# How to "Over-Provision" SSD During/Before Windows Install?



## NinNin (Mar 1, 2016)

Haven't used over-provisioning before or cared about it but I want to set it up this time. Basically, I know for a Evo 850 I can use Samsung Magician and shrink the volume, but I dislike shrinking volumes so is there a better way of setting this up either before or during installing Windows?

Would making a dummy partition that I can delete in disk management later for OP during Windows setup work?


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## W1zzard (Mar 1, 2016)

That's not how OP works. The goal is to have unused capacity at all times, not only during and slightly after Windows installation.

A separate partition that remains empty will work for that, but the partition has to exist forever and can't be filled with data.


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## McSteel (Mar 1, 2016)

It would work, and so would assigning less than 100% of the available disk space to the partition(s) you wish to have on the drive. You do know this is not exactly necessary, right?


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## EarthDog (Mar 1, 2016)

There isn't a purpose to do this while installing windows. 

Once in windows, if you want, you can OP from there.


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## Bill_Bright (Mar 1, 2016)

McSteel said:


> You do know this is not exactly necessary, right?


That was my thought too. I no longer do anything extra with my SSDs  (with Windows 10). I just let Windows manage things and that's just fine as Windows knows how to work with SSDs just fine. I have an 850 Pro as my boot and apps drive and an 850 EVO as my secondary drive and they are working just fine without Samsung Magic - or anything else.


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## W1zzard (Mar 1, 2016)

McSteel said:


> It would work, and so would assigning less than 100% of the available disk space to the partition(s) you wish to have on the drive. You do know this is not exactly necessary, right?


You can of course leave part of the disk unpartitioned, if you prefer that.


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## NinNin (Mar 1, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> You can of course leave part of the disk unpartitioned, if you prefer that.



I don't often install Windows, I remember the partition editor being a bit sucky though when I had to use it, how would you leave unallocated space?


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## McSteel (Mar 2, 2016)

Well, it's rudimentary at best, but you do have a say in how large the partition(s) you create will be. Aside from that, you're able to invoke the command prompt before you get to GUI partitioning part of the install - simply press Shift+F10. From there you can run diskpart.exe and, for example, convert the disk to GPT (as opposed to the default MBR in case of Vista, 7 and 8).

But let me reiterate that manual (additional) overprovisioning is not really needed with modern SSDs and the 850 EVO in particular. See here, for example. Also bear in mind that the SSD can and does remain fully functional even after wear leveling counter falls to 0, as can be seen here.

It's commendable that you'd want to learn about this, but ultimately the knowledge will be purely academic - its practical application is becoming obsolete in a hurry (well except if you're operating a data center).


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## Jetster (Mar 2, 2016)

On a EVO you really don't even need it. On a pro SSD you do but it can be unused (non-partitioned) or free space or a separate partition. So if you "don't like" shrinking volumes then select the correct size to start with

Yes you can use Samsung Magician after in windows install to shrink the volume


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## McSteel (Mar 2, 2016)

Jetster said:


> On a EVO you really don't even need it. On a pro SSD you do but it can be unused (non-partitioned) or free space or a separate partition. So if you "don't like" shrinking volumes then select the correct size to start with
> 
> Yes you can use Samsung Magician after in windows install to shrink the volume



Why would additional over-provisioning be needed on the Pro? That thing has literally 4x the endurance rating of the EVO...


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## Jetster (Mar 2, 2016)

McSteel said:


> Why would additional over-provisioning be needed on the Pro? That thing has literally 4x the endurance rating of the EVO...



Because it does not have the OP build in it like the EVO. They don't know what your using it for. Hence the 512 not 500

"SSDs come in different capacities, such as 120/128GB, 240/256GB, 480/512GB, 960/1024GB, etc. Physically, there is no difference between the correlating capacities, a 120GB SSD technically has 128GB of NAND installed, likewise for the higher capacities. The difference is the overprovisioning that may differ between models. While 128, 256, 512, and 1024GB models include no overprovisioning at all, 120, 240, 480, and 960GB models do."


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## AsRock (Mar 2, 2016)

McSteel said:


> Why would additional over-provisioning be needed on the Pro? That thing has literally 4x the endurance rating of the EVO...



Yeah i cannot see the reason but if you have the space spare why not.

And about the endurance not 100% right about that. here's the facts about that all so depends on size of the drive too and you will see even a evo warranty ( except for the years ) can be the same.

EVO:
Warranty • 120,250 GB : 5 Years Limited Warranty or 75 TBW Limited Warranty (Whichever comes first)
• 500 GB, 1000 GB (1 TB), 2000 GB (2 TB) : 5 Years Limited Warranty or 150 TBW Limited Warranty (Whichever comes first)

Pro:
Warranty 128GB/256GB : 10 Years or 150 TBW, 512GB/1TB/2TB : 10 Years or 300 TBW (Whichever comes first)

Links
http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...SSD/global/html/ssd850evo/specifications.html
http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...SSD/global/html/ssd850pro/specifications.html


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## Jetster (Mar 2, 2016)

Really you only need it if you fill the drive up. Like on the smaller SSDs


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## trog100 (Mar 2, 2016)

Jetster said:


> Really you only need it if you fill the drive up. Like on the smaller SSDs



as a basic rule i never fill mine up.. having said that it does seem like a waste of space and money.. 

trog


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## Bill_Bright (Mar 2, 2016)

Jetster said:


> On a EVO you really don't even need it. On a pro SSD you do
> 
> Because it does not have the OP build in it like the EVO


I think you are confused. I note according to this Samsung white paper, it clearly says Samsung as implemented a "minimum amount of OP" with the [now older] 840 Pro series. For this reason, we don't have to run "mandatory" OP software on the pro series because there already is a minimum set at the factory.


