Aging SSD or other issue?

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  1. Posts : 41
    MS Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
       #1

    Aging SSD or other issue?


    Hey Folks, I have a custom built rig I built in Jan 2012. So it's about 2 years and 9 months old. My primary hard drive is a Crucial M4-CT064M4SSD2 60 gig SSD. I've been running Windows 7 on it. I have two other SATA drives for storage and dual boot Ubuntu on one. (500 gig and a brand new 1 TB I got a few days ago). I keep up to speed on my hardware, patched, updated. I keep my system cleaned from viruses, malware, spyware, you name it. I practice safe computing, yada yada. I know more than the average bear. Well CrystalDiskInfo said my SSD was at 94% health about 2 months ago. Before then I checked it was around 96%. I know SSDs degrade over time with write/reads and I always try to keep my SSD under or at the 75% full mark, never going over. And if I do it's temporarily until I get space elsewhere and now I got the other storage drives so it's not an issue. Well I went to use CrystalDiskInfo again today just to see since I just installed my new 1 TB SATA and my SSD drive is at 80% health. Restarted, cleaned it up, I had a hidden VM on it that was taking space up so I deleted it. Everything to normal standards. Still 80% health. How would/could an SSD drive degrade that fast from around ~94% to 80% health in a matter of 2-3 months? It's only 2y9m old and I only use it for my OS (Windows only). All storage, games, etc are on other drives. And I don't do anything intensive with it. I know it's not a hidden process or virus. Could it be a glitch? Thanks.
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  2. Posts : 3,487
    Win 7 Pro x64/Win 10 Pro x64 dual boot
       #2

    Is your page file on that SSD? That causes an enormous amount of writing to the drive and it could be helping to wear it out early. Has the size of the drive diminished at all? The drive will lock out unusable write cells so a failing drive should show gradually smaller capacity.
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  3. Posts : 41
    MS Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Mellon Head said:
    Is your page file on that SSD? That causes an enormous amount of writing to the drive and it could be helping to wear it out early. Has the size of the drive diminished at all? The drive will lock out unusable write cells so a failing drive should show gradually smaller capacity.
    Yes page file is on the SSD, but I believe I shrunk it a while back when I was tweaking it. (i.e getting rid of hiberfile, etc) No size diminish at all really on the drive. Noticeably slower than when I first got it though.. and like I said I only keep it around 45gig full, leaving an extra 10-15gig empty at all times.
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  4. Posts : 3,487
    Win 7 Pro x64/Win 10 Pro x64 dual boot
       #4

    With an SSD, it's recommended to put the page file on a spinning drive. That minimizes a lot of writes to the SSD.
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  5. Posts : 25,847
    Windows 10 Pro. 64/ version 1709 Windows 7 Pro/64
       #5

    Who recommends page file on the hard drive?

    I'm at a loss why one would do that. SSD's can handle reads and wrights as good as a hard drive if not better.
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  6. Posts : 2,973
    Windows 7 Professional 64bit SP1
       #6

    Quality SSD's can handle petabytes written to it........stop stressin. If you have any software that came with it, you may have the option to run a "Performance Optimization" or something similar, which will "condition" your drive more or less. Other tricks are making sure the TRIM/garbage collector features are given time to do their thing. I'm not real familiar with that drive, but there may be a firmware update for it that can fix some problems. I'd look at the Crucial Forums and see what's up.
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  7. Posts : 26,863
    Windows 11 Pro
       #7

    Much of that type of "optimizations" can be found all over the internet. Most of it was written for 1ST and 2ND generation SSDs that needed that. However the newer gen SSDs don't and can handle more writes that you could give it in years and years, under normal use. I have SSDs older than that and have never moved the page file off of it. They run fine. Sometimes a secure erase and a clean install will do wonders for them. I would suggest you update the firmware on it and consider a secure erase and a clean install. CrystalDiskInfo only reads the SMART info as listed by the SSD itself. Most SSDs don't report a lot of the SMART info, so I really don't know how accurate their readings are or can be.
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  8. Posts : 25,847
    Windows 10 Pro. 64/ version 1709 Windows 7 Pro/64
       #8

    If it was my computer I would put that 60 gb ssd to rest and get one 120 gb or larger. Then do a Clean Install.
    Yes I know you can run Windows on a 60 gb drive. It just makes life a lot easier for you and Windows 7 if there is more room on the SSD.

    Don't worry about the reads and wrights. One doesn't worry about the reads and wrights on a hard drive so why a SSD. Just use the SSD and enjoy them.
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  9. Posts : 41
    MS Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
    Thread Starter
       #9

    Thanks for the replies. I will be checking the Crucial forums to see what is up. As far upgrading the SSD to something higher and newer, I just spent money on a new TB storage SATA and am strapped for cash right now to be upgrading computer parts. I am probably going to be building a new rig come 2015 anyway. So, I am sure another year or less on the drive will be fine. I was just curious as to the extreme drop in health. From 94 to 80 in like 2-3 months. Could be a CrystalDiskInfo issue. Could be the firmware. Who knows?
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  10. Posts : 3,487
    Win 7 Pro x64/Win 10 Pro x64 dual boot
       #10

    Layback Bear said:
    Who recommends page file on the hard drive?

    I'm at a loss why one would do that. SSD's can handle reads and wrights as good as a hard drive if not better.
    I actually read that here somewhere in a tutorial. It was said that the large number of reads and writes can prematurely wear out an SSD.

    If this isn't true, I'll move the page file back to my SSD.

    EDIT: The tutorial I read seems to have "changed" somehow. I don't recall what's bolded below.

    4: Page File. There has been much debate about this. The idea that no one needs a page file is a bunch of crap. I have tried it both ways, moitoring writes and reads, and YES, it IS used even with 8 Gigs of RAM. I left mine at 2 Gigs, but it is just fine at 1 Gig. Writes to the page file are sequential now. Page file is also read at boot time to speed things. Keep it on your SSD where it belongs.
    I got it from here: SSD Tweaks and Optimizations in Windows 7

    All right. I'm wrong. I admit it. Disregard my previous post(s). Moving my page file...
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