Need help for enabling over provisioning on my 840 EVO SSD

Hello,

I cannot enable the OP with Magician 4.3 because I don't have any unallocated partitions on my disk. Actually my current SSD partitioning is the result of the cloning of my original Dell HDD so I unfortunately did not have the possilibilty to leave an unallocated partition at the end of the disk.

Magician doesn't manage to create the OP partition because of that but the problem is that even if I divide my C: OS partition into 2 partitions (actually add an unallocated partition at the end of it), it won't still work because it is not placed at the END of the partition list. ("access to the last volume impossible"). So I suppose the key would be to be able to move this unallocated partition to the end of the list but how??

Here is what my disk partitioning look like:

your help is highly appreciated!

 

Doesn't matter where you leave the un-partitioned capacity - as long as you leave it.

 

Seriously, how many partitions do you have?
6?

Why? Insane

 

Manually shrinking the OS is going to be the best option here. The only other way is reimaging (considered generally unappealing for most people) or using an advanced partitioning method (still unappealing) for the reason of complexities. Pretty sure here also that you're correct: Magician doesn't provide the ability to shrink partitions sandwiched between others as the image shows that predicament (that is a safety).

It looks like you're on a UEFI/GPT setup: Partition 1: Recovery System; P2: OEM; P3: UEFI System; P4: OS; P5: Unknown; P6: Recovery Image.

At any rate, P5 would yield nothing even if it could be expendable. P6, the recovery image shouldn't be messed with if you want the ability to restore the computer to factory defaults.

All in all, consider reimaging in the future when it is convenient, shrink the OS until then.

 

I confirm this will not work: the unallocated partition has to be at the end, I tried and it couldn't create the OP.

 

Hi RCB,

Thanks for the detailed answer.
As for the "manually shrinking the OS option": when doing so I end up with an unallocated partition between P4 and P5, which could be nice, but this is not working with Magician because it is not located at the end of the partitions list. Looks like I'm stuck here; is there a way to "move it"?

@cloudfire: I know this looks messy but Dell laptops ship with this partition layout!! Also RCB seems to indicate this looks typical for UEFI/GPT setup?

 

Right click "Computer" select "Manage". In Storage, Disk Management, select the OS partition, right click then select Shrink volume.

Magician won't allow you to shrink inside partitions - never has.

Some folks around here like programs called Parted Magic, or G-Parted - I haven't used so hopefully someone else could recommend one over the other.

Essentially if you could remove, i.e., "backup" those partitions, shrink the OS then restore them, maybe something like this can work - I haven't tried. You'll at least need to get the OS to shrink to the desired amount anyway. I'd recommend doing the OS shrink then doing a create System Image backup before attempting any partition manipulation.

 

well none of all this sounds straighforward...I can't really understrand why an available unallocated partition not located at the end does not allow Magician to be able to create the OP partition.
I guess I will leave it as is without the Magician's OP feature, keeping at all time at least 30% free space. Do you think I shoud still create the unallocated partition between P4 and P5 or would that have the same effect as just having free space within the C partition?

 

Read the SSD Thread starting with my posts for a couple of pages (I reply multiple times) as to why free space is not the same thing as 'unallocated' capacity (you need both).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...hread-benchmarks-brands-news-advice-1064.html


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...707276-unallocated-space-ssd.html#post9068560


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/619685-ssd-provisioning.html


The last link also has a couple of pages worth of reading you might find useful.


I recommend you don't have Magician running - I only install it when I need to upgrade the firmware (and un-install it afterwards right away).


And yes; definitely create an 'unallocated' partition on your drive (30% of total drive capacity recommended) - the benefits are real.


Take care.

 

It's not an OP partition, it is unallocated/unpartitioned/raw space. SSD controllers immediately recognize this space as available for use by them. Magician software doesn't do anything magical but adds a lot of convenience (except for maybe enabling RAPID can only be done by Magician, the rest can be done manually).

As it is I can't even use Magician because I have an OEM drive in my computer which makes it sketch out and crash.

Things are generally a lot better when a clean reimage is done and recovery images aren't present. Since the original drive was cloned and removed then you don't need that feature so why not just delete that, and if you're concerned about P5, call and ask Dell what that one is for and if it isn't critical then delete it too; then the OS could be shrunk and all will be good.

 

thanks to all of you for all the good stuff!