Am i having a faulty SSD ?

i have been using SSD as my system drive for some months, for the first time. I find that every time the available space drops to approx. 2GB or less, the whole system would be very lagged, everything becomes very lagged including opening a folder or file,

However, when I was using spinning hard drive as my system drive. It doesn't seem to be lagged at all even with only 1 MB of
available space.

only when the available space is more than 2GB the whole system perform nicely.

Is it normal with known reasons?

 

SSDs need a substantial amount of free space for effective garbage collection. HDDs can delete and re-use small blocks of data (the consequence is file fragmentation). You really need a lot more than 2GB empty space for it to work properly. One of the forum members recommends leaving 30% of the SSD capacity unpartitioned in order to maintain performance. I make do with 10% but that's 100GB for a 1TB SSD.

John

 

In other words, do you mean it's really normal and common to everybody for their whole system getting lagged and sucks if their SSD drive has very little available space like mine/???

 

Yes, that's exactly what he means. SSDs don't operate the same way spinning hard drives do. Nor do they operate just like memory (which is a common misconception). Follow the link John Ratsey provided (here it is again: http://www.thessdreview.com/daily-n...ion-and-trim-in-ssds-explained-an-ssd-primer/ ) for an explanation on garbage collection and the trim function. That should help you understand why having very little space available is slowing things down.

 

i;ve been using SSD as my system drive for only a couple of months.

in addition to increased smoothness like every one says, what I've observed and experienced is:

sometimes it could get lagged or abnormal, only sometimes, but the kind of lag / abnormality is a bit different from the time with spinning HDD. Like I click on windows "start", or I click on a file to execute it, or click to create a new folder, it does not respond at all. Then I do it again or again then it'll work.
or a windows will pop up, the whole system freezes for a couple of seconds, then it becomes normal again quickly.

It doesn't often happen. But it happens sometimes .. it happens sometimes

Note I don't play any games or doing any 3D calcualtions or any other high-temperature tasks

 

I had the same freezing problem some years ago when I had a 128GB SSD which was almost full. At the time I blamed it on the SSD struggling to read and write at the same time, but subsequent knowledge indicates that it didn't have anough space for efficient garbage collection. The problem is made worse if you don't have lots of RAM so Windows is using the virtual memory (swap file) on the SSD which involves a lot of reading, deleting and writing.

What size SSD do you have?

John

 

128 GB SSD Transcend

btw, does the brand of SSD matter?

 

You need a larger SSD or to move files to another storage location.

 

128GB is too small once Windows has started to bloat. You might be able to do a thorough cleanup and free up 20GB. Run Disk Cleanup and let look through the System files. Windows 10 recently had the anniversary update and saved a lot of old files in case users wanted to roll back. If you haven't had problems then delete the old version(s) of Windows. I wonder how many other people have had the performance of their small SSDs crippled by this update.

Brand is not important these days for the SATA SSDs. I've got a Transcend (512GB) and it's behaved OK.

John

 

Yup, 128GB is pretty much useless as it fills up really easily... I would suggest having a 256 GB SSD as an absolute minimum... Brand wise, sure its not important but I would suggest having a Samsung, Sandisk or Crucial SSD... They are some reliable brands...

 

I got my Transcend 128GB here for approx. USD 40, just a few months ago.

 

You can't complain about the price. However, as already discussed, 128GB is too small for anything other than a lean installation of Windows plus limited software and other files.. Some SSDs also have worse write performance at the lower capacities which adds to the disadvantages.

John

 

240GB is the minimum recomanded for ssd's The ssd guru @tilleroftheearth can give you some more advices and why.

 

First disable hibernate and set page file to a fixed size depending on RAM size. If you've 8Gigs or more, set page file to 512MB or 1024MB. Next use MS defrag tool to optimise the drive, i mean TRIM the drive so that unneeded data are deleted from memory cells and helps in tidying up the SSD thus giving up some boost. Also, IIRC your drive has read speeds of 300-450MB/s and writes of 200-300MB/s is this correct?
Use this guide from Sean as reference http://www.overclock.net/t/1179518/...-information-thread#user_SeansrecommendedSSDs

 

now my SSD is 128 GB and I try to keep 20-30 GB free space.

Almost always, once the free space drops to less than 5GB , the whole system becomes so horribly lagged, NOT even simple work like copy and paste, rename a file can be done smoothly. It's like running a windows 10 on a pentinum old PC

Is it really perfectly normal to experience that?

 

Perfectly normal.

 

Free user-available space on the drive isn't the same as over-provisioned space. Read
"Why over-provision?"
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/why-over-provision.760922/#post-9766709

More info http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/which-ssd-for-my-os-and-games.797667/

 

My concern comes because the SSD was bought and installed by a local notorious computer shop that I didn't know they were notorious

 

So maybe they overcharged you? Everyone has already confirmed this is normal. You need a larger drive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

More likely they were just unaware that that low capacity SSDs can have performance problems once they start to fill up. After all, if manufacturers are happy to ship notebooks with 128GB SSDs then they must be fine.

John

 

And games size have Increased 1 or two games and the "high" capacity 128 GIG ssd is full. And forget to have your OS on same drive

 

Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare Remastered are 140GBs... Goodbye 128GB SSD

 

If I already did the OP of my SSD by about 20% and almost nearing my max storage, will that slow down my computer as well? I still have quite abit of extra storage but just wondering if what will happen if max it out.

 

If you over-provision, then you can fill to available capacity because that 20% of OP will still be available for effective garbage collection. The larger the drive, the less % you really should need to use for over-provisioning. On a 128GB drive 20% isn't a bad idea, and that's only ~25GB. For a 500GB drive you may only need ~10-15% OP, and for 1TB drive 10% is probably more than sufficient unless you do frequent large file size writes or large amounts of smaller file sizes.

 

With regards to SSD's:

You need at least 25% or more (I recommend 33% - no matter how large or small the SSD is...) of the actual available capacity left as 'unallocated'.

You also need at least 25GB to 50GB (depending on your workload/workflows) additional free space on a Windows platform so that the O/S has the room it needs to 'breathe' too.


With ~30% OP and at least 25GB free space on a 'clean installed' Win10x64 setup; you will have the fastest (most responsive) computer possible.

Don't fill up the drive to near 100% whether or not you're OP'ing... the O/S will balk at this... with random errors (depending on the programs you use) and sometimes unexplainable glitches...

If you're only OP'ing in the 20% or lower range; you're leaving quite a bit of 'responsiveness' on the table for a few (mere) GB of 'dead' storage capacity. At 33% OP is where I've found most/all SSD's to peak (sustained performance over time vs. less capacity) - although I use 50% and 70% OP'ing too in my multi-drive SSD DT setups for temp/scratch disk usage for my workloads.

If you can't setup your drive for 33% OP'ing? It is too small.


(All suggestions above assume a minimum/nominal drive size of ~480GB and a more optimal size of 1TB or larger).


Good luck.