Everything you need to know about SSDs (and a bit more)

[Murilo_A]

I saw that there are guides for choosing your storage device and a guide for Mechanical HD, but there wasn't anything dedicated to SSDs, so I've decided to do a guide, with some myths, tips and general info about most common SSDs. This took a long time to wrote, so I hope you can learn something. The guide for what SSD should you buy it's not complete (because I don't want to dedicate my life to write about SSDs, since it takes a lot of time), you can help me by doing the same as I did with other SSDs (using the official datasheets) then I'll edit and give credits to you. Please inform me about any errors, missing information and other stuff, credits will be given to anyone that helps.

 

Advantages and disadvantages of SSDs

Spoiler

 

Advantages

Less power consumption (in common SATA SSDs)

Much faster than HDDs

Less heat output (in common SATA SSDs)

Reliability (No moving parts)

No noise

Not affected by magnets

 

Disadvantages

Lower capacity

More expensive

 

Common myths

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SSDs have lower life span than HDDs

The answer depends in a lot of things. HDDs usually starts failing randomly, your hard drive can last for 10 years or 1 year, depends on a lot of things. Most SSDs have a determined life span, measured in TB written to the host and there are some programs that can tell if your SSD is dying. But should you be worried? In general cases, no. Unless you do some crazy stuff that writes a lot of data, you will be fine for a good amount of time. I have my SSD for about 8 months, and by far it has written 6.4TB of data, far from the 128TB advertised by Kingston. Also, sometimes when SSDs die, instead of making you pay for a recovering data center to try to recover your important stuff (because recovering data from SSDs is almost impossible), the write speeds will get ridiculously slow (something like 1MB/s) so you would still be able to backup your data to somewhere, but remember, ALWAYS have a backup of your important data in other drives.

 

It’s better to RAID some HDDs than buying an SSD

No. Just don’t do that. RAID 0 two or three HDDs is not better than a single SSD. First, RAID 0 is very unreliable, if one of the drives fail, all your data is gone. But can you get the same speeds of an SSD? Well, for 2 HDDs supposing that they scale 100%, the answer is still no, the best consumer grade HDDs can get up to 200MB/s, so you would get 400MB/s (to be clear, it does not work that way) and a common SATA SSD have about 500MB/s reads and writes. I didn’t found any tests with 3 HDDs in RAID, but even that you can get the same sequential speeds (random would still be lower), it’s very unreliable. It’s only worth it if you don’t care about losing your data and having to reinstall everything if any of the drives fail.

 

It’s not worth it to use an SSD in SATA I or SATA II port

For SATA I, no, it’s not worth it, it would bottleneck even some hard drives. SATA II is a different story, it’s maximum speed is 300MB/s, but you would get about 250MB/s, but it still worth it if you want to revive an old system, you will notice a good difference. It won't be as fast as SATA III, but still a good difference. By the way, you can buy a cheap adapter to use its full speed.

 

SSDs get very slow after some time

Not at all, unlike hard drives, SSDs don't have moving parts, which means it doesn’t tend to reduce its speed drastically, most SSDs supports TRIM command which guarantee your drive won't degrade much.

Defragmenting your SSD will kill it

No, defragmenting your SSD won’t kill it, unless you have an SSD that’s already dying, but you shouldn’t do it. SSDs get fragment, but that doesn't make a huge impact in performance as in hard drives, and you shouldn't defrag your SSD regularly (as you do to a hard drive). What you should do is install a program like CCleaner to clean temp files and once in a while check if your SSD is very fragmented, if it's more than 30%, you should consider defragging it (unless you have an SSD that it's almost dying)

What is NVMe?

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NVMe means Non-Volatile Memory Express, it was created with focus on SSDs. Since AHCI was designed with focus on mechanical hard drives, it was not designed to work with a lot of things happening at the same time, you can see a more detailed explaination in this video:

 

What is S.M.A.R.T.?

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S.M.A.R.T. means Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology, it's a technology used to monitor your HDD and SSD. It can monitor a lot of stuff and tell if your drive is dying or has any problems. You can check S.M.A.R.T. attributes and what they mean here. More detailed explanation in this video:

 

Software to monitor and benchmark your SSD

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Here are some softwares that you can use to monitor and benchmark your SSD. Click on their names to go to the download page.

