Solved SSD Defragmentation

[Emoclaw]

I've went through several websites that say you shouldn't defrag your SSD because it's unnecessary, so my question is, why is it unnecessary to defrag an SSD?

 

[TwoCables]

Because the solid state drive's onboard controller needs to keep the data in a fragmented state for the purposes of "wear leveling" (it evenly spreads the fragments out in the cells). So if you run a defragger, the onboard controller is still going to do what it's programmed to do and it will "lie" to the operating system that it actually completed the defragmentation. So, it's a waste of time and a waste of writes because when running a defragger on a solid state drive, the controller will indeed move the fragments around but it is still going to keep them organized in the way that it wants to while completely ignoring the software's actual instructions. In the end, the files will still be "fragmented", but this is only a bad thing for hard drives, not solid state drives.

So other than wasting time and writes, running a defragger on a solid state drive doesn't do anything. The only kind of drive that benefits from defragging is a hard drive due to the way it's physically designed: it's on a circular rotating disc, and so it's best to keep the fragments as organized as possible and as close to the faster part of the disc as possible. For a solid state drive, it's just a bunch of flash memory chips on a circuit board (sometimes DRAM chips), so there's no need or benefit to keeping all of the fragments organized together in one place.

So when hard drives become obsolete, defragging software will also become obsolete.

 

[kbrady1979]

^^This is correct.

An SSD will put data where it wants...a place for everything, and everything in its place.

 

[JimLewandowski]

Because defragmentation is done on hard drives to reduce seek time (head movement).

SSDs don't have head movement.

 

[Emoclaw]

Thank y'all