Are there wear problems from partitioning a SSD?

[Shrek]

What if I make a small partition on a solid-state drive and then write to it a lot, will I cause unbalanced wear? or can the drive compensate?

 

[Ferather]

I don't think you will have much of an issue since by default there is a page file and hibernation file on C:\, so if you install to a SSD it will get all the normal read-writes as usual.
I have had my Samsung 850 evo since 2014-2015, with constant use, and even partition restores, its still performs as if it where new.

The evo is now a secondary storage (M.2 main), where I use a larger external drive for mass storage if needed.




The partition structure allows me to backup-restore.

 

[Shrek]

Yes, but a small OS partition of say 64 GB will get thrashed a lot more than if one gives the OS the whole SSD.

 

[Ferather]

The partition will make the read-writes more isolated to that section of the SSD, however in the same way, if you don't change the files (size) or location, on the drive, page file should use the same section.
I would also expect in some way the page file at a fixed size does not change location on the drive, and therefor all read-writes to it would be the same section on the drive?

If the page file expanded, and there was data at the end of the original file, then it would expand into unused space.

Either way the drive gets the same overall read-writes. Correct me if wrong.

 

[Edwired]

Shouldn't really affect it if there's multi partitions on ssd than leaving one with empty space being unused. If storage is a problem go bigger on a regular hard drive preferable 7200rpm and leave the ssd primary for the operating system

 

[Shrek]

The partition will make the read-writes more isolated to that section of the SSD, however in the same way, if you don't change the files (size) or location, on the drive, page file should use the same section.
I would also expect in some way the page file at a fixed size does not change location on the drive, and therefor all read-writes to it would be the same section on the drive?

That is my point... if I just work on one end of my desk, I'll wear out that section long before the desk would wear out if I were to use the whole area.

 

[Ferather]

If you don't mind me asking what is it you intend to use the partition for? If something like a cache, then yes it will wear out specifically that section of the drive (start to end of the partition).
If you are talking about something like a page file, which has a fixed size (file) and will always read-write to the same part of the drive, no different (start to end of file).

An example: [File1: 400mb][File2: 200mb][Page: 16gb][End of drive] | All page read-writes will go to the drive section populated by the page file.

 

[Shrek]

I don't, but

Looks like my SSD finally died

Looks like after 10 years, my Plextor M5S drive finally gave up the ghost. It started with oddball lockups, which I just kinda shrugged off and rebooted. I haven't had any issues with data loss or anything that I've noticed, but now it refuses to boot into Windows. I've already tried swapping...

www.techpowerup.com

speaks of a 97GB OS partition in a 1TB SSD

So, I got to wondering.

 

[eidairaman1]

What if I make a small partition on a solid-state drive and then write to it a lot, will I cause unbalanced wear? or can the drive compensate?

Trim compensates by writing 1s in the area to make a wall per se.

 

[dnm_TX]

speaks of a 97GB OS partition in a 1TB SSD

I really don't see any point of doing this.If SSD fail,it will fail as a whole,not just half and the other half will be still usable.
@Shrek better look in to some free(or hacked) RAM Drives alternatives so you can reserve part of your memory for temp. files and whatnot and basically reduce the writing on the SSD(you can run your browser there and make script to copy the necessary files back at restart/power off,i know i do ).

P.S. For example. Here is my secondary SSD,barely used for it's age(at least 8+ years old) 1TB written but look at the hours. It's at 97% life.
But if logically thinking here that only extensive writing is killing them then i should be at 100% still:

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Many here have said that they leave part of a drive unallocated for overprovisioning, is that what you had in mind?

 

[Dr. Dro]

No, partitioning will not spend write cycles, and partitioning it does not limit wear to certain area of the SSD due to wear leveling algorithms. Some newer SSD designs are actually single-die, which means that the entire capacity of the drive is on a single NAND chip.