HD Tune Pro - See S.M.A.R.T. data, check for bad sectors and benchmarking. It’s paid, but you can get the Trial Version, which does the same thing but only for 15 days. I wouldn’t recommend the normal version, I’ve seen some bugs with it.

CrystalDiskMark - One of the most known software for benchmarking. Has a simple interface and benchmark sequential and random speeds.

CrystalDiskInfo - General info about your drive and S.M.A.R.T data.

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test - Benchmark sequential reads and writes. Mac only, Windows version is not official.

Kingston SSD Toolbox - Monitor your Kingston V300 drive. Shows health in % and S.M.A.R.T data. Can be used to update firmware.

Kingston SSD Manager - Monitor your Kingston UV400, HyperX Savage, HyperX Fury, and HyperX Predator. Shows health in % and S.M.A.R.T data. Can be used to update firmware.

Samsung Magician - Monitor your Samsung SSD. Shows health, TBs written, S.M.A.R.T. data, general info. Can be used to update firmware, perform benchmarks, create a RAM cache, and securely erase the SSD data.

SanDisk SSD Dashboard - Monitor your SanDisk SSD. Shows health, general info. Can be used to securely erase the SSD data.

Intel SSD Toolbox - Monitor your Intel SSD. Shows health in %, general info and S.M.A.R.T. data. Can be used to securely erase the SSD data and update firmware.

PNY Drive Utility - Can only be used to update firmware.

Crucial Storage Executive - Monitor your Crucial SSD. Shows health, general info and S.M.A.R.T. data. Can be used to update firmware.

ADATA SSD Toolbox - Monitor your ADATA SSD. Shows health in %, general info, and TBs written. Can be used to securely erase data and update firmware.

Cloning software

Spoiler

I wouldn’t recommend cloning your old OS from your old HDD to your brand new SSD. Yes, it takes less time than reinstalling everything, but reinstalling the OS may be a good option, if you consider that after some time, a lot of junk gets stored in your drive. If you recently reinstalled Windows in your HDD, or don’t care about what I’ve just wrote, there are a few programs you can use to clone data. Some brands such as Samsung and Kingston include their own software to clone your old drive, but there are some free programs that do this.

What capacity should I choose?

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It really depends on what you do. As Linus said in this video I can’t tell you how much storage you need. But I'm going to tell some recommendations.

For documents, web browsing, etc. For light stuff like documents, web browsing and things like this, you should be fine with 120GB. Only remember to store your pictures, movies, and music (if you have a lot of them) in an external drive or other drive you have on your system.

For games. It really depends. If you want only Windows and programs on the SSD, and all your games on a hard drive, then you should get 120GB. If you want to put your games in the SSD, it will depend on which games, I’d recommend 240GB if you have a small budget, but if you want to put more games, or won’t buy a hard drive, then you should get at least 480GB.

Connections

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SATA

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    SATA has been around for a long time and it's one of the most used connections in consumer grade drives. The current generation is SATA III, which can deliver speeds up to 600MB/s. Most SSDs use this connection and usually are capable of speeds around 500MB/s for both reads and writes, much faster than a normal desktop hard drive (150-200MB/s) and a normal laptop hard drive (70-100MB/s). For capacities, the most common are between 120GB and 1TB. There are 60GB SSDs, but I wouldn’t recommend then, because you can only put the OS and nothing more. There are also SATA SSDs with a lot of space, the Samsung 850 EVO has a version with 4TB.

SATA Ports

SATA Express

Spoiler

Motherboards with SATA Express are common, but SSDs with SATA Express are not so common. The SATA Express mixes two SATA ports and a PCIe port, which can deliver almost 2GB/s. I tried to search for SATA Express SSDs, but I couldn’t find any. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to use a SATA Express SSD, you can’t use it with older motherboards, and there aren’t any advantages of using it.

SATA Express Ports

M.2

Spoiler

M.2 is a connection that usually uses PCIe lanes for your drives, but it can also be used as SATA, usually mSATA drives are used on old high end laptops. These are very expensive and commonly used in high end laptops such as the Dell XPS 15 and Razer Blade Stealth. The speed is limited to the PCIe connection (4GB/s in case of PCIe 3.0 x4) and there are drives that get up to 3500MB/s. Beware that in some motherboards, using the M.2 slot might disable a PCIe slot (usually the last one) or SATA ports, check your motherboard’s manual for more details. There aren’t much M.2 drives, the most common are Samsung 950 series and 960 series. Capacities are a problem, since they are small, but Samsung manage to put 2TB in their latest 960 PRO, the most common are 256GB, 512GB and 1TB.

