Are there wear problems from partitioning a SSD?

[Valantar]

Isn't that why there is overprovisioning?

Are you suggesting one defrags an SSD?

I think what they're referring to is TRIM.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I have a 512GB game SSD. However, I only play 1-3 games at once, so I uninstall and reinstall regularly.

 

[Valantar]

I have a 512GB game SSD. However, I only play 1-3 games at once, so I uninstall and reinstall regularly.

What kind of scale are we talking for the rotation here? <10GB games? 10-50? >50? How long have you had the drive, and what is the total host writes count? More data is always good

 

[lexluthermiester]

Are you suggesting one defrags an SSD?

NO!! Never do that! There is NO reason or purpose whatsoever for ANYONE to defrag an SSD!

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

NO!! Never do that! There is NO reason or purpose whatsoever for ANYONE to defraging an SSD!

To make someone not technical feel better.

It does not damage it in any way, no?

 

[lexluthermiester]

It does not damage it in any way, no?

Are you serious? Yes, it does actually. Because of the way SSD's work and the fact that there is no practical reason or need to defrag, defraging an SSD only causes extra wear on the drive due to all the extra Erase/Write cycles. Defrag is absolute MURDER on an SSD. Do NOT do it...

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Are you serious? Yes, it does actually. Because of the way SSD's work and the fact that there is no practical reason or need to defrag, defraging an SSD only causes extra wear on the drive due to all the extra Erase/Write cycles. Defrag is absolute MURDER on an SSD. Do NOT do it...

Ok, I meant manual defrag. How much does it do to do it once?

 

[Frick]

They are fine for game storage, I just wouldn't use them as OS drive with windows pagefile...

Why not?

 

[lexluthermiester]

Ok, I meant manual defrag. How much does it do to do it once?

Why would you want to? Access times are no different for data on an SSD regardless of the sectors they're stored at. With HDDs, it's important because of the performance variances that exist on the HDD platters. With SSDs it does not matter.

However, to answer your question, you will invoke a LOT of extra erase/write cycles because of how data is shifted around. You will eat up erase/write cycles while gaining no benefit at all.

Why not?

Because QLC durability and performance is lacking in comparison to TLC.

 

[P4-630]

Why not?

Less TBW with shorter warranty.

I personally wouldn't.

3d v-nand (TLC) is better and more reliable for longer term.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

What kind of scale are we talking for the rotation here? <10GB games? 10-50? >50? How long have you had the drive, and what is the total host writes count? More data is always good

Ummm - Let me check on that this evening.

Why would you want to? Access times are no different for data on an SSD regardless of the sectors they're stored at. With HDDs, it's important because of the performance variances that exist on the HDD platters. With SSDs it does not matter.

However, to answer your question, you will invoke a LOT of extra erase/write cycles because of how data is shifted around. You will eat up erase/write cycles while gaining no benefit at all.

Ah - I have done it before to satisfy some people with little computer knowledge. Their computer runs a lot faster if they spend some time watching a progress bar...

 

[lexluthermiester]

Ah - I have done it before to satisfy some people with little computer knowledge. Their computer runs a lot faster if they spend some time watching a progress bar...

For future reference, SSD's gain nothing but extra sector wear from defragmentation. Hard Drives yes, there are serious benefits. Solid State Drives, no.

 

[Frick]

Less TBW with shorter warranty.

I personally wouldn't.

3d v-nand (TLC) is better and more reliable for longer term.

Because QLC durability and performance is lacking in comparison to TLC.

Ok so assume I'll write as much data as I've done so far (which I won't), round it up to 2TB in 5 months, and it's rated for 120TBw. I'll replace it for other reasons long before it dies from overuse, or it dies for other reasons. It was roughly half the price of the closest TLC drive. The vast majority of HDDs have/had a 2 year warranty, and we weren't worried about them, and the same is true for older SSDs. Also, backups is a thing.

