SSD and housekeeping?

Draeger · 4 Dec 2010 at 14:52

New to SSD's and I just wondered what the best way to keep then running at peak performance was?. I take it that it is still ok to do the usual "housekeeping" on them that you would normally carry out on a mechanical SATA/IDE drive such as Disk Cleanup etc?. Is defragmenting a "no-no"?.

Ta.

gareth170 · 4 Dec 2010 at 15:02

yeah don't defragment, don't benchmark the drive to much. run Disk Cleanup , log off when your not using your pc so the drive can do it's thing.

Draeger · 4 Dec 2010 at 15:13

Thanks. Kinda thought defragging was a bad idea.

gareth170 said:
log off when your not using your pc so the drive can do it's thing.

Could you explain that a bit more?. I think I read something about that somewhere else. I usually switch my PC on in the morning and it gets left running until I do a full shutdown at night. I have it set to "Always on" so it never sleeps etc. Should I be "logging off" rather than shutting down fully?.

Zarf · 4 Dec 2010 at 15:18

Draeger said:
Thanks. Kinda thought defragging was a bad idea.

Could you explain that a bit more?. I think I read something about that somewhere else. I usually switch my PC on in the morning and it gets left running until I do a full shutdown at night. I have it set to "Always on" so it never sleeps etc. Should I be "logging off" rather than shutting down fully?.

Logging off but leaving the PC on lets the Drive idle, When the drives are idle they can run their internal "Garbage Collection" routines to ensure performance doesn't degrade.
If you're running Windows 7 with TRIM this is a bit redundant, as TRIM takes care of the housekeeping automatically whilst you are using the drive.

Draeger · 4 Dec 2010 at 15:20

Thanks Zarf. Yes - I'm running W7 Home Premium 64bit with TRIM. I had no idea the drive did that on its own. So they run these "Garbage Collection" routines automatically?.

Broken Hope · 4 Dec 2010 at 15:27

Zarf said:
If you're running Windows 7 with TRIM this is a bit redundant, as TRIM takes care of the housekeeping automatically whilst you are using the drive.

Unless you're running a Sandforce drive.

With my Intel I don't treat it any differently to any other hard drive and performance is still just as good as when I got it.

Draeger · 4 Dec 2010 at 16:08

It's an OCZ Vertex 2E 60Gb, so yeah - it's a Sandforce.

GeezerButler · 4 Dec 2010 at 16:44

With my Intel I just use it as normal. Only things special are not defragmenting and I run the Intel SSD Optimizer once a week.

roger_37 · 4 Dec 2010 at 16:51

GeezerButler said:
With my Intel I just use it as normal. Only things special are not defragmenting and I run the Intel SSD Optimizer once a week.

+1 works a treat.

Draeger · 4 Dec 2010 at 16:57

Is there an OCZ optimizer available?. What does the Intel one do?.

mikeo · 4 Dec 2010 at 17:03

To quote the OCZ SSD FAQ:

Q. Do I need to Tweak my OCZ SSD?
A. No.

mikeo · 4 Dec 2010 at 17:14

Draeger said:
Thanks Zarf. Yes - I'm running W7 Home Premium 64bit with TRIM. I had no idea the drive did that on its own. So they run these "Garbage Collection" routines automatically?.

Should point out that the OCZ Vertex 2 SSD's dot not have "garbage collection" as such. Another quote from the OCZ forum:

"There is no idle time GC similar to Indilinx or Samsung controllers but the Sandforce controller has real time wear levelling ..." ... all part and parcel of the Duraclass technology in these drives I suspect.

Mind you, Duraclass does do "recycling" which then in another breath they call "garbage collection". But I think the point is, that this is just part and parcel of the Duraclass technology in these drives and not a seperate feature like in the older Indilinx drives. Clear as mud!!!

Though I have seen this comment about leaving your PC switched on but not logged on before. I'm not convinced this is necessary for Sandforce based SSD's. Think I've even seen it mentioned in the OCZ forums as well.

I think the bottom line is... just use it like any other drive and don't worry about having to do anything special to keep it running AOK.

Draeger · 4 Dec 2010 at 17:38

Ok guys, cheers. That's cleared a lot up for me, appreciate everyones help.

Freddie589 · 4 Dec 2010 at 17:43

why not defrag them?

NeoVo · 4 Dec 2010 at 17:47

Freddie589 said:
why not defrag them?

Data on the drive is stored on flash memory, not sectors like on a mechanical disk.

Affectively its wasted read/write cycles which decrease the life span.

Broken Hope · 4 Dec 2010 at 18:55

NeoVo said:
Data on the drive is stored on flash memory, not sectors like on a mechanical disk.

Affectively its wasted read/write cycles which decrease the life span.

More importantly the data on the drive isn't where the OS thinks it is, the controller basically lies to the OS, since the controller needs to wear level, meaning it has to put data all over the drive. Defragmenting is useless because the data won't be put into contiguous blocks anyway.

Broken Hope · 4 Dec 2010 at 18:55

Draeger said:
Is there an OCZ optimizer available?. What does the Intel one do?.

The Intel one just provides TRIM for OS's that aren't capable, there's no reason to run it on Windows 7 at all.

Duke · 4 Dec 2010 at 18:57

Tony Trim helped to get some performance back on mine after 6-9 months use.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...-A-simple-guide-for-speeding-up-EOL-OCZ-SSD-s.

MikeHunt79 · 4 Dec 2010 at 18:58

I find a browser can leave lots of unneeded files around.

I now use a script which wipes my history and cache files whenever I close Iron...

Duke · 4 Dec 2010 at 19:55

MikeHunt79 said:
I find a browser can leave lots of unneeded files around.

I now use a script which wipes my history and cache files whenever I close Iron...

I just get Firefox to use the system memory for cache