    M.2 Slot between two PCIe slots

U.2

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U.2 is a new standard, developed to use less space in the motherboard, works in the same way as M.2, delivering up to 4GB/s (PCIe 3.0 x4). Since it’s a new connector, there aren’t much drives available, most of them are from Intel, in capacities from 400GB all the way up to 2TB. The fastest U.2 drive have reads of up to 2800MB/s and writes of up to 1900MB/s (Intel DC P3700 2TB) although we might see better speeds in the future considering the 4GB/s limit.

    U.2 Slot (left), SATA Express (middle) and SATA (right)

 

PCI Express

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M.2 and U.2 are PCIe based, but there’s also the normal PCIe connection that most motherboards have. The limit is the PCI connection you are using (in PCIe 3.0, 1GB/s per lane). The fastest is the Intel DC P3608 4TB, which has the insane speed of 5000MB/s Read and 3000MB/s Write, for the small amount of $7999.99.

 

I bought a new SSD, what should I do after installing it?

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Make sure TRIM is enabled

As said before, TRIM helps your SSD to stay fast across the years, Windows should enable it automatically, but it’s good to check if it’s enabled.

 

To check if it's enabled, do the following: Open CMD, type the following and press enter: fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify. If the value is 0, TRIM is enabled, if the value is 1, TRIM is not enabled. To enable, type the following and press enter: fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0.

 

Turn off hibernation

Most people don’t use it, if you use it, you should consider disabling it (you can put to sleep if you want to save what you’re doing). Hibernation consumes a good amount of space, to disable it, do these steps: Open CMD. Type the following and press enter: powercfg -h off.

 

Make sure AHCI or NVMe is enabled

Go to the BIOS/UEFI and see if AHCI or NVMe (only some newer motherboards support NVMe) is enabled. Most of them are usually already configured to AHCI or NVMe, but it's always good to be sure.

 

Change the virtual memory to another drive

SSDs have their life spans determined by TBs written and virtual memory will write a lot of data to it (not to mention it will use about 5-10GB depending on how much memory you have). If you don’t have another drive in your system, you should leave it enabled, Windows needs the virtual memory to work properly, and even if you have 128GB of RAM for whatever reason, you might have problems with Virtual Memory disabled.

 

Disable superfetch (Windows 7 Only)

Superfetch is a service used to keep the system running well after some time. But in Windows 7, it can be bad for your SSD, so you should disable it. (don’t need to be disabled in Windows 8, 8.1 or 10).

To disable, press Windows + R, type (without quotation marks) “services.msc” and press enter, find the “Superfetch”, right click, properties, startup type, change it to Disabled.

 

Disable auto defragmentation

SSDs get fragmented, but there isn't a huge a impact in performance, and defragmenting it, will reduce its life span, disabling it is good because it won't defragment while you are doing something important and then everything starts to slow down. To disable, type "defragmenting" in the Start Menu and press enter. Click on your SSD, on scheduled defragmenting, change the settings and disable it. To maintain your drive good, I'd recommend cleaning up temp files with a program like CCleaner, and defragment once in a while.

 

Don't use Windows Vista or older

I don't think anyone using an SSD will use older OSs than Windows 7, but please don't use anything older than 7, they are not optimized for SSDs and won't work properly

What SSD should I buy? Guide for some consumer grade SSDs

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Samsung

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850 EVO – The most basic and affordable Samsung SSD, they are fast, but have a shot life span. Features Samsung MGX Controller (120GB-1TB), MHX Controller (2-4TB), Samsung V-NAND 3bit MLC, LPDDR3 Cache, 5-year warranty and a life expectancy of 1.5 million hours.

 

Capacities	Speeds	Cache	Life Span (TBW)
120GB	540MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write	256MB	75TB
250GB	540MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write	512MB	75TB
500GB	540MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write	512MB	150TB
1TB	540MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write	1GB	150TB
2TB	540MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write	2GB	300TB
4TB	540MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write	4GB	300TB

850 PRO – They are a bit faster than the 850 EVO and have a much better life span. Features Samsung MEX Controller (128GB-1TB), MHX Controller (2TB), Samsung V-NAND 2bit MLC, DRAM Cache, 10-year warranty and a life expectancy of 2 million hours.

