# Condusiv SSDkeeper



## Ahhzz (Jul 29, 2019)

So, after upgrading to a Samsung 860 Evo, I'm looking to eke out every bit of life and speed from the unit. I've read some blurbs both ways on the products like Condusiv's, and wanted to check in with _this_ community, as I trust it a bit more  . Anyone have any personal experience with the software one way or another, or can speak to its usefulness?  Thanks!


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## trparky (Jul 31, 2019)

I wouldn't touch that crap with someone else's ten-foot pole. Snake oil.


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## Ahhzz (Jul 31, 2019)

trparky said:


> I wouldn't touch that crap with someone else's ten-foot pole. Snake oil.


thanks for the response   . That's my thinking, but I've been wrong once or twice before


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## TheMadDutchDude (Jul 31, 2019)

Just run it as normal. It’ll live or it will die.

I have SSDs in the UK that have been up and running 24/7 since 2014 and have had zero issues with them yet.


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## jsfitz54 (Jul 31, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> So, after upgrading to a* Samsung 860 EVO*, I'm looking to eke out every bit of life and speed from the unit. I've read some blurbs both ways on the products like Condusiv's, and wanted to check in with _this_ community, as I trust it a bit more  . Anyone have any personal experience with the software one way or another, or can speak to its usefulness?  Thanks!



Use Magician to update firmware ( now on version *3* ) then set up Over Provision (if wanted) then uninstall.

RVT0*3*B6Q


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## Zareek (Jul 31, 2019)

I set my drives up using Magician. Update to the latest firmware and over-provision. I use it with either the default or what ever space rounds things out to a nice number. For instance on a 1TB drive formatted capacity is like 932GB. I will over-provision the extra 32GB. I have yet to have a Samsung SSD die on me.


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## Ahhzz (Jul 31, 2019)

Thanks for the info. I've already loaded the OS and been running it a bit, but I can image it. Does over-provisioning really benefit gaming?


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## jsfitz54 (Jul 31, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> Thanks for the info. I've already loaded the OS and been running it a bit, but I can image it. Does over-provisioning really benefit gaming?



You can run Magician on the drive OVER the OS and if the drive is not full up you can Over Provision as well, no ill effects for both.  The Over Provision helps insure drive life with extra swap area.  No idea about gaming...never read that anywhere.


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## Wavetrex (Jul 31, 2019)

OP makes writes more consistent (doesn't slow down at much during heavy writing)
Not very useful unless doing something like 4K editing work where Premiere is writing a lot of buffer files as part of it's process.

Other than that, it is pretty useless, don't bother with it.


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## Ahhzz (Jul 31, 2019)

Wavetrex said:


> OP makes writes more consistent (doesn't slow down at much during heavy writing)
> Not very useful unless doing something like 4K editing work where Premiere is writing a lot of buffer files as part of it's process.
> 
> Other than that, it is pretty useless, don't bother with it.


I do some after-processing (Lightroom-type), but mostly light work: mild programming, basic everyday use. Everything else is games . I will go ahead and use magician to update tho, and check out the garbage management. Thanks all


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## trparky (Jul 31, 2019)

I'm going to let an article from Seagate explain over-provisioning...


			SSD Over-Provisioning And Its Benefits | Seagate US


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## EarthDog (Jul 31, 2019)

Someone said to just run it... just run it. 

Writes aren't an issue and haven't been for generations.

Like fitzy said, run the proper software for the drive, update FW if needed and let her rip.


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## trparky (Jul 31, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> Writes aren't an issue and haven't been for generations.


Exactly. Most SSDs today have enough write endurance to be able to far... far outlast the needs of your current build and more than likely even your next build.


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## Ahhzz (Aug 1, 2019)

trparky said:


> Exactly. Most SSDs today have enough write endurance to be able to far... far outlast the needs of your current build and more than likely even your next build.