The performance bit is true, but people talk about QLC drives like they can die at any point if you even think about putting an OS on them. Sure, other drives are better, but if the price difference is big enough and performance isn't important or if money is an issue QLC drives are just fine.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Ok so assume I'll write as much data as I've done so far (which I won't), round it up to 2TB in 5 months, and it's rated for 120TBw. I'll replace it for other reasons long before it dies from overuse, or it dies for other reasons. It was roughly half the price of the closest TLC drive. The vast majority of HDDs have/had a 2 year warranty, and we weren't worried about them, and the same is true for older SSDs. Also, backups is a thing.

That is only part of the problem, there is the performance penalty. As the drive fills up, write operations slow down as the drive struggles to keep up with the write-cycle process involved with QLC NAND.

My advice is the same now as it was when QLC was new: Do not use it for an OS drive.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

For future reference, SSD's gain nothing but extra sector wear from defragmentation. Hard Drives yes, there are serious benefits. Solid State Drives, no.

PEBKAC is reduced...

 

[Frick]

That is only part of the problem, there is the performance penalty. As the drive fills up, write operations slow down as the drive struggles to keep up with the write-cycle process involved with QLC NAND.

My advice is the same now as it was when QLC was new: Do not use it for an OS drive.

So the ancient wisdom of not going over 90% stands? And it's not like avarage joes (or 99% of users here, THAT WAS HYPERBOLE) does anything that qualifies as write-intensive, unless you all suddenly stores databases on your C drives with many GBs worth of writes every day or constantly run out of RAM.

 

[lexluthermiester]

So the ancient wisdom of not going over 90% stands?

I would say yes. So if you are going to buy QLC, over purchase. If you want a 1TB drive, buy a 2TB drive and partition 90% of it for use. That should ease up the performance constraints. If you want 2TB, buy a 4TB drive, etc, etc.

And it's not like avarage joes (or 99% of users here, THAT WAS HYPERBOLE) does anything that qualifies as write-intensive, unless you all suddenly stores databases on your C drives with many GBs worth of writes every day or constantly run out of RAM.

Fair points. However I know plenty of users who fill up their drives and wonder why performance takes a dive.

 

[Wirko]

In Sata SSD's, things are just depressing.

It's not all that depressing. There's also the Teamgroup CX2 (1 TB, 800 TBW, 65 EUR, largest is 2 TB) and there's some older stuff from 2018: the Silicon Power Ace A55 (1 TB, 500 TBW, 70 EUR, largest is 2 TB) and the Patriot Burst non-Elite (960 GB, 835 TBW, 70 EUR). In fact, when I checked geizhals.eu for cheap high-TBW drives, I found far more SATA than NVMe models.

 

[Wirko]

Because QLC durability and performance is lacking in comparison to TLC.

The worst thing about QLC drives is the common perception that they're worse than everything else out there in every possible way; that they're the end result of the race to the bottom; that all components are of inferior quality because they are cheap; that they will probably fail long before their rated TBW is reached; that they will not fail gracefully and become read-only; that the data will evaporate after a couple weeks without power; and so on.
And I'm not saying the perception is wrong.

Well, torrenting to any low grade SSD is madness, so ... that is what it is. The write amplification on those small blocks of data must be insane.

That seems logical and is probably true, however, I'd very much like to see what the actual write amplification is in this real-world situation. Several tens of gigabytes should be downloaded from torrents and TBW data read out from the drive before and after that. If the client is any smart and doesn't write to disk very often, and if the SSD firmware is any smart and doesn't move the pSLC cache to QLC too often, then the write amplification may even be reasonable (not that I know what's reasonable).

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Ummm - Let me check on that this evening.

Ok, the game drive is an OEM Intel Optane H10, pulled out of an Asus laptop. It has had maybe 150GB written before becoming game drive? 2 Windows Installs and assorted software install.
Click to enlarge.

I have installed the following on this drive.