Capacities	Speeds	Cache	Life Span (TBW)
128GB	550MB/s Read | 470MB/s Write	256MB LPDDR2	150TB
256GB	550MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write	512MB LPDDR2	150TB
512GB	550MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write	512MB LPDDR2	300TB
1TB	550MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write	1GB LPDDR2	300TB
2TB	550MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write	2GB LPDDR3	300TB

950 PRO – Here you get better speeds, better life span, M.2 connection and NVMe. Features Samsung UBX Controller, Samsung V-NAND, LPDDR3 Cache, 5-year warranty and a life expectancy of 1.5 million hours.

Capacities	Speeds	Cache	Life Span (TBW)
256GB	2200MB/s Read | 900MB/s Write	512MB	200TB
512GB	2500MB/s Read | 1500MB/s Write	512MB	400TB

960 EVO – 1TB capacity, NVMe 1.2 and faster than the 950 PRO. Features Samsung Polaris Controller, Samsung V-NAND 3bit MLC, LPDDR3 Cache, 3-year warranty and a life expectancy of 1.5 million hours.

Capacities	Speeds	Cache	Life Span (TBW)
250GB	3200MB/s Read | 1500MB/s Write	512MB	100TB
500GB	3200MB/s Read | 1800MB/s Write	512MB	200TB
1TB	3200MB/s Read | 1900MB/s Write	1GB	400TB

960 PRO – About the same as the 960 EVO, just faster and better life span. Features Samsung Polaris Controller, Samsung V-NAND, LPDDR3 Cache, 5-year warranty and a life expectancy of 1.5 million hours.

Capacities	Speeds	Cache	Life Span (TBW)
512GB	3500MB/s Read | 2100MB/s Write	512MB	400TB
1TB	3500MB/s Read | 2100MB/s Write	1GB	800TB
2TB	3500MB/s Read | 2100MB/s Write	2GB	1200TB

Kingston

Spoiler

 

V300 – Usually very cheap, don’t have the best speeds, but are enough for budget builds or for reviving old systems without spending much. They use a LSI SandForce controller and MLC NANDs, have a 3-year warranty and life expectancy of 1 million hours. Important: Some users have reported Kingston is using bad quality controllers in the 120GB version, which means they are much slower than advertised, this could be useful if you want a really cheap SSD, specially for SATA II boards, but I still wouldn't recommend it.

Capacities	Speeds (Compressible Data)	Speeds (Incompressible Data)	Life Span (TBW)
60GB	450MB/s Read | 450MB/s Write	150MB/s Read | 50MB/s Write	32TB
120GB	450MB/s Read | 450MB/s Write	180MB/s Read | 133MB/s Write	64TB
240GB	450MB/s Read | 450MB/s Write	191MB/s Read | 142MB/s Write	128TB
480GB	450MB/s Read | 450MB/s Write	450MB/s Read | 208MB/s Write	256TB

UV400 – Kingston released the UV400 to replace the V300, with better speeds, slightly lower life span and they use TLC NANDs instead of the MLC. They feature the Marvell 88SS1074 controller, 3-year warranty and a life expectancy of 1 million hours.

Capacities	Speeds (Compressible Data)	Speeds (Incompressible Data)	Life Span (TBW)
120GB	550MB/s Read | 350MB/s Write	Not announced	50TB
240GB	550MB/s Read | 490MB/s Write	Not announced	100TB
480GB	550MB/s Read | 500MB/s Write	Not announced	200TB
960GB	540MB/s Read | 500MB/s Write	Not announced	400TB

HyperX Fury – Here we start to see more higher end SSDs, these are better than the V300 and UV400, worse than the HyperX Savage in speeds, but better in Life Span. They feature a SandForce SF-2281 controller, synchronous NAND BOM, 3-year warranty and a life expectancy of 1 million hours.

Capacities	Speeds (Compressible Data)	Speeds (Incompressible Data)	Life Span (TBW)
120GB	500MB/s Read | 500MB/s Write	420MB/s Read | 120MB/s Write	354TB
240GB	500MB/s Read | 500MB/s Write	470MB/s Read | 220MB/s Write	641TB
480GB	500MB/s Read | 500MB/s Write	450MB/s Read | 208MB/s Write	750TB

HyperX Savage – These are better than the HyperX Fury in speeds, but worse in Life Span, they feature a Phison S10 controller, 3-year warranty and a life expectancy of 1 million hours.

