Lateralus
More [H]uman than Human
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2004
- Messages
- 18,515
I've seen several methods mentioned for minimizing performance degradation and/or restoring performance on an SSD. Until recently, I was under the impression that performance degradation would be minimized via TRIM/GC and that you could just use the drive like any other...and maybe run the Intel Toolbox (or wiper utility for OCZ drives, etc.) to do a manual cleanup every once in a while. Yet reading various SSD discussions uncovers additional suggestions. Some people use a utility like HDD Erase to perform a secure erase and restore performance to a drive that's in a significantly degraded state. Other people choose to simply fill the remaining drive space with a large file and then delete it, or simply use a utility to write 0's to the free space.
Lately, I've seen recommendations to allocate even more empty space on the drive to the spare area than what they already ship with. AnandTech states that Intel ships their drives with 7.5-8% of space beyond the advertised capacity that serves as spare area for the controller, but I am seeing on the forums that 20% is actually the recommended amount to ensure increased performance and longevity. I read that having TRIM reduces the need for a large spare area, yet there are other posts that recommend having the 20% even on drives that support TRIM and even Anand states that dynamic controllers perform better with more free space.
To those of you who have an SSD:
Did you let your partition occupy the maximum amount of disk space or did you under-partition the drive to maximize performance and lifespan? That's something that I've seen recommended recently and to my knowledge it hasn't been standard practice in the SSD threads (that's not to say that there isn't a benefit to doing so, but it doesn't seem like something most SSD owners have been advocating). I thought most people just installed the drive and used its full capacity, but if TRIM isn't enough and performance + longevity will be noticeably improved then I plan to leave 20% of the available space unpartitioned when I install Windows 7 Pro (I'm still on the RC). However, if TRIM and the Toolbox will do the job then obviously I want to utilize the capacity that I paid for.
Just wanted to get some final recommendations on this now so I don't have to worry about it later. A re-install is the perfect time for me to increase the spare area if the consensus is that I'll benefit from doing so.
Lately, I've seen recommendations to allocate even more empty space on the drive to the spare area than what they already ship with. AnandTech states that Intel ships their drives with 7.5-8% of space beyond the advertised capacity that serves as spare area for the controller, but I am seeing on the forums that 20% is actually the recommended amount to ensure increased performance and longevity. I read that having TRIM reduces the need for a large spare area, yet there are other posts that recommend having the 20% even on drives that support TRIM and even Anand states that dynamic controllers perform better with more free space.
To those of you who have an SSD:
Did you let your partition occupy the maximum amount of disk space or did you under-partition the drive to maximize performance and lifespan? That's something that I've seen recommended recently and to my knowledge it hasn't been standard practice in the SSD threads (that's not to say that there isn't a benefit to doing so, but it doesn't seem like something most SSD owners have been advocating). I thought most people just installed the drive and used its full capacity, but if TRIM isn't enough and performance + longevity will be noticeably improved then I plan to leave 20% of the available space unpartitioned when I install Windows 7 Pro (I'm still on the RC). However, if TRIM and the Toolbox will do the job then obviously I want to utilize the capacity that I paid for.
Just wanted to get some final recommendations on this now so I don't have to worry about it later. A re-install is the perfect time for me to increase the spare area if the consensus is that I'll benefit from doing so.