Do not worry about it, modern operating systems beginning with Windows 8 are not only optimized but designed first and foremost to operate with SSDs, and from 7 onwards the operating system has native TRIM support. If you are running a low RAM (4-8 GB) system that will rely on swap file a lot and you are genuinely concerned due to running an extremely low quality SSD, then just move the swap file to an HDD. Do not disable it on a low RAM system, or you will experience out of memory errors all the time, if possible, do not disable it at all, and don't set a small one either, contrary to popular belief, a small page file will not help with write endurance, since data on it will be replaced more frequently with fresh data as the pages exhaust.

Honestly, I am baffled that in 2022 concern over SSD write endurance for regular desktop users is still so common, the source of all of this fear is FUD posted on forums by skeptics in the 2008-2011 time frame when SSDs were still expensive (and paradoxically, at their highest endurance possible due to the lithography and SLC/MLC designs - my 11 year old 160 GB Intel 320 with 180TB of lifetime writes and 97% life left is there to tell the tale). In 99.99% of cases, a single-die QLC "nightmare tier" SSD is going to last over a decade, if not decades on a gaming PC, if one has very high write requirements, they'll know what to buy - MLC drives.

Many here have said that they leave part of a drive unallocated for overprovisioning, is that what you had in mind?

This is not necessary, as overprovisioning does not work that way. There is extra capacity not exposed to the host controller assigned for overprovisioning, just like the spare area on HDDs.

 

[dnm_TX]

Honestly, I am baffled that in 2022 concern over SSD write endurance for regular desktop users

Well...he bought a budget SSD(endurance is....unknown(best description,i guess )) so it's understandable to take some precautions.

 

[Shrek]

Many here have said that they leave part of a drive unallocated for overprovisioning, is that what you had in mind?

I have a 256GB SSD on the way and I intend to run Windows on it and nothing else (the programs will reside on hard drives) so that should leave a lot of breathing space.

Well...he bought a budget SSD(endurance is....unknown(best description,i guess )) so it's understandable to take some precautions.

Indeed.

Trim compensates by writing 1s in the area to make a wall per se.

Can't quite follow you on this one, a wall?


Part of my paranoia comes from a Lenovo laptop I upgraded for my daughter; it had 128GB SSD (Union Memory AV310) and 4GB of RAM so was probably paging a bit; I started messing with the removed drive and in no time at all it was dead. The laptop I moved to a 512GB Western Digital Blue SSD and the RAM to 8GB and it's been running just fine since then.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I have a 256GB SSD on the way and I intend to run Windows on it and nothing else (the programs will reside on hard drives) so that should leave a lot of breathing space.

So you are wondering whether to use a small partition for overprovisioning or a larger one to spread the wear?

 

[eidairaman1]

No, partitioning will not spend write cycles, and partitioning it does not limit wear to certain area of the SSD due to wear leveling algorithms. Some newer SSD designs are actually single-die, which means that the entire capacity of the drive is on a single NAND chip.

Do not worry about it, modern operating systems beginning with Windows 8 are not only optimized but designed first and foremost to operate with SSDs, and from 7 onwards the operating system has native TRIM support. If you are running a low RAM (4-8 GB) system that will rely on swap file a lot and you are genuinely concerned due to running an extremely low quality SSD, then just move the swap file to an HDD. Do not disable it on a low RAM system, or you will experience out of memory errors all the time, if possible, do not disable it at all, and don't set a small one either, contrary to popular belief, a small page file will not help with write endurance, since data on it will be replaced more frequently with fresh data as the pages exhaust.

Honestly, I am baffled that in 2022 concern over SSD write endurance for regular desktop users is still so common, the source of all of this fear is FUD posted on forums by skeptics in the 2008-2011 time frame when SSDs were still expensive (and paradoxically, at their highest endurance possible due to the lithography and SLC/MLC designs - my 11 year old 160 GB Intel 320 with 180TB of lifetime writes and 97% life left is there to tell the tale). In 99.99% of cases, a single-die QLC "nightmare tier" SSD is going to last over a decade, if not decades on a gaming PC, if one has very high write requirements, they'll know what to buy - MLC drives.