Capacities	Speeds (Compressible Data)	Speeds (Incompressible Data)	Life Span (TBW)
120GB	560MB/s Read | 360MB/s Write	520MB/s Read | 350MB/s Write	113TB
240GB	560MB/s Read | 530MB/s Write	520MB/s Read | 510MB/s Write	306TB
480GB	560MB/s Read | 530MB/s Write	520MB/s Read | 500MB/s Write	416TB
960GB	560MB/s Read | 530MB/s Write	520MB/s Read | 490MB/s Write	681TB

HyperX Predator (M.2) – These are the best Kingston SSDs, they use a M.2 slot (PCIe adapter included in some units) and are very fast, but unfortunately, they feature the old AHCI instead of NVMe. They feature a Marvell controller, MLC NAND, 3-year warranty and a life expectancy of 1 million hours.

Capacities	Speeds (Compressible Data)	Speeds (Incompressible Data)	Life Span (TBW)
240GB	1400MB/s Read | 600MB/s Write	1290MB/s Read | 600MB/s Write	415TB
480GB	1400MB/s Read | 1000MB/s Write	1100MB/s Read | 910MB/s Write	882TB
960GB	1350MB/s Read | 1000MB/s Write	1300MB/s Read | 1000MB/s Write	1600TB

 

SanDisk

Spoiler

Unfortunately, SanDisk doesn’t provide an official datasheet that has extensive info about the controller, NAND type and life span, I'll only put the info they provide in their website.

 

Plus – Their low-end SSD series, a direct competitor for the Kingston UV400. Features 3-year warranty

Capacities	Speeds
120GB	530MB/s Read | 400MB/s Write
240GB	530MB/s Read | 440MB/s Write
480GB	535MB/s Read | 445MB/s Write
960GB	535MB/s Read | 450MB/s Write

Ultra II – They are faster than the Plus Series (specially on writes)

Capacities	Speeds
120GB	550MB/s Read | 500MB/s Write
240GB	550MB/s Read | 500MB/s Write
480GB	550MB/s Read | 500MB/s Write
960GB	550MB/s Read | 500MB/s Write

Extreme Pro – The best SATA SSD they produce

Capacities	Speeds
240GB	550MB/s Read | 520MB/s Write
480GB	550MB/s Read | 515MB/s Write
960GB	550MB/s Read | 515MB/s Write

 

Credits:

Spoiler

 

@zMeul - Corrected my mistake about SSD fragmentation and M.2 that can also be used as SATA

 

 

[Shog]

Good tips for SSD care after installation.

[zMeul]

15 minutes ago, Murilo_A said:

SSDs don’t get fragment, and defragmenting won’t make it faster

wrong

 

SSDs do get fragmented because the data is stored at the OS file system

and yes, defragmenting will benefit the SSD since the OS will have to issue less I/O requests

 

 

[Murilo_A]

1 minute ago, zMeul said:

wrong

 

SSDs do get fragmented because the data is stored at the OS file system

 

 

I didn't see the video, but unlike HDDs, there isn't any moving parts, so the time and speed the drive can access a file that it's on the start of the disk, is the same as a file it's on the final of the disk. Linus explain this better:

 

[zMeul]

Just now, Murilo_A said:

I didn't see the video, but unlike HDDs, there isn't any moving parts, so the time and speed the drive can access a file that it's on the start of the disk, is the same as a file it's on the final of the disk. Linus explain this better:

no it's wrong, very very wrong

 

SSDs do not know what the file system does, the controller only responds to I/O requests

if you have one file with 1000 fragments, the OS will issue 1000 I/O requests to read that file from the drive - and SSDs do not have infinite capacity to handle I/O requests

look at various SSD tech specs

[zMeul]

part 2:

 

Quote

SSDs get very slow after some time

Not at all, unlike hard drives, SSDs don't have moving parts, which means it doesn’t tend to reduce its speed drastically, most SSDs supports TRIM command which guarantee your drive won't degrade much.

