# Partition an SSD good or bad?



## puma99dk| (Apr 26, 2016)

I been wondering about if it's good or bad for an SSD to be partitioned.

Currently I am running 2xIntel SSD's 1x240GB and 1x480GB I am currently using the 240gb for system drive and the 480gb for gaming, I was thinking about buying a 1TB Samsung 850 Evo and partition it in two partitions, one with about 231GB (250GB with windows boot parition and all) and than use the rest for gaming.

I am wonder how the ssd over time will handle this if it will do fine in ACHI mode with trim and everything activated running Windows 10 Pro, would I run in to proformance issues or anything that will cause issues with the ssd?

I want to go from 2 to 1 bcs of space and I want to mby in the future add one more internal drive.


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## blobster21 (Apr 26, 2016)

You are overthinking this : SSD are memory chips (not physical rotating disks) so they couldn't care less about partitioning : it has no negative impact on performances .


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## puma99dk| (Apr 26, 2016)

blobster21 said:


> You are overthinking this : SSD are memory chips (not physical rotating disks) so they couldn't care less about partitioning : it has no negative impact on performances .



I know u don't split them physically in half or smth like that 

Just wondering if anyone had some issues with this I seen ppl here on TPU having like only 500gb, 1TB or even 2TB SSD listed as their only disk in System Specs and makes me wonder who uses 1 or 2TB as a whole partition?


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## RCoon (Apr 26, 2016)

I don't personally see the point in partitioning. I remember back ye olde days of having a 2TB HDD and partitioning off 100GB for an OS section so you could more easily format windows without losing data. But this is 2016. I haven't partitioned a computer since setting up an SQL server for work.


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## qubit (Apr 26, 2016)

Yes, feel free to partition. This does no damage to an SSD. It's defragmenting which is bad for it.


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## silentbogo (Apr 26, 2016)

Partitioning an SSD does not make any difference over partitioning a HDD. I'm running a 240GB with 3 partitions (2 for windows[OS and Boot], 1 for Ubuntu[/]), while a 1TB mechanical drive is split in 2 parts for data storage for each OS. 
If you are running only Win10, you can make a symbolic link or a virtual disk for your data files location for more convenient access, but you may encounter problems running programs from linked locations if UAC is enabled.


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## puma99dk| (Apr 26, 2016)

qubit said:


> Yes, feel free to partition. This does no damage to an SSD. It's defragmenting which is bad for it.



Ik about defrag that was the first thing I learned about an ssd, just this topic I was curious about, and ty everyone for the answer ^^

@RCoon it's so I don't need to reinstall steam with games when I do a OS reinstallation


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## P4-630 (Apr 26, 2016)

I have 3 SSD's which are all partioned in 2 partitions, never had any problems.


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## Jetster (Apr 26, 2016)

No reason unless you want to run Linux or some other dual boot system. Drives are so cheap just buy another

I remember the days of only being able to afford one drive. And making like 4 partitions for everythign  from Windows, DATA,  to Linux


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## puma99dk| (Apr 26, 2016)

Jetster said:


> No reason unless you want to run Linux or some other dual boot system. Drives are so cheap just buy another
> 
> I remember the days of only being able to afford one drive. And making like 4 partitions for everythign  from Windows, DATA,  to Linux



well the main problem is my board only has 4 SATA ports and I need one for blu-ray drive, one for a 1TB Enterprise disk i use for data, so one large SSD would be nice here.

my 2x4TB Red are already in Orico USB 3.0 enclosures so I am not worried about that running off my boards USB 3.1 ports to see how they would react.


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## silentbogo (Apr 26, 2016)

puma99dk| said:


> Ik about defrag that was the first thing I learned about an ssd, just this topic I was curious about, and ty everyone for the answer ^^


Defragmentation adds a lot to SSD write cycles, so I suggest not even thinking about it. Unlike HDDs, there is zero performance penalty on fragmented file access on an SSD, while the space penalty is so small - it is pretty much negligible in both cases.