This is not necessary, as overprovisioning does not work that way. There is extra capacity not exposed to the host controller assigned for overprovisioning, just like the spare area on HDDs.

7 Definitely was optimized for SSDs

 

[Shrek]

So you are wondering whether to use a small partition for overprovisioning or a larger one to spread the wear?

No, I intend to use a single partition; but
(1) Looks like my SSD finally died | TechPowerUp Forums
made me wonder if what this guy was doing was a good idea.

By running just OS on the SSD I should be fine even if it fails; I'll keep the hard drive bootable so I can be quickly up and running.

At least I didn't go for the $33 1TB SSD on ebay ;-) One even gets to choose the color!

 

[R-T-B]

Trim compensates by writing 1s in the area to make a wall per se.

No, Trim sets empty blocks to the unprogrammed state (this also tells the controller what is not in use). It does not write anything, or build "walls."

Anyways, Trim and block remapping/wear leveling that all SSDs have make this a nonissue.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Well...he bought a budget SSD(endurance is....unknown(best description,i guess )) so it's understandable to take some precautions.

Yes, that still stands, though. My current boot drive is a WD SN350 480GB, its official endurance rating is a meek 60 TBW for the lifetime of the drive.

It didn't use a single bit of spare area yet. I'm not a light user, and I knew what I was getting into, but I'm not worried. It will handily outlive my PC and see use in the one I will build next

Even the crappiest QLC SSDs will do 0.2 DWPD, and on a 500 GB drive that is writing 100 GB a day. Do you write 100 GB every single day to your SSD?

7 Definitely was optimized for SSDs

Windows 7 was aware of SSDs, but at the time it was developed and released, SATA SSDs on AHCI controllers were all that existed, so it was basically TRIM-capable and aware that a drive was of a solid-state type, and that was about it. It was not optimized for nor is it natively compatible with modern PCI Express/NVMe-type SSDs, getting it to work with an NVMe drive requires custom boot drivers and there's no logic to optimize access for higher queue depths than AHCI affords. Windows 8 on the other hand was already designed with this specification in mind, and 8.1 will boot vanilla on one.

I believe there is a hotfix/software update that backports NVMe support on Windows 7, but it was released long after Service Pack 1, so there is no (official) updated installation media. But that doesn't matter, no one should be running Windows 7 anymore.

 

[hat]

I didn't split the drive because I was worried about wearing it out. I split the drive because I don't need anywhere near 1TB for Windows, so I created a small partition for Windows to live in while reserving the remainder as a fast storage partition that won't perish if I have to reinstall Windows. I can just wipe out the Windows partition and start over, while the rest of the data on the other partition is untouched. It has nothing to do with trying to preserve the life of the drive. I expect it to wear evenly just like it would normally, and is designed to do, regardless of what I do with partitioning.

 

[Shrek]

That is what I don't understand, if one limits paging to a small partition, how can the wear be even across the drive?

 

[AusWolf]

Interesting question. It would be nice to know if SSDs provision their unused space through the whole drive, or through individual partitions.

Personally, I prefer several smaller drives to a single large one with several partitions. They're easier to replace if they fail without the need to backup or replace too much data at any one time.

 

[R-T-B]

That is what I don't understand, if one limits paging to a small partition, how can the wear be even?

The controller does all the wear leveling magic. In short what you think is always the same sector, often isn't.

 

[Shrek]

That is why I bring up this madness... to learn.

When fixing my families hardware only the best will do, but when it comes to my own stuff the same rule no longer holds; is that hypocrisy?

 

[hat]

That is what I don't understand, if one limits paging to a small partition, how can the wear be even across the drive?

I could be mistaken in my assumption, but I don't think partitions matter to the wear leveling algorithms. At the level wear leveling works at, it's all just sectors and bytes.