Optimizing SSDs is bad?

I've been in the habit of going into the "defragment and optimize drives" menu and noticing that it will say something like "20 days since last run" even though it's scheduled for weekly.. Not sure why.. so I always click "optimize" and do it manually for both "Windows (C: )" and "Recovery Image" (both are SSD). The other two things in the list say "never run" and "needs optimization" but nothing happens when I click optimize. Anyway, I just came upon a blog post that says you're not supposed to optimize SSDs and this shortens their lifespan. So is what I've been doing bad? Should I stop doing this?

Yes.. you don't need to optimize or defrag an SSD. The extra writes that are performed can shorten the life of the SSD.

One link to check out:
defragment - Is it bad to defrag a ssd? Or just pointless? - Super User
Fragging wonderful: The truth about defragging your SSD | PCWorld

Abc123 said:

How much damage have I done? I've probably done this 50 times over the course of the 1 year I've had the laptop.

You should be fine. I would not do it again.

Jeff

Abc123 said:

Also, why is it an automatically scheduled task? This seems ridiculous. Should I turn that off?

if both your drives are SSD's then the optimize Windows is doing is nothing but using the TRIM Command which does NOT Harm your SSD at all, and IS normal. :)
Windows 10 does recognize the difference between a Spinner drive and an SSD drive.

Abc123 said:

Excellent news...thanks

No problem , I also have two SSD's and 1 spinner drive on my Windows 10 Pro. :)