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## Jetster (Apr 26, 2016)

puma99dk| said:


> well the main problem is my board only has 4 SATA ports and I need one for blu-ray drive, one for a 1TB Enterprise disk i use for data, so one large SSD would be nice here.
> 
> my 2x4TB Red are already in Orico USB 3.0 enclosures so I am not worried about that running off my boards USB 3.1 ports to see how they would react.



yea then nothing wrong with that idea


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## RejZoR (Apr 26, 2016)

When you make partition, you don't actually limit SSD controller from spreading data beyond seemingly strict boundary.

When you partition HDD, those partitions are actually physically restricted on disk platters. In case of SSD, you see it as a partition, OS sees it as a partition, but SSD controller only sees entire SSD as a single block of cells that it can use and shuffle around to manage wear leveling. It needs to view it this way for efficient garbage collection and TRIMming. Otherwise, SSD would grind same partition over and over and wear it out too quickly compared to other bigger partitions. Same goes for files. On HDD, program could possibly overwrite same physical sectors over and over thousands of times. On SSD, when you overwrite files, they never write to same location. Which is the reason why data recovery from SSD's is incredibly hard. Data is never where it should be based on logic we know from HDD's.


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## Jack1n (Apr 26, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> When you make partition, you don't actually limit SSD controller from spreading data beyond seemingly strict boundary.
> 
> When you partition HDD, those partitions are actually physically restricted on disk platters. In case of SSD, you see it as a partition, OS sees it as a partition, but SSD controller only sees entire SSD as a single block of cells that it can use and shuffle around to manage wear leveling. It needs to view it this way for efficient garbage collection and TRIMming. Otherwise, SSD would grind same partition over and over and wear it out too quickly compared to other bigger partitions. Same goes for files. On HDD, program could possibly overwrite same physical sectors over and over thousands of times. On SSD, when you overwrite files, they never write to same location. Which is the reason why data recovery from SSD's is incredibly hard. Data is never where it should be based on logic we know from HDD's.


I didnt realize an SSD does that, good to know.


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## rtwjunkie (Apr 26, 2016)

puma99dk| said:


> it's so I don't need to reinstall steam with games when I do a OS reinstallation



You're going to have to reinstall Steam over itself no matter what if you change OS, no matter where it's located, either on that SSD or a partition or another HDD.  If you keep the latest executable, it takes 2 minutes.

Figure out how to put Steam and all its games on a Separate HDD (yes, I saw your SATA breakdown).  This way, in addition to a 2 minute reinstall of Steam, all your games will need a maximum of 1 minute each when "reinstalled" to reaffiliate with the registry.  It looks lime you've got an open port.

I say this, because by partitioning the SSD, you are inhibiting its own ability to manage still usable sectors.


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## puma99dk| (Apr 26, 2016)

rtwjunkie said:


> You're going to have to reinstall Steam over itself no matter what if you change OS, no matter where it's located, either on that SSD or a partition or another HDD.  If you keep the latest executable, it takes 2 minutes.
> 
> Figure out how to put Steam and all its games on a Separate HDD (yes, I saw your SATA breakdown).  This way, in addition to a 2 minute reinstall of Steam, all your games will need a maximum of 1 minute each when "reinstalled" to reaffiliate with the registry.  It looks lime you've got an open port.
> 
> I say this, because by partitionong the SSD, you are inhibiting its own ability to manage still usable sectors.



Not really, I been running the steam client fully updated from a partition of my 1TB drive (WD SE WD1002F9YZ) for a long time even reinstalled it and just ran it again so it's possible.


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## rtwjunkie (Apr 26, 2016)

puma99dk| said:


> Not really, I been running the steam client fully updated from a partition of my 1TB drive (WD SE WD1002F9YZ) for a long time even reinstalled it and just ran it again so it's possible.



Which is what I do. Believe it or not, when you do that, you are reinstalling it.


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## puma99dk| (Apr 26, 2016)

rtwjunkie said:


> Which is what I do. Believe it or not, when you do that, you are reinstalling it.



I mean not reinstall it, just run it and it starts, but lol my fingers don't want to type all the words I am thinking about xD


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