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SSD & Defrag

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gleneagles
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SSD & Defrag

With a standard HDD defrag can be used to recover unused space but I understand defrag should not be used on SSD, how then do you recover unused space following uninstallation of programs etc or is this something unecessary when using SSD.

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rongtw
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Re: SSD & Defrag

I may be incorrect but if my brain serves me well , you need to have TRIM set on your SSD   it works similar to Defrag  Thumbs_Up

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gleneagles
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Re: SSD & Defrag

@rongtw

Thanks, will check that out tomorrow.

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dvorak
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Re: SSD & Defrag

On a delete of data a Trim command that wipes the space clean, so that when a new data is written the drive doesn't need to wipe any data first. It preserves the speed and life of the disk.

Defragmenting is moving bits of the same file which may be spread across the various areas of the disk into fewer fragments or even a whole.

They are different, SSDs do get a bit fragmented but nothing like HDDs and shouldn't be defragmented by end users.

However, if volume snapshots are enabled Windows will intelligently defrag your SSD about once a month.
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rongtw
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Re: SSD & Defrag

Fix

@gleneagles  have a look here Thumbs_Up

https://www.nextofwindows.com/what-is-trim-and-how-to-check-and-enable-it-on-windows-10

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ReedRichards
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Re: SSD & Defrag

Defragmentation isn't there to recover unused space, its main purpose is to assemble bits of individual files that are spread across the hard disk into one contiguous block (check before and after if you don't believe this).  This makes the file faster to read on an old electro-mechanical hard drive because there isn't a delay whilst the head moves from one part of the disk to another.  There isn't any such delay on an SSD so defragmentation is not necessary and would contribute to the wearing out of the SSD.

As the disk becomes full it becomes important to have large blocks of contiguous free space so new files can be written quickly to the drive instead of having to squeeze them into lots of tiny spaces.  Again this only applies to electro-mechanical drives.

I believe that a lot of file recovery software only works on contiguous files so if something went wrong with an SSD that had never been defragmented then you might find that such software yielded very little success.  

 

    

7up
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Re: SSD & Defrag

What you mean i'm the only one here who actually does defrag flash powered drives?

 

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