Should my SSD be "optimized"?

Delly10 · 13 Jan 2022

I have an SSD which I installed to replace my laptop's HDD about a month ago. I've been told not to defragment it since that puts unnecessary wear on it. However, I've read that optimizing it is a good thing. So I opened the optimizer in Windows and it shows that my SSD "Needs optimization", and that "it's been 35 days since last ret...." (I don't know what the rest of the last word is meant to be).
Should I go ahead and run the optimizer? When I looked up what optimizing means, I found that it includes defragging, which I'm not supposed to do.

NavyLCDR · 13 Jan 2022

ret is retrim. Yes, you can click on the optimize button and it will run the trim command which will take less than 10 seconds to complete.

Should my SSD be "optimized"?-capture1.jpg

steve108 · 13 Jan 2022

Click on Change settings ....... does it say weekly? If it says weekly (the default), the SSDs should get optimized about once every 30 days while HDDs get optimized weekly.

I allow all my SSDs to be optimized.

Read this:
The real and complete story - Does Windows defragment your SSD? - Scott Hanselman's Blog

and ignore the old bunk on the internet about it being bad for SSDs as SSDs have improved over time.

SoFine409 · 13 Jan 2022

Delly10 said:

I have an SSD which I installed to replace my laptop's HDD about a month ago. I've been told not to defragment it since that puts unnecessary wear on it. However, I've read that optimizing it is a good thing. So I opened the optimizer in Windows and it shows that my SSD "Needs optimization", and that "it's been 35 days since last ret...." (I don't know what the rest of the last word is meant to be).
Should I go ahead and run the optimizer? When I looked up what optimizing means, I found that it includes defragging, which I'm not supposed to do.

All you need to do is tell Windows to schedule optimization by checking the proper box. Windows knows to trim (but not defragment) an SSD every month.

steve108 · 13 Jan 2022

SoFine409 said:

All you need to do is tell Windows to schedule optimization by checking the proper box. Windows knows to trim (but not defragment) an SSD every month.

From the link I posted:
"The short answer is, yes, Windows does sometimes defragment SSDs, yes, it's important to intelligently and appropriately defrag SSDs, and yes, Windows is smart about how it treats your SSD."

Delly10 · 14 Jan 2022

steve108 said:

Click on Change settings ....... does it say weekly? If it says weekly (the default), the SSDs should get optimized about once every 30 days while HDDs get optimized weekly.

I allow all my SSDs to be optimized.

Read this:
The real and complete story - Does Windows defragment your SSD? - Scott Hanselman's Blog

and ignore the old bunk on the internet about it being bad for SSDs as SSDs have improved over time.

There actually is no button that says, "Change settings".

Should my SSD be "optimized"?-screenshot-90-.png

steve108 · 14 Jan 2022

Your optimization is off. Turn it on.

Delly10 · 14 Jan 2022

steve108 said:

Your optimization is off. Turn it on.

Done.
And I ran the optimizer and it took maybe 5 seconds. What did it do? My understanding is that TRIM is to get rid of junk files that I've previously deleted, which is something I haven't done yet. Still figuring out how to go about that.
I also set the schedule for Monthly.

steve108 · 14 Jan 2022

Yeah, it's generally very fast for a SSD. With a HDD, it could take minutes.

There's nothing else for you to do other than delete files you don't need.

The schedule should be set to weekly - reread what I wrote earlier. Weekly translates to monthly for the SSD.

Delly10 · 14 Jan 2022

steve108 said:

Yeah, it's generally very fast for a SSD. With a HDD, it could take minutes.

There's nothing else for you to do other than delete files you don't need.

The schedule should be set to weekly - reread what I wrote earlier. Weekly translates to monthly for the SSD.

Ok, I changed it to weekly. I'm surprised Windows hasn't been configured to recognize when it's on an SSD so that monthly and weekly can be interpreted accurately.
BTW, what if I just left the optimizer schedule turned off and never optimized? What would eventually happen?