How much free space should I leave on an SSD drive?

Jed Shields · 11 Oct 2011 at 13:07

Hi guys,

how much free space should I leave on an SSD drive? I've got a 120Gb Intel one with around 5Gb free. I've got Win7 Home Premium and my programs installed to this and remapped My Docs etc to my WD 1Tb drive. I'm assuming my pagefile is on the SSD drive and is not part of the 5Gb remaining? (I'm away from my PC at the moment)

Cheers,

Jed.

olivier renault · 11 Oct 2011 at 13:27

5GB / 10GB I would say. AFAIK degrading is not a problem on SSD anymore.

You can check your SSD folder layout and usage using some software like WinDirStats, I think HDTach does this too. You may have a of of junk hanging around.

Predicament · 11 Oct 2011 at 13:50

As little as you'd like. However note that the less space you have available, the less performance you will get out of your drive.

Jed Shields · 11 Oct 2011 at 14:04

Predicament said:
As little as you'd like. However note that the less space you have available, the less performance you will get out of your drive.

This is what I'm trying to establish - how much space should I keep free for maximum performance.

Predicament · 11 Oct 2011 at 14:34

Jed Shields said:
This is what I'm trying to establish - how much space should I keep free for maximum performance.

From my experience, the decrease in performance will be negligible. Unless you are benchmarking, you will likely not see the difference.

Therefore, avoid filling up your SSD with crap just for the sake of it but if do not feel guilty about using all available space.