wearout.

By comparison a Samsung from about the same era but of higher capacity has less than 10% wearout.

 

So your old SSDs might be fine, even if they're low-capacity, but that could be because there hasn't been much writing-rewriting done on them, it all depends on how you used them too.

[AnoN38X]

19 minutes ago, TudorFinalBosz said:

I too am talking based on my own experience with a low-capacity Intel SSD I had since 2016 which still works but it has a rating of 64% wearout.

By comparison a Samsung from about the same era but of higher capacity has less than 10% wearout.

 

So your old SSDs might be fine, even if they're low-capacity, but that could be because there hasn't been much writing-rewriting done on them, it all depends on how you used them too.

Sorry about quoting you i messed up it was the one above you i was targeting, i must've gotten confused, still 2016, that's almost 10 years, far away from the 2 years life span some are spewing, of course windows 11 is far more bloated and poorly optimize then any other OS that came before it, but even then an SSD should last more then 5 years under a normal user.

 

PS: i also have a 850 Evo Samsung SSD 120GB that i got i think between 2014-2015 and was used as an OS drive heavily in my personal rig till ~2019-2021, now still working just as extra storage for some games, i think software wise its reporting as being at half its lifespan.

[Timme]

1 hour ago, AnoN38X said:

Your fine, if its a few lightweight/basic apps and one or two browsers space wise you will be fine, unless the SSD is absolute garbage it will last you quite a few years. Ignore the ones that says it will only last for around 2 years, unless the drive has been previously overused that should not be the case.

 

 

I don't like to do this but why the heck are you fear mongering and talking without any experience just regurgitating what you want to think rather then something from actual experience at the very least ? I have 2 active PC's running with 120GB budget SDD's Kingston UV series (UV is the most budget of the budget when it comes to kingston) that have been in use as OS drives since 2016-2018 for simple tasks, browsing, media consumption etc, and they are fine. and i also have 1 other 120 gb SSD which is temporarily retired but was also used for 7+ years and once i finish the build its intended for will likely work for a few more years. And this is just with my own experience, i know quite a few people still using budget drives of many brands in their own PC's just fine. when looking at the specs the numbers may not feel impressive, but the actual use you can get out of this drives especially as a simple user is staggering.

 You mad, bro? I gave my own diskinfo; nothing was made up. Real life, real numbers.

[avidgamer121]

120gb is enough for me though, it was my first ssd almost 7 years ago and it's still doing fine though i use custom lightweight iso but i think you can still manage it if you move your media folders to other drive.

[Lurking]

3 hours ago, TudorFinalBosz said:

I too am talking based on my own experience with a low-capacity Intel SSD I had since 2016 which still works but it has a rating of 64% wearout.

By comparison a Samsung from about the same era but of higher capacity has less than 10% wearout.

 

So your old SSDs might be fine, even if they're low-capacity, but that could be because there hasn't been much writing-rewriting done on them, it all depends on how you used them too.

If everything is equal a smaller SSD will wear out faster with the SAME amount of writing. But this isn't based on lower quality, each cell just gets used more often due to less size.

 

Larger SSD of the same model also tend to be a bit faster since more NAND are in parallel. However, usually this isn't that noticeable. And nowadays the smallest SSD made by brand names are 1TB anyway. So it isn't like we need to advise a user if they should buy 128 or 256GB. Buy 2TB and call it a day. 

 

And the intel you had may just have had a different architecture, different design and chips than the Samsung. so this isn't just a size difference. I  bet you did not measure the actual writing amount in a lab nor track temperatures etc. over the life time. So you are just throwing around an anecdote that is a total apples/oranges comparison. 

 

i have a few 256GB Samsung SSD used in different scenarios. That are 10+ years old. They show over 90% life left. So yes, i think Samsung is great. But i can't make a definitive statement how much better since i don't know if a competing model had been used in a server 24/7 and wrote all day long. 

 

Not knowing what SSD, and what the history of the SSD the OP owns, no one can tell how long it will last. Use it till full or it is worn out. Then buy larger. That SSD has almost no re-sale value. So there is no harm in wearing it to death. If you already own a 128GB SSD, use it. But don't go out and actively buy a used 128GB SSD. 

[AnoN38X]

5 hours ago, Timme said:

 You mad, bro? I gave my own diskinfo; nothing was made up. Real life, real numbers.

Not really mad but indeed feed up with people like you that just spout BS, real life and real experience shows your saying nonsense, that even low value 120GB SSD's last 7 years+ as OS drives.

[Timme]

7 minutes ago, AnoN38X said:

Not really mad but indeed feed up with people like you that just spout BS, real life and real experience shows your saying nonsense, that even low value 120GB SSD's last 7 years+ as OS drives.

Again, idk what data you base this on, but it's definitely not your or anyone's experience with A PC as their daily drive. Let's see if you'll push on with your trolling and call this out as a photoshop

[Timme]

I even have a better one: an old, cheapo SSD with no bells and whistles. It was my first SSD, and ofc it was an OS drive... for around two years, at which point I realized that the disk didn't feel well and was at 40% health, after which it was retired for archival storage duty. Here it sure can last all 7+ years, as it barely sees any activity on the drive.