Windows 2004 Defragging SSD's

[Lawrence]

Something to look out for if you have a SSD and have updated to Windows 2004

2004 has been Defragging SSD's which is a big no no

Has been doing it to mine so disabled Defragging on "C"drive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHIY6pOJUk

[paulw]

Thanx for the link. My granddaughter is the only one here with an SSD in her laptop. Must go and check what version she is on and action accordingly.

[1101]

Its an issue known about , on insider builds, since Jan 2020
https://borncity.com/win/2020/06/17/...ssds-zu-hufig/

Anyway, yet another reason not to jump on the bandwagon & install major build updates as soon as they come out.
Wait untill they are fully tested in the wild.


Interestingly, a MS developer states that SSD's DO need defrags . And Win10 DOES defrag SSD's by design
Win10 defrags SSD's, once per month . By design .
https://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheRe...ntYourSSD.aspx

[Bryan]

What might be an easier way is ----- Settings/System/Storage/ go to bottom left and select "Optimise Drives" and then select "Turn off".

[Jayess64]

Its an issue known about , on insider builds, since Jan 2020
https://borncity.com/win/2020/06/17/...ssds-zu-hufig/

Anyway, yet another reason not to jump on the bandwagon & install major build updates as soon as they come out.
Wait untill they are fully tested in the wild.


Interestingly, a MS developer states that SSD's DO need defrags . And Win10 DOES defrag SSD's by design
Win10 defrags SSD's, once per month . By design .
https://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheRe...ntYourSSD.aspx

There seems to be some confusion around this issue, and that includes me.

Following the above link takes you to a rather tangled dispute between apparently knowledgeable people about whether or not Win 10 defrags SSDs and whether or not it is a bad thing.
There are things we know and things we think we know, and then there are things we are told by others who think they know but may in fact not know, or at least not know enough. This would appear to be one of those situations, which just leaves the rest of us confused.

The accepted wisdom is that SSDs must not be defragged because this will shorten their life. I find it hard to believe that Windows developers at Microsoft are not familiar with this issue and have built it into Win 10 out of ignorance. My understanding is that hard-disks are defragmented to re-arrange the data they contain so that the read-write heads do not have to jump backwards and forwards when retrieving files. Apparently a similar situation can arise in SSDs, but it cannot be addressed by simply using the same methods used for a hard-disk. So a rather different procedure is used (exactly what, I have no idea) which is described as optimisation. Samsung use this term in their "Samsung Magician" software. If you go into Win 10 Settings/System/Storage you find the same term used, and "optimisation" can be scheduled at regular intervals, or turned off if you prefer. If your system uses a SSD, it is clearly shown as "SSD " in the optimisation settings. There is nothing to suggest that whoever designed this procedure didn't know what they were doing.

All of this makes me ask, what is all the fuss about? I installed my first SSD in 2015, and have installed several since, in blissful ignorance of how Windows managed them, and there have been no problems at any time. Is this another example of pandemic-induced hysteria?

[1101]

Is this another example of pandemic-induced hysteria?

My take after reading the links above is that WINDOWS file system may require occasional defrags , just due to file system limitations .
Those MS reps/staff making some claims didnt have facts to back it up, later had to retract those claims .
The claimed issue now being that Win10 is defragging too often due to a bug ( being flagged for a defrag after every restart ? )


The write limit on SSD's is a huge number that most wont reach anyway any time soon anyway.
https://techreport.com/review/27909/...eyre-all-dead/
What about pagefile or tmp/cache directories on SSD's . They create alot of writes to the SSD . Hardly ever see claims saying that shouldnt be done .

As usual, too much ~internet level~ info out there : info thats not fact checked & just copied from another website .

Ive only had to replace 2 suspect SSD HD's ( both still usable but couldnt be relied on ) , and 1 failed M.2 (lots of read errors) .

[dugimodo]

I'm fairly confident the "don't defrag SSDs" wisdom is well established and for good reason. SSDs have limited write endurance and don't suffer from significant performance issues with fragmented files.
Windows 10 will optimise an SSD every 30 days or so, this is not defragging and is perfectly fine it's running the Trim operation which I believe is more about evening out the write operations on the drive over time.

I think part of the confusion is between optimising and defragging which have separate settings in windows 10. This issue is about the defragging operation not the optimisation one.

[1101]

Do we have any proof that this bug is ACTUALLY defragging SSD's to often.

The claim I saw was that drives are being 'flagged for maintenance' too often . Then making the inference that too many defrags are being run.
Wouldnt the maintenance routine only defrag if defrag is ACTUALLY needed ?

[dugimodo]

I think I got that completely wrong after doing some more reading :0

Just don't go using defrag tools on your SSD and it's probably fine.

The regular optimization windows does on an SSD every 30 days or whatever (my work laptop is set for weekly) includes trim and some defragging apparently and is perfectly fine.
The issue now is people are saying widows is doing it far too often with this new release, I'll wait and see how that pans out and leave it to the experts to sort. If my SSD does a few too many optimisations for a couple weeks it'll be fine, but I don't have this update yet anyway.

[Agent_24]

The other problem with SSDs (and flash memory in general) is that data retention also goes down with write cycles.

Write an SSD once and the data may last for 100 years.

Write data to a drive that's been heavily used, and even though the drive may still work just fine, the data may evaporate after only a few years.