SSD maintenance

[Lord Pantaloons]

I've got a 120GB SSD as my boot drive and its been about 4 months since I've built my PC and I was wondering what, if anything, I need to do to maintain my SSD. I've been defragging it once ever other week like I do with my other drives but I'm not sure if that's all I'm supposed to be doing.

[Str_Mape]

NO! You don't defrag an SSD it reduces the lifetime of them.

[WoodenMarker]

You don't defrag your ssd. Just leave it alone.

[TheSLSAMG]

I've got a 120GB SSD as my boot drive and its been about 4 months since I've built my PC and I was wondering what, if anything, I need to do to maintain my SSD. I've been defragging it once ever other week like I do with my other drives but I'm not sure if that's all I'm supposed to be doing.

NO! DEFRAGGING AN SSD ONLY SHORTENS IT'S LIFE!

[Godlygamer23]

Windows 7 and Windows 8 should automatically run Trim which is the only bit of maintenance you have to do on the drive. Other than that, nothing. Also, please don't let the SSD fill up too much, or the drive will get slow.

[WorldDominator]

I call troll post.

[Lord Pantaloons]

NO! You don't defrag an SSD it reduces the lifetime of them.

How does defragging reduce an SSD's lifespan?

 

 

 

I call troll post.

Wrong call, legitimate question is legitimate. This is my first real PC, every other one I've ever had was a crappy laptop of some description, none of which had an SSD.

 

 

 

Windows 7 and Windows 8 should automatically run Trim which is the only bit of maintenance you have to do on the drive. Other than that, nothing. Also, please don't let the SSD fill up too much, or the drive will get slow.

What is Trim?

[Str_Mape]

How does defragging reduce an SSD's lifespan?

SSD's have a limited number of write cycles while its quite high when defragging the SSD you're moving a lot of data on it around and if done often enough it will cause a very noticeable drop in lifetime.

[WorldDominator]

Wrong call, legitimate question is legitimate. This is my first real PC, every other one I've ever had was a crappy laptop of some description, none of which had an SSD.

Oh...well I'm sorry then but you better stop that right now. Also, change that profile pic, it creeps me out everytime i see it

[Lord Pantaloons]

Oh...well I'm sorry then but you better stop that right now. Also, change that profile pic, it creeps me out everytime i see it

That is one reason, among others, why I won't change it.

[WorldDominator]

That is one reason, among others, why I won't change it.

He's staring into my soul....

[GoodBytes]

Ok so let's put some things to rest.

 1- Defragging SSDs provide 0 performance benefits. Like I mean 0! The reason for this is that data on an SSD is ALWAYS fragmented, to evenly use the chips, so that the SSD life span is greatly increased.

 

 2- SSDs can fetch every block of a file at the same time, even form different chips. That is THE main reason why SSDs are so fast compared to HDD's. So again, you can see why defragging provides 0 performance benefits.

 

 3- Do not tweak Windows. Assuming you are not using one of the early SSD's, or Windows Vista and earlier. Windows knows that you have an SSD, and everything is adjusted accordingly for you. So all these stupid tweaks you read on the internet. DO NOT do them. You are wasting time, and breaking the experience with Windows, even dropping in performance., depending on the tweak.

 

 4- You have 3 types of SSD on the market. Asynchronous MLC chip based SSDs, Synchronous MLC chip based SSDs,and TLC. Samsung is the only one using the TLC chip in their SSD. It's found in the Samsung 840 and 840 EVO series. TLC chips is the same ones used in Flash drive or SD card and such. They are not great performance wise, but still miles better than HDDs, and they are limited in writes. The target audience is general computer usage, and gaming. It's a budget choice, hence the crappy chips. It has a 3 year warranty, but I would not really trust it after 3 year in holding sensitive data. Have backups. It might last well over 3 years, that depends on your usage. But TLC chips aren't great.

 

Next up, is Synchronous MLC chip based SSDs, These are easy to identify, they have a 5 year warranty. Why they have a 5 year warranty? Because they support a ridiculous high amount of writes. It's the polar opposite of TLC chips. Also they are the fastest on the consumer market. These are the kind of SSD you have no problem trusting after 7 years. Life expectancy is expected to surpass 9 years for most. If you do programming, or anything that writes a lot on the drive, this is the SSD to get.

 

Finally, we have Asynchronous MLC chip based SSDs. These fit in between the 2 above. They have 3 year warranty, but you can trust them easily after that. Performance is also in between. As the warranty length is 3 years, much like TLC based SSDs, how do I know it its an SSD using asynchronous MLC chips. Simple:

 -> Is it Samsung? No? Then it's Asynchronous MLC chip. Yes? Then it's TLC chips. (it must be noted that the 830 uses Asynchronous MLC chip, but that's a last gen SSD)

 

That is in nutshell, the difference. So buy the SSD that fits your needs.

 

 

 5- I defrag my SSD should I be worried. Even if it's an TLC based SSD, I would not. As long as it's nothing regular, you are fine. If it was regular thing you did, then:

 -> If its TLC based SSD, I would be worried. If not, nha it's ok, just stop doing it.

 

Hope this helps.

[Godlygamer23]

What is Trim?

Trim is a command that's sent to the SSD controller to tell it to erase any invalid data. Invalid data is data that you "deleted" from your recycling bin or when you removed a program.

[Lord Pantaloons]

Ok so let's put some things to rest.

 1- Defragging SSDs provide 0 performance benefits. Like I mean 0! The reason for this is that data on an SSD is ALWAYS fragmented, to evenly use the chips, so that the SSD life span is greatly increased.

 

 2- SSDs can fetch every block of a file at the same time, even form different chips. That is THE main reason why SSDs are so fast compared to HDD's. So again, you can see why defragging provides 0 performance benefits.

 

 3- Do not tweak Windows. Assuming you are not using one of the early SSD's, or Windows Vista and earlier. Windows knows that you have an SSD, and everything is adjusted accordingly for you. So all these stupid tweaks you read on the internet. DO NOT do them. You are wasting time, and breaking the experience with Windows, even dropping in performance., depending on the tweak.

 

 4- You have 3 types of SSD on the market. Asynchronous MLC chip based SSDs, Synchronous MLC chip based SSDs,and TLC. Samsung is the only one using the TLC chip in their SSD. It's found in the Samsung 840 and 840 EVO series. TLC chips is the same ones used in Flash drive or SD card and such. They are not great performance wise, but still miles better than HDDs, and they are limited in writes. The target audience is general computer usage, and gaming. It's a budget choice, hence the crappy chips. It has a 3 year warranty, but I would not really trust it after 3 year in holding sensitive data. Have backups. It might last well over 3 years, that depends on your usage. But TLC chips aren't great.

 

Next up, is Synchronous MLC chip based SSDs, These are easy to identify, they have a 5 year warranty. Why they have a 5 year warranty? Because they support a ridiculous high amount of writes. It's the polar opposite of TLC chips. Also they are the fastest on the consumer market. These are the kind of SSD you have no problem trusting after 7 years. Life expectancy is expected to surpass 9 years for most. If you do programming, or anything that writes a lot on the drive, this is the SSD to get.

 

Finally, we have Asynchronous MLC chip based SSDs. These fit in between the 2 above. They have 3 year warranty, but you can trust them easily after that. Performance is also in between. As the warranty length is 3 years, much like TLC based SSDs, how do I know it its an SSD using asynchronous MLC chips. Simple:

 -> Is it Samsung? No? Then it's Asynchronous MLC chip. Yes? Then it's TLC chips. (it must be noted that the 830 uses Asynchronous MLC chip, but that's a last gen SSD)

 

That is in nutshell, the difference. So buy the SSD that fits your needs.

 

 

 5- I defrag my SSD should I be worried. Even if it's an TLC based SSD, I would not. As long as it's nothing regular, you are fine. If it was regular thing you did, then:

 -> If its TLC based SSD, I would be worried. If not, nha it's ok, just stop doing it.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Trim is a command that's sent to the SSD controller to tell it to erase any invalid data. Invalid data is data that you "deleted" from your recycling bin or when you removed a program.

 

Thanks much for the info, in regards to any "tweaks" I've not read about nor done anything to change anything and I'm glad I decided to ask before I kept defragging it.

[Mooshi]

I feel bad that I giggled.. but yeah, SSDs kinda take care of themselves as long as your OS and SSD support TRIM. I've had mine for 2 years and I still hit near new performance numbers in spite of drive being almost full.

[Lord Pantaloons]

I feel bad that I giggled.. but yeah, SSDs kinda take care of themselves as long as your OS and SSD support TRIM. I've had mine for 2 years and I still hit near new performance numbers in spite of drive being almost full.

Don't feel bad, I learn something new every day. If I hadn't decided to ask for lulz I would have kept doing it until I heard at another time that it was bad for SSD's so I'm glad I found out.

[Mooshi]

Don't feel bad, I learn something new every day. If I hadn't decided to ask for lulz I would have kept doing it until I heard at another time that it was bad for SSD's so I'm glad I found out.

Yeh. Don't need to stress the nand out.