Is there any benefit to defragmenting before migrating to an SSD?

Mr Davo · 25 May 2015

Hi Everyone,

I have migrated several mechanical drives across to Solid Solid State Drives. Typically I have cloned the contents of the mechanical drive to the SSD to minimize the work involved in upgrading.

I am wondering if there is any benefit in first defragmenting a mechanical drive before migrating the data on it to an SSD?

Assuming that I was using a Samsung EVO 840 drive and the Samsung Data Migration software would there be a benefit from first defragmenting the mechanical drive before copying over to the SSD?

I am going to guess that theoretically it should make no difference, but on the off chance that it may I am considering defragmenting before migrating in future.

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Davo

ignatzatsonic · 25 May 2015

I've never heard anyone say it made any difference, but I can't prove it doesn't and have never tried to prove it one way or another.

mjf · 25 May 2015

A bit of a guess here:
If you clone then depending on the cloning software you may pick up the fragmented file structure in the clone. Then on an SSD would it really matter - maybe not.
If you transfer via a system image then I wouldn't think fragmentation on the originating HDD would matter when going to an SSD.
Is there an advantage in defragmenting a HDD if you intend to restore to a HDD? I'd be interested in what others have to say on this.

AddRAM · 25 May 2015

Of course there is, your hard drive should always be defragmented anyway, why wouldn`t you defrag it to 0% before cloning or imaging.

mjf · 25 May 2015

The OP is migrating to an SSD which you don't defragment so why defrag the HDD before migration. HDD to HDD may be a different matter but then what would be recommended - Windows defrag which normally runs in the background or third party software like Auslogic Disk Defrag.

Another opinion that seems reasonable:
Should I Defrag My HDD Before Converting to SSD? | Business & Entrepreneurship - azcentral.com
"SSDs don't have to sequentially read data from physical platters like a regular hard drive. Instead, the SSD’s controller can read data from anywhere and everywhere essentially at once. In fact, the controller in your SSD will determine the best place to put data and may even end up fragmenting it intentionally to better balance the use of its memory chips. As such, whether you defragment your hard drive before you transfer its data to the SSD or not won't have any impact on the SSD's performance over time -- it'll just save you a little bit of time in the transfer."

Of course never defrag an SSD but if I look at its "fragmentation" using the software intended for HDDs it shows ~20%. Make sure your SSD is aligned and TRIM on.

Layback Bear · 25 May 2015

If it was my computer I would defrag the hard drive first and then move things to the SSD.
Why start off with a fragmented SSD?