Well, tbf, I'm hoping to tag a new system next year, and stroke the WD Black NVMe 500 as a system, and relegate the Samsung to a data drive, but, as can be seen by my specs, I tend to build them to last a while, so I'd like to get all the life out of the SSD that I can   thanks for the input


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## trparky (Aug 1, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> Well, tbf, I'm hoping to tag a new system next year, and stroke the WD Black NVMe 500 as a system, and relegate the Samsung to a data drive, but, as can be seen by my specs, I tend to build them to last a while, so I'd like to get all the life out of the SSD that I can  thanks for the input


I bought my Samsung 970 EVO 500 GB SSD in August of last year and I've written 27.1 TBs to the SSD since installation. I've not at all been careful while using said SSD in the sense that I write everything to it, everything from every-day downloads to temporary files. By the end of August 2019 I estimate that I'll have written 28 TBs to the SSD.

So let's take a conservative amount of TBs written per year of 30 TBs and factor in the idea that Samsung quotes a 300 total TBs written endurance that would mean that it would take me roughly *nine to ten years* to kill my SSD's NAND flash memory. We also have to take into account that most endurance ratings for SSDs are quite conservative meaning that most SSDs will survive far more writes than what the manufacturer quotes.


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## EarthDog (Aug 1, 2019)

Heres a good read or two. 






						SSD Lifespan: How Long do SSDs Last | Ontrack Blog
					

Ontrack discusses SSDs, physical faults, malfunctioning controller and storage chips, and hazards of recovering data with data recovery software.




					www.ontrack.com
				











						The SSD Endurance Experiment: They're all dead
					

I never thought this whole tech journalism gig would turn me into a mass murderer. Yet here I am, with the blood of six SSDs on my hands, and that’s...




					techreport.com


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## Ahhzz (Aug 1, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> Heres a good read or two.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh, I don't even want to open the second one lol. That's the one thing that stresses me about an SSD. With a standard drive, I have hopes of being able to baby some of the data back if it crashes, but with these things.... *shudder*


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## trparky (Aug 1, 2019)

And then we have this horror story of a study performed by TechReport. They really threw those SSDs through a torture test!








						The SSD Endurance Experiment: They're all dead
					

I never thought this whole tech journalism gig would turn me into a mass murderer. Yet here I am, with the blood of six SSDs on my hands, and that’s...




					techreport.com
				




And those were SSDs from back in 2015! Endurance ratings for SSDs have gotten even better with the use of 3D-NAND that allowed for stacking more NAND cells onto a chip while not compromising on physical NAND flash cell sizes. There was talk about endurance going down as the cell sizes got smaller in size a couple of years ago but 3D-NAND put that reduction in endurance in reverse really quickly because it allowed for the physical cell sizes to become larger thus able to physically hold more captured electrons and to have the walls between cells become thicker so as to reduce electron leakage.


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## EarthDog (Aug 1, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> Oh, I don't even want to open the second one lol. That's the one thing that stresses me about an SSD. With a standard drive, I have hopes of being able to baby some of the data back if it crashes, but with these things.... *shudder*


There is no excuse for not having a backup plan!




trparky said:


> And then we have this horror story of a study performed by TechReport.


That's one of the links I just posted.


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## Ahhzz (Aug 1, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> There is no excuse for not having a backup plan!
> 
> 
> 
> That's one of the links I just posted.


Oh, I'm backing up my server. The only thing I'd lose on my main PC is some games progress, or depending on time, one or two pictures I would have pulled from another source to work on. I just know that many of the PCs we've been putting in the field the last couple of years have SSD drives, as the speed has a been a solid trade off for our clients from the 1Tb SATA which barely any of them come close to filling. At some point, some of those chickens are coming home to roost, and there'll be a parking lot instead!


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## trparky (Aug 1, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> There is no excuse for not having a backup plan!