 

SSDs can get slow over time and can be caused by unsupported TRIM command but also can be caused by cell voltage drift

the most known about cell voltage drift case is the Samsung 840 series SSDs where data read speeds will take a nosedive after some period of time - Samsung "fixed" the problem with a FW that re-write the data at certain intervals

 

from personal experience I can tell you that A-Data's SP550 series is also affected

[Murilo_A]

2 minutes ago, zMeul said:

no it's wrong, very very wrong

 

SSDs do not know what the file system does, the controller only responds to I/O requests

if you have one file with 1000 fragments, the OS will issue 1000 I/O requests to read that file from the drive - and SSDs do not have infinite capacity to handle I/O requests

look at various SSD tech specs

It's actually right, or do you think Microsoft would disable defragmenting for SSDs and make it optimization in Windows 8 and 10 just for fun?

[Murilo_A]

3 minutes ago, zMeul said:

Samsung "fixed" the problem with a FW that re-write the data at certain intervals

But they didn't recommend anyone to defragment their SSDs

[zMeul]

Just now, Murilo_A said:

It's actually right, or do you think Microsoft would disable defragmenting for SSDs and make it optimization in Windows 8 and 10 just for fun?

MS does not disable defragmentation when SSDs are present, do your research please

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

[zMeul]

4 minutes ago, Murilo_A said:

But they didn't recommend anyone to defragment their SSDs

cell voltage drift has nothing to do with fragmentation

 

the part 2 posts is another clarification on your SSD myths

all your "data" is taken from TechQuickie videos that are sometimes poorly researched and factually incomplete / wrong

[Murilo_A]

3 minutes ago, zMeul said:

MS does not disable defragmentation when SSDs are present, do your research please

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

From the link you gave me: "Windows is smart about how it treats your SSD." Windows knows what to do, a random program you downloaded on the internet doesn't, it will do the same as it does to your hard drive, which is not very good

[zMeul]

Just now, Murilo_A said:

From the link you gave me: "Windows is smart about how it treats your SSD." Windows knows what to do, a random program you downloaded on the internet doesn't, it will do the same as it does to your hard drive, which is not very good

let's stop beating around the bush

the fact that Windows partitions still need defragmentation is because MS is still pigheadedly using NTFS instead of jumping to a new more developed file system that benefits both mechanical HDDs and SSD - like ext4 for example

 

etx file system does not store file consecutively, where a file ends next to it there's another one

etx stores files with enough free space in between them to allow for each file to grow without producing unnecessary fragments  - any nix OS that uses ext4 does not need defragmentation (unless the free space is way way to low)

I think Apple's file system is based on the same idea

[Murilo_A]

8 minutes ago, zMeul said:

MS does not disable defragmentation when SSDs are present, do your research please

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

Just to complete, even that they get fragmented, there's not a significant impact in performance, I'm using my SSD for about 8 months and haven't noticed any performance degradation, Windows takes more to start than it usually did when I installed it, but that's because I have a lot of programs that starts up with Windows then I used to.

[zMeul]

1 minute ago, Murilo_A said:

Just to complete, even that they get fragmented, there's not a significant impact in performance, I'm using my SSD for about 8 months and haven't noticed any performance degradation, Windows takes more to start than it usually did when I installed it, but that's because I have a lot of programs that starts up with Windows then I used to.

you do not understand how a file system works

you do not measure the performance degradation of a SSD from how fast or slow a PC boots Windows

[zMeul]

part 3:

Quote

M.2 is a connection based on PCIe

the info is not complete

 

m.2 is just a form factor that allows two types of interfaces:

• PCIe
• SATA

m.2 is not limited to PCIe interface

 

and the odd part: the are still around PCIe m.2 SSDs that use AHCI protocol

some of the old m.2 Samsung OEM SSDs; and I think other manufacturers had PCIe AHCI drives too

example: Samsung SM951

[Murilo_A]

2 minutes ago, zMeul said:

you do not understand how a file system works

you do not measure the performance degradation of a SSD from how fast or slow a PC boots Windows

No, I don't understand how a file system works, but it was just a comparison

[Murilo_A]

1 minute ago, zMeul said:

part 3:

the info is not complete

 

m.2 is just a form factor that allows two types of transfer protocols:

• PCIe
• SATA

m.2 is not limited to PCIe interface

Oops, forgot about mSATA, I'm going to correct it and change the information about defragmenting your SSD

[Murilo_A]

11 minutes ago, zMeul said:

and the odd part: the are still around PCIe m.2 SSDs that use AHCI protocol

some of the old m.2 Samsung OEM SSDs; and I think other manufacturers had PCIe AHCI drives too

example: Samsung SM951

Where did I wrote that there aren't PCIe SSDs that are AHCI? If you see on the SSD guide, I even wrote that the Kingston M.2 SSD is AHCI instead of NVMe

