Over-provisioning

I tried to search for this in here, but no results or matches, maybe has been discussed but couldn't find it at least with the same term.

Just wondering if you guys have heard Over-provisioning an SSD, and if you guys do it or did it and what were your results,

Over-provisioning an Intel SSD

 

I do it but with TRIM, it is less of a problem nowadays. IOW, the average free space you have play the same role as OP.

 

I didn't bother. The difference in performance for regular use is negligible. If you want to extend the life of your drive then it's a good idea, but considering I tend to update my machine and/or drives about every two years, it won't matter much. I will probably keep my SSD's but will be put to use in a less stressed machine like a gaming / HTPC machine for my kids.

 

Hmm looks like good gains on that PDF for reducing the 160GB to 144GB and that is not a huge loss of space.

A drive like my 128GB C300 though is already cutting it slim, no room left to do something like this.

 

Vicious, How do you know overprovisioning would have any effect on a C300? I took this to be a feature of the Intel SSDs.

 

OP applies to all SSDs. SF onces had a hard OP @ 17% or so.

 

I have a 160GB Intel G2 thats why I said shrink from 160 to 144 there is no 160gb C300

 

Actually the SF drives even hit 28% OP (as in the Inferno 100GB model I have).

 

OP applies to all SSD's but not necessarily by user manually changing partition size. Intel specifically states this technique works for their drives, where none of the other manufacturers have made that claim.

 

Sorry, I took it to mean you were considering the Intel toolbox on the 128GB C300.

 

All controller manufacturers know that OP is needed for reliability/durability and sustained performance of an SSD.

Today, they are even making 0% OP SSD's - good luck with those.

They will give a new meaning to 'garbage collection' (if used heavily).

 

Sorry, I wasn't clear in my question.

How would one know changing the over provisioning space would be used by an SSD? Wouldn't an SSD's firwmare have something to say about where it goes to in "NAND flash space" to do its work?

My point is that this Intel tool would work with Intel SSDs. However, you may want to stay clear of the Intel tool on a non-Intel SSD unless your SSD's vendor gives the go-ahead (and possibly provides their own tool).

 

+1 for that one!

 

You can't use the Intel tools for SSD manual TRIM and optimizations with a non Intel SSD. It will just report SMART info and such. But Intel RST drivers are a MUST for any SSD.

 

It does, even though not all vendor made that claim. All SSD operate in a pretty similar fashion. They have a logical map that map LBA to addressable NANDs. If you don't use the full LBA space, the unused one would become OP naturely, as they would know those addresses are not used.

Which is also why I said with TRIM, OP is not as important as before. Any free space(either conveyed via TRIM or OP) becomes free buffers that the controller can be used at will such that it can reduce the erase-copy-write(i.e. WA) as much as it can. In fact, if one is willing to set aside 30% OP, it is very unlikely to see performance degrade no matter what SSD it is, TRIM or NO TRIM. IOW, TRIM is not that important(say you must RAID 0) if you give enough OP.

 

Do you really have to do this whole secure erase business?

Couldn't you really just do a regular clean install and once you're in windows, create a 10-15% separate partition, format it the long way, and then back to disk manager to delete the partition and leave it as an unreadable volume?

Can somebody confirm this works to save ppl time?

 

Read the Intel PDF on over-provisioning. Secure Erase is completely different from a regular format. Considering Intel offers tools to Secure Erase and Migrate data from one disk to another, it's pretty painless.

http://cache-www.intel.com/cd/00/00/45/95/459555_459555.pdf

They specifically state:

"Steps to Increase Spare Area

The spare area of an SSD can be modified by a user. It must be performed on an SSD that is in a completely clean state. This can be an SSD that is fresh out of the box that has never been used or by secure erasing the SSD.

To secure erase an Intel SSD, download Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox 2.0 from Redirect Page and follow the steps for performing a secure erase on the SSD. (Industry tools are also available to secure erase an SSD using ATA commands.)"

 

The problem with a regular format, even if you do it the long way, is the wear-leveling nature of SSDs. Since they move data around, even if you format the long way, there's a possibility that the data you were trying to format is actually getting left on NAND cells that are getting "skipped" due to wear leveling, so the drive that you think is empty, actually isn't (although it will eventually get cleaned up by GC at some later date... but that may or may not be before you try to do the overprovisioning).

 

I imagine the CCleaner tool for erasing would work. But you paranoid nutters are making me paranoid too, so I'll just do the secure erase.

 

Just to point things out, "secure erase" is a standard command, like "TRIM". Thus, if the CCleaner tool uses the secure erase command, and the SSD is setup properly, then it will work just fine. Not being familiar enough with CCleaner, I don't know if that's actually the case.

 

No, CCleaner does NOT secure erase. There's no Windows utility that will do it across all manufacturers that I know of, only Linux hdparm command. Intel has their own secure erase utility though, but you will have to install the SSD toolbox on another machine and then secure erase the drive as a non-bootable drive.

 

and may need to hotplug(i.e. after the OS has boot up) as well. ATA SE is both a simple and complicated task. The drive is usually either locked by the BIOS or the OS(if it is the boot drive) during the boot up process. And once it is locked, the only way to unlock it is to cut the power to it.

That is why hotplug is usually needed. There was a nice trick suggested by another poster that by booting up linux then sleep->resume it would unlock the drive and hdparm would 99% of the case work.

 

Yeah good point, hotplug usually required.

 

So, what's the advantage of keeping a spare area on an SSD vs just keeping a similar amount of free space?

edit:
Actually, wait. Chimpanzee's post here covers it: