Over provisioning/free space on new nvme?

freebooter · 13 Feb 2025 at 14:34

I know it used to be recommended to leave some unformatted space on solid state drives for the drive to spread wear across the drive. Looking now it seems some people are still saying that but also some are saying that the manufacturers set aside some space automatically for drive management and also that unused space in a formatted partition can be used for wear levelling.

Can I just go ahead and format the whole of my new drive and just avoid filling it completely with data?

pepp77 · 13 Feb 2025 at 14:46

Never left any unformatted space on any form off SSD and never had an issue.

chaparral · 15 Feb 2025 at 08:44

Surely if a storage drive is so full it time to get a new bigger storage drive anyway

I always just format the whole drive and avoid filling it completely

freebooter · 15 Feb 2025 at 11:09

Thanks for the replies. I have formatted the whole drive. Reading around it seems advice has changed as drive tech has developed.

freddie64 · 15 Feb 2025 at 12:50

It's bad enough that you lose around 10% of say a 2TB drive when you format it, no way am i giving up another 10% for over-provising.

I did used to when i first started using SSD's but stopped shortly after and never had any problems. (have never fully filled a drive though)