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## McSteel (Mar 2, 2016)

In case of the Pro drives the factory, hardware OP is 7.37%. With the EVO drives, the OP is at 9.95%. This stems from the difference in actual NAND GiB capacity and the nominal available GB capacity. Any additional OP introduced by the user only contributes once the NAND cells from the factory OP are exhausted, which is beyond the warranty period anyway.

Filling up the drive to the brim will reduce write performance because the SSD controller needs to do garbage collection more often.

## EDIT ##



Jetster said:


> Because it does not have the OP build in it like the EVO. They don't know what your using it for. Hence the 512 not 500
> 
> "SSDs come in different capacities, such as 120/128GB, 240/256GB, 480/512GB, 960/1024GB, etc. Physically, there is no difference between the correlating capacities, a 120GB SSD technically has 128GB of NAND installed, likewise for the higher capacities. The difference is the overprovisioning that may differ between models. While 128, 256, 512, and 1024GB models include no overprovisioning at all, 120, 240, 480, and 960GB models do."



Wrong. It's 128, 256, 512 *GB*, and there is 128, 256, 512 *GiB* of NAND. 1 GB = 1.000.000.000 (10^9) bytes; 1 GiB = 1.073.741.824 (2^30) bytes. Divide the two and get 7.37%.



AsRock said:


> Yeah i cannot see the reason but if you have the space spare why not.
> 
> And about the endurance not 100% right about that. here's the facts about that all so depends on size of the drive too and you will see even a evo warranty ( except for the years ) can be the same.
> 
> ...



Warranty is one thing, actual NAND endurance is another completely. The 3D V-NAND in the Pro is of MLC type and is rated for a minimum of 9000 program/erase cycles. The one in the EVO is TLC and rated for a minimum of 2000 p/e cycles. That's about 4.5x more for the Pro. But, with the EVO having more over-provisioning, it comes out to about 4x more. Samsung didn't want to give  the Pro datacenter-level warranty (for various marketing reasons), so they are officially declaring a lower number.


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## qubit (Mar 2, 2016)

@NinNin The native disc partitioner on Windows is indeed primitive and limited in functionality, so just use a good third party utility to manage your partitions. I use Hard Disc Manager from www.paragon-software.com which is excellent.

Also, as the others said, you don't need to do any OP with the SSD as it handles this itself. The Samsung drives are very good quality and have a well optimised algorithm to reduce flash wear and handle replacement of dead cells if necessary so you can completely forget about it.


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## Bill_Bright (Mar 2, 2016)

qubit said:


> The native disc partitioner on Windows is indeed primitive and limited in functionality, so just use a good third party utility to manage your partitions.


While I use and recommend *EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition* (which is "free" to home users for non-commercial use, BTW) because I have for years and am used to it, I would not call the Windows disk partitioner on the newer versions of Windows "primitive" or limited. It is fully capable of resizing, deleting, creating and re-lettering partitions.


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## Toothless (Mar 2, 2016)

Bill_Bright said:


> While I use and recommend *EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition* (which is "free" to home users for non-commercial use, BTW) because I have for years and am used to it, I would not call the Windows disk partitioner on the newer versions of Windows "primitive" or limited. It is fully capable of resizing, deleting, creating and re-lettering partitions.


Goodness while EaseUS is a good tool, it's also so very annoying when they lock so many good features until you pay up.


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## Bill_Bright (Mar 2, 2016)

Like what? The vast majority of users will never need to use any other features than what's included in the free version.

Edition Comparison

If you know of another "free" program that offers more and is just as reliable and safe, I would be interested in checking it out. But I've not seen one.


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## EarthDog (Mar 2, 2016)

These three are pretty big to me...


Convert MBR system disk to GPT, dynamic disk to basic​
Resize dynamic volume​
Migrate OS to SSD/HDD​
Particularly the second one when moving from one size drive to another.... if that is what it means there...


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## McSteel (Mar 2, 2016)

MiniTool Partition Wizard is pretty good


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## Bill_Bright (Mar 2, 2016)

Migrating an OS is not a function of a partition tool. And no, resizing dynamic volumes is not about moving to different drives.

The MiniTool seems nice but as seen here, it does not resize/move dynamic volumes or let you convert types either. It will not even let you merge partitions while the EaseUS product does (so does Windows, IIRC).

So again, for Toothless, please show us another "Free" program that does everything you want.


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## Toothless (Mar 2, 2016)

I used to know of a tool that was free, didn't have any junky bloaty stuff or sketchy downloads, and could migrate so very easily. I know EaseUs has to but I couldn't find the "free" migration tool at the time. 

We're falling off topic again.


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