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    SSD, should we defrag it or not ?

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by Bidule, Aug 18, 2009.

  1. Bidule

    Bidule Notebook Guru

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    Hi guys

    Just want to know if we need to defrag SSD's just like mechanical drives.

    Thanks !
     
    Bidule, Aug 18, 2009
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  2. Tinderbox (UK)

    Tinderbox (UK) BAKED BEAN KING

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    no need as the accesses time is virtually instantaneous , compared to normal hdd`s , also sdd memory cells have a limited number of read/write operations before they die, it`s in the hundreds of thousands of times and they automatically map out bad cells, but running defrag regularly will wear them out that little bit faster.
     
    Tinderbox (UK), Aug 18, 2009
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  3. Dayton

    Dayton Notebook Evangelist

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    I do, noticed I recovered quite a bit of disk space after first doing so. Now I do it pretty regularly with Auslogics Disk Defrag since it is very quick.
     
    Dayton, Aug 18, 2009
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  4. fred2028

    fred2028 Sexy member

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    Defragging SSDs is apparently useless since access time for any bit of memory is the same.
     
    fred2028, Aug 18, 2009
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  5. Dayton

    Dayton Notebook Evangelist

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    I started defragging when I noticed disk space was disappearing and I didn't know where it was going. I had already limited what System Restore was able to take and I keep my system lean and so I don't have a lot of app's installed. I tried a defrag and reclaimed several gig's of disk space.
     
    Dayton, Aug 18, 2009
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  6. iaTa

    iaTa Do Not Feed

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    You can use free space consolidation like HyperFast in Diskeeper 2009. That allows for a greater number of sequential writes and thus can improve speeds when your drive is very fragmented.
     
    iaTa, Aug 18, 2009
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  7. Bidule

    Bidule Notebook Guru

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    I read some articles saying it's not a good idea to defrag SSD's, since the life of the cells will go down DRASTICALLY. FYI, i have the 256 GB that came in my XPS 1640. Is this still true that it will shorten it's life ?
     
    Bidule, Aug 18, 2009
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  8. Sc4Freak

    Sc4Freak Notebook Geek

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    Yes. SSDs have limited write cycles, and defragging is an extremely write-intensive process.

    So in other words, don't defrag your SSD often. Like Dayton said, disk fragmentation can affect SSD drives (due to MFT bloat and the like), but it's nowhere near as much of a problem as it is on mechanical drives.
     
    Sc4Freak, Aug 19, 2009
    #8