can one defrag a ssd?

Old Man · 27 Jan 2016 at 15:09

My ssd is showing 65% fragged with Defraggler, so wondering if it's ok to defrag it or not. Read some stuff online about it, but still confused..

help

Jamesyboyjim · 27 Jan 2016 at 15:19

do not defrag an ssd. Its just unnecessary writes to the drive.

Borealis · 27 Jan 2016 at 15:20

You don't need to defrag an SSD. In fact in some cases, it can damage the SSD.

The reason you have to defrag mechanical HDDs is that on a traditional HDD, if the data is spread out on the disk, the disk read/write head has to physically move to read each fagment. By defragging, you move related sector near to each other.

Old Man · 27 Jan 2016 at 15:25

Jacksonn · 28 Jan 2016 at 10:50

Been told never ever, under and circumstances defrag an SSD. Got told this after I did it.. Wooops.

theMilitant · 28 Jan 2016 at 20:52

SSDs do not read data sequentially in the same way as a mechanical HDD, so defragging will not speed them up. Because SSDs use flash memory though, which can only be read from and written to a finite number of times, defragging will actually reduce their life.

ED209 · 28 Jan 2016 at 23:10

what OS are you running?

windows 7 by default will try and defrag a SSD so I always disabled this when I was using windows 7, Windows 10 and think 8.1 can detect SSDs and just runs trim on it

Liquid_Entity · 28 Jan 2016 at 23:18

Someone posted this on ocuk ages ago. I read it well.

http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/solid-state-drive-ssd-tweaks-for-windows-7/552.html

KIA · 29 Jan 2016 at 18:16

Liquid_Entity said:
Someone posted this on ocuk ages ago. I read it well.

http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/solid-state-drive-ssd-tweaks-for-windows-7/552.html

Out of date, and lots can be ignored.

The stuff worth doing:

SATA Controller set to AHCI Mode
Verify TRIM is Enabled
Cap page file size if it eats too much space
Disable Hibernation

Optional:

Disable System Restore