Looking after an SSD drive

[trendy]

Hi,As some of you know over the past 10 days I had help from here with changing my old sata drive to a SSD drive.
Now what I wish to know how to look after this SSD I know that it must not be defraged,What about other functions ie:disc cleanup scannow etc.Should they not to be used on it??.After a good job done with help from WHS I don't want to make a mess of things.
Thanks.
David.

 

[Ranger4]

I use Disc Clean up on my SSD. Not everyday of course but perhaps once a week.
Generally treat your SSD the same as a HDD & you should not have any problems. I see you are aware of not using Defrag, which is a no non with SSD's.

 

[trendy]

Thanks,Just a question regarding the defrag,Which would be the best way to turn it off?
Thanks,.

 

[dsperber]

Two steps:

(1) disable the defrag service:

(2) disable the scheduled weekly defrag (I suppose you could also delete it, but disabling is acceptable):

 

[trendy]

Thanks Followed your screen shots and all done.

Thank You.David.

 

[AddRAM]

Keep it as clean as possible, and keep it as empty as possible

 

[DavidE]

When I transferred a W7 OS from a HD to an SSD, it automatically turned off defrag for the SSD.
All my HD partitions still get defrag'd with the default W7 scheduled defrag ...

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Trendy:

Did you confirm that your SSD alignment is correct?

Have you done at least one benchmark test with a recognized benchmark program? This will confirm it's running at proper speed and is properly aligned.

Here's a good one:

Download AS SSD Benchmark - MajorGeeks

The attached screen shot is a sample of what it shows you. Note that the "1024 K - OK" indicates proper alignment.

Does your particular SSD manufacturer offer any "toolbox"or programs designed to check that it is in good order? You should find info on that with the documentation you received with the drive or at the manufacturer's web site.

Try to keep it under say 80 or 85 percent of capacity.

Other than that it's pretty much like any regular hard drive--periodic anti-virus scans, anti-malware scans, disk cleanup.

 

[trendy]

Well thanks for the info.
Benchmark Here....

Does that look okay??

 

[Computer0304]

You could use SSD life to monitor the life of your SSD.

 

[dsperber]

I'm confused.

Did the performance of my 512GB Samsung 840 Pro actually get measured correctly, or did it exceed the expected value range of the test?

I suspect the "4K Read" number wrapped around the maximum number of digits allowed in the answer, as 25MB/s is obviously incorrect given the super-high values of everything else. So the whole READ-side set of numbers is probably missing 1000.

Or what??

(Lenovo W530 laptop, i7-3740QM, 8GB PC3-12800 memory, Samsung Magician running with just under 10% over-provisioning and "rapid mode" enabled)

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Well thanks for the info.



Does that look okay??

Looks OK to me Trendy. Alignment OK. It's the access time that makes SSDs respond so much better than regular drives.

 

[trendy]

Sorry to follow you input??computer0304

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Sorry to follow you input??computer0304

He was referring you to a program called SSD Life. There's a free version and a paid version. It makes an estimate of remaining life based on how much has been written to the drive. I have the free version on my PC and below is a screen shot, but I don't pay much attention to it. If your drive fails, it's not likely to be because of the amount you've written to it. With reasonable luck, it will last many years.

It says mine is supposedly good till 2282. It's 3 years old now, so 99% life remaining. But that's not very useful. It doesn't tell me when the drive might fail for other or unknown reasons.

 

[andjayik]

Just search google for ssd tweaks and there are a bunch of settings u can change to get full potential of ur drive.

 

[whs]

Best is to do nothing. You stopped the defrag and that is really all you need to do. Leave appr. 10 to 15% free space on the SSD so that the Garbage Collection can do it's job.

If you don't use hibernation, get rid of the hiberfile. That saves some space on the SSD. The command is:

powercfg -h off

And don't run those stupid performance programs. The nums mean nothing.

 

[Jambe]

Oh, I wish I hadn't seen this! I'm assuming the lower the Score: the better.

I'm especially troubled by the "103,424 K - OK". Does that say the SSD was not set up properly?

It seems to have been working just fine for over 2 1/2 years.

 

[whs]

Your SSD is fine. Don't worry. The alignment space is a bit large. But that is OK. It's only peanuts.

 

[dsperber]

I'm assuming the lower the Score: the better.

I'm not an expert on AS SSD, but I believe the HIGHER the score the better. Somebody please confirm or deny my hunch.

Which brings me back to my own 512GB Samsung 840 Pro results (which nobody's commented on), which appear to be EXTRAORDINARILY HIGH compared to others!

Are these numbers reasonable? VERY good (as I suspect), or just the opposite (please don't tell me this)?

High performance is also confirmed by HD Tune, so I guess the above AS SSD results must be correct.

The drive is on a SATA-III controller in the W530 laptop, replacing the original spinner. Brand new fresh from-scratch Win7 reinstall, producing 100MB "system reserved".

 

[Computer0304]

You mean the MBs right? Then yes, the higher the better. If talking about milliseconds, lower is better. Same for HDDs.