[zMeul]

3 minutes ago, Murilo_A said:

Where did I wrote that there aren't PCIe SSDs that are AHCI?

it has nothing to do with that; I added info that people might be interested in knowing

 

what I clarified: you said m.2 is only PCIe - that's wrong

and I see you edited the OP

Edited January 4, 2017 by zMeul

[Murilo_A]

1 minute ago, zMeul said:

it has nothing to do with that; I added info that people might be interested in knowing

 

what I clarified: you said m.2 is only PCIe - that's wrong

I know it's wrong, I just forgot it can be used as SATA

[Murilo_A]

@zMeul

I was thinking about what you talked about fragmentation

 

Fragmentation is when you have a file that it's on different parts of the disk, instead of being in a single and sequential place, making it slower for the drive to read, right?

 

Because if it's right, then the concept about fragmentation on the whole internet is wrong, because most people say that it's when you have a file on the slow part of the disk, and that's why it's widely said SSDs don't get fragmented because they don't have moving parts

[zMeul]

4 minutes ago, Murilo_A said:

@zMeul

I was thinking about what you talked about fragmentation

 

Fragmentation is when you have a file that it's on different parts of the disk, instead of being in a single and sequential place, making it slower for the drive to read, right?

 

Because if it's right, then the concept about fragmentation on the whole internet is wrong, because most people say that it's when you have a file on the slow part of the disk, and that's why it's widely said SSDs don't get fragmented because they don't have moving parts

for mechanical drives, the defragmentation is both a number of fragments the file(s) are stored on the disk and the physical location where those fragments are

yes, on a HDD, data that is stored on the outer diameter of the platter is generally faster to access than the data stored on the inner of the platter

 

 

but that's not the whole story

when files are stored they are stored in a partition table and that table knows where each chunk (fragment) of each file is

for the OS to read a file it needs to issue as many I/O requests as there are chunks - each I/O requests has it's own time to complete

yes, SSDs can sustain a large number of IOPS (Input Output operations per second), but that does not make them immune

[Murilo_A]

3 minutes ago, zMeul said:

for mechanical drives, the defragmentation is both a number of fragments the file(s) are stored on the disk and the physical location where those fragments are

yes, on a HDD, data that is stored on the outer diameter of the platter is generally faster to access than the data stored on the inner of the platter

 

 

but that's not the whole story

when files are stored they are stored in a partition table and that table knows where each chunk (fragment) of each file is

for the OS to read a file it needs to issue as many I/O requests as there are chunks - each I/O requests has it's own time to complete

yes, SSDs can sustain a large number of IOPS (Input Output operations per second), but that does not make them immune

Do you suggest any other thing I can put in the "Defragmenting your SSD will kill it" and "Disable defragmentation (Windows 7 Only)" (or should I just delete the Disable defragmentation (Windows 7 Only))?

[zMeul]

7 minutes ago, Murilo_A said:

Do you suggest any other thing I can put in the "Defragmenting your SSD will kill it" and "Disable defragmentation (Windows 7 Only)" (or should I just delete the Disable defragmentation (Windows 7 Only))?

there's no generic rule anyone agrees on, but not defragmenting the SSD is not a great idea

 

anyways, disabling W7 task scheduled defragmentation is a good idea since you don't wanna have a defragmentation started when you're smack right in the middle of a game or doing your work

 

I'd say this:

• do a CCleaner and clean all temp files and browser's temp files
• check with Defraggler how much the drive is fragmented - if it's around 30% you should consider a full defrag

I do this ~3 month intervals but don't always defrag

it's also good to check when Windows does it's updates, especially W10 and it's cumulative updates - those things fuck up the file system

[Murilo_A]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

there's no generic rule anyone agrees on, but not defragmenting the SSD is not a great idea

 

anyways, disabling W7 task scheduled defragmentation is a good idea since you don't wanna have a defragmentation started when you're smack right in the middle of a game or doing your work

 

I'd say this:

• do a CCleaner and clean all temp files and browser's temp files
• check with Defraggler how much the drive is fragmented - if it's around 30% you should consider a full defrag

I do this ~3 month intervals but don't always defrag

it's also good to check when Windows does it's updates, especially W10 and it's cumulative updates - those things fuck up the file system

Done, I took a lot to edit because I was solving other problems