Nope, there's no excuse at all when there are several offsite backup services such as Dropbox and OneDrive. Keep the data that you absolutely cannot lose like pictures, important documents (encrypted first, of course), etc. in an offsite backup service. I, myself, recommend Microsoft OneDrive.

I also do nightly and weekly backups using Macrium Reflect. Every Sunday night a full disk image is made of my game and system SSDs, I keep four week's worth of backups for these types of backups. I also do nightly backups of individual files and I keep up to three months of backups.


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## Dinnercore (Aug 1, 2019)

I understand the motivation to improve lifespan and performance of everything in your PC but in the case of SSDs I felt very comfortable to just leave them alone.

I´ll give you an example of my main drive with Win 10 on it. I pretty much do the same things you do, game, some light work, photography (Lightroom too) and the occasional use of Blender.
This is the report after 1 year of typical use (dont mind the german text):






That is 136 days of uptime during that year (averages close to 9 hours per day). It has written 5.2 TB. With a rating of 300 TBW, this drive would in theory last me atleast 50 years.
As for performance there is not much I´m missing, bottlenecks are usually elsewhere in my system / applications.

I did not use any software like magician to set it up or care for OP, I don´t even know if my drive supports that.


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## jsfitz54 (Aug 1, 2019)

Dinnercore said:


> I did not use any software like magician to set it up or care for OP, I don´t even know if my drive supports that.



FYI, the* 860 EVO* only updates with Samsung Magician software.  The utility also allows you to set up Over Provisioning.  It also allows you to do a secure wipe.

See this page: https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/

*note that the 860 EVO is not in the list of Firmware updates.
FYI, also note the the 8*5*0 EVO had 3 hardware revisions internally and only the second firmware is shown in the list.  To get the #3 revision on the 850 EVO you need to use Magician, it is not in the list.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Aug 1, 2019)

jsfitz54 said:


> Use Magician to update firmware ( now on version *3* ) then set up Over Provision (if wanted) then uninstall.
> 
> RVT0*3*B6Q


Uninstall?, no enable rapid mode If you are running with 16GB of memory, it's a cache but it really helps with latency.
I use primocache for accelerating my Hdds with a spare sad too, can't fault it.


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## natr0n (Aug 1, 2019)

I remember back in the day diskeeper from the same company. Talk about overdoing a defragmenter. 

If the ssd app works for you then thats cool.


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## Ahhzz (Aug 1, 2019)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Uninstall?, no enable rapid mode If you are running with 16GB of memory, it's a cache but it really helps with latency.
> I use primocache for accelerating my Hdds with a spare sad too, can't fault it.


I'm running 32, and enabled the rapid mode, seems to run well, not noticing some massive improvement, but if nothing else, the placebo effect might make me feel better about it


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Aug 1, 2019)

Ahhzz said:


> I'm running 32, and enabled the rapid mode, seems to run well, not noticing some massive improvement, but if nothing else, the placebo effect might make me feel better about it


It doesn't do a massive amount, it's just a ram cache for reads but Samsung does work well.
Be mindful not to run two such programs though ,that's why I mentioned primo , it can do similar for all drives in a typical system, and if you like me have an old small sad lying around you can use it just as a cache for the other disks too, teired storage easily.
It's doable with win 10 in Os via command lines too but it's not easy to setup, use or adjust.


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## jsfitz54 (Aug 1, 2019)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Uninstall?,



Uninstall Magician, once your setup is to your own satisfaction.


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## Ahhzz (Aug 2, 2019)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> It doesn't do a massive amount, it's just a ram cache for reads but Samsung does work well.
> Be mindful not to run two such programs though ,that's why I mentioned primo , it can do similar for all drives in a typical system, and if you like me have an old small sad lying around you can use it just as a cache for the other disks too, teired storage easily.
> It's doable with win 10 in Os via command lines too but it's not easy to setup, use or adjust.


Ya know, I do actually have an old 64gb OCZ Agility laying around... It's SATA 3 as well, not sure how fast it runs compared...


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