Simple question: defrag or not defrag?

[jimmyshand]

Thanks for your replies, but I wish I had known all this before I bought an SSD drive just for TS. Does this mean that one day my TS SSD will suddenly just stop?

All the best, Richard.

Yes, it happened to me recently, an SSD drive barely over a year old completely kapoot, died on me taking with it my OS, Microsoft Office one off installation and all my games.

I've now got a new PC and gone back to a traditional hard drive. The load times are noticeably more on a standard drive but other than that, no difference in gaming performance.

I'm sticking with the tried and trusted hard drive from now on. SSD's are not for me, too short a lifespan.

[gptech]

We but really, is there a need to defrag an ssd?

No...fragmentation refers to chunks of data not being in the optimal position on a spinning disc, which means the read process pauses whilst the disc and read head have spun/moved to the correct position. An SSD has no moving parts, and as pointed out by MGD11 they work like RAM so any area of the storage media is randomly accessible --- no waiting for a disc or head to align!

SSDs should be optimised by using the TRIM command, which is natively supported by Win7 and I presume Win8. How often you'd need to do this is debatable, so it'd be worth following the drive maufacturer's recommendations.

[Carinthia]

SSDs should be optimised by using the TRIM command, which is natively supported by Win7 and I presume Win8. How often you'd need to do this is debatable, so it'd be worth following the drive maufacturer's recommendations.

Your operating system, if it supports TRIM, will apply it each time you delete data - you really do not need to worry about how often to "do it".

John

[gptech]

Yes John, but I meant how often you'd do it as an extra maintenance task, just like manually invoking defrag under Win7 when the OS runs it on a schedule.

[Carinthia]

Yes John, but I meant how often you'd do it as an extra maintenance task, just like manually invoking defrag under Win7 when the OS runs it on a schedule.

Never!

As it is done each time a file is deleted there is absolutely no need for any action whatsoever on the part of the user.

John

[ttjph]

Another vote here for MyDefrag on a spinning drive - the Monthly System Drive script seemed to generally improve my system.

On the SSD discussion, since I installed one I've been watching my daily write and it's around 2 GB a day as the Windows and Steam drive (with a small page file on the SSD and a larger one on the secondary HDD) - so the drive (Samsung 840 256GB non-Pro) is likely to outlast the rest of the system based on average durability.

[lenfish]

Thanks for your replies, but I wish I had known all this before I bought an SSD drive just for TS. Does this mean that one day my TS SSD will suddenly just stop?

All the best, Richard.

Yes, it happened to me recently, an SSD drive barely over a year old completely kapoot, died on me taking with it my OS, Microsoft Office one off installation and all my games.

I've now got a new PC and gone back to a traditional hard drive. The load times are noticeably more on a standard drive but other than that, no difference in gaming performance.

I'm sticking with the tried and trusted hard drive from now on. SSD's are not for me, too short a lifespan.

Most cases of SSD failure are due to hardware faults rather than reaching their write capacity. SSD's are relatively new technology and some of the earlier models did seem prone to premature failure. Hardware failure apart, they should last just as long as a traditional HDD. Although having a write limit that will eventually lead to "failure" of an SSD, HDD's, being mechanical devices with components operating at very high speeds will inevitably fail at some stage due to wear and tear.
The big advantage of HDD's of course is the vast amount of storage you get for your money compared with an SSD.

Regards,

Len

[gptech]

SSD's are relatively new technology

Relatively new to the home market, yes, but the technology has it's roots in the '50s though the SSD as we know it came a good while later in the late 90's/early '00s.

To get back to the question of whether to defrag or not, fragmentation certainly became an issue on older, smaller drives running under the FAT system. The advent of larger more efficient drives and operating systems utilising NTFS meant the problem was somewhat diminished. There's no arguing that defraging or optimising how data is stored on a disc brings benefits but it's not something that we now have to do as a 'chore' in order to be able to enjoy using our PCs. If you see a slow down in the system, or hear the drive 'chugging' away as the head flies all over then something needs doing but religiously defragging every month (for example) isn't essential--nothing wrong with letting Windows or your 3rd party tool check the drive regularly though but if you stick with the Windows tool it's probably wise to change the time it runs at, I believe by default it's set to 1am; a time when most PCs are off. You could always analyse the disc yourself at any time and judge whether it *needs* attention; you'll find various amounts of fragmentation cited as the point at which to defrag all over the 'net, ranging from 10% to 25%