Steam
Epic Games Store
2K launcher
Amazon Games Launcher
Ubisoft Connect
Gameloop (emulator)

Bioshock Remastered
PUBG
Prey
XCOM 2
Assassin's Creed: Origins + Curse of the Pharaohs DLC
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Crusader Kings 2
Just Die Already
Magic The Gathering Arena
Borderlands 3
Heroes and Generals WW2
Age of Conquest 4
Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

All of those have been deleted except XCOM 2, PUBG, AC: Origins, Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, and Age of Conquest 4. I can't be arsed to figure out how much each game is, but you can if you like.

 

[Valantar]

Ok, the game drive is an OEM Intel Optane H10, pulled out of an Asus laptop. It has had maybe 150GB written before becoming game drive? 2 Windows Installs and assorted software install.
Click to enlarge.

View attachment 257725

I have installed the following on this drive.

Steam
Epic Games Store
2K launcher
Amazon Games Launcher
Ubisoft Connect
Gameloop (emulator)

Bioshock Remastered
PUBG
Prey
XCOM 2
Assassin's Creed: Origins + Curse of the Pharaohs DLC
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Crusader Kings 2
Just Die Already
Magic The Gathering Arena
Borderlands 3
Heroes and Generals WW2
Age of Conquest 4
Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

All of those have been deleted except XCOM 2, PUBG, AC: Origins, Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, and Age of Conquest 4. I can't be arsed to figure out how much each game is, but you can if you like.

Cool, that's interesting. How long has it been in use (including as a laptop drive)?

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Cool, that's interesting. How long has it been in use (including as a laptop drive)?

Crud, meant to mention that. It was pulled out of the Asus when we got it, we had another same model with an existing windows install and a bunch of software already, so we just swapped it when received (it ended badly, but that's another story). IIRC the Laptop may have been refurbished, so not sure how much had been written before. I have had it in use for around 6-8 months, in my Lenovo that is doing temporary gaming duty.

 

[Valantar]

Assuming 6 months, that's 1.5/0.5/0.5= 6 drive writes/year, or pretty much exactly the same as my 2TB drive so far. But also just a rate of ~3TB written/year so far which is a lot less data.

 

[Mussels]

Isn't that why there is overprovisioning?

Are you suggesting one defrags an SSD?

Over provisioning leaves some free space
Because data is spread evenly over the SSD, if you leave 10% of the SSD unpartitioned every single memory chip has 10% free (This is an oversimplification, but its close enough - with proprietary tech and firmwares etc we'll never know for sure)
That helps them out, since they can spread the wear a little more evenly

Windows defrag utility does TRIM on SSD's, so while you dont defrag em - the name and commands still use the word


The worst thing that can happen is an almost full drive will have to spread files over everything - you could write 100MB, but that could require filling and erasing every single flash module. Like how a single 1KB file can take 4KB of space, if you had to split 100MB over the final 500MB of your SSD, you would use a LOT more writes than on an empty drive


(It's the whole layers shenanigans - a drive with 192 layers requires all 192 layers to get wiped and re-written for even 1KB of new data to be written)



As for the defragging of an SSD:
Oh god i hope you were joking


If not... you'll burn out the SSD. Fast.
And ummm... SSD's are fast because when they read, the data comes in from multiple chips at once like in a RAID 0 array - defragging puts them together, which would burn out the drive to slow it down. Why?

 

[Shrek]

As for the defragging of an SSD:
Oh god i hope you were joking


If not... you'll burn out the SSD. Fast.
And ummm... SSD's are fast because when they read, the data comes in from multiple chips at once like in a RAID 0 array - defragging puts them together, which would burn out the drive to slow it down. Why?

My way of politely questioning birdie

Are there wear problems from partitioning a SSD?

6% wear for ~46TB over 7-8 years. ---- In terms of unallocated, I did some research before making my partitions, and I have 140mb unallocated MSR, not sure if that's relevant at all. My original partition layout for the SSD and Windows was the following: GPT 480mb - NTFS, label: Recovery...

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