Defrag SSD

RolandJS said:

Thanks, Kado! I learn something new every day :)

Another note on defrgging MR images, or any very large image files similar....... they are intended to be read only, you cannot write to them any more. Since, hopefully, you never have to read them, organizing the blocks of data to be contiguous is fruitless, and just wear and tear on the heads.

Modern HDD or otherwise, depending on the use, defrag is still a function I use.


I have my OS on an NVMe and most everything else is on a HDD. Contiguity of files on that modern HDD is still important to me.

If you care to make the statement, defrag isn't required on a modern HDD that's used specifically for large file storage like backup images, I would be agreeable.


The idea of not using defrag on a HDD could be misleading to those less experienced users unless the statement is qualified. Just my 2 cents.

BTW, I don't defragment my image backup drives either.

Just for info, I have an external SSD, UAS protocol, drive for backup. Because of that protocol it shows up as a Hard Drive under Optimize drives. Running optimise it actually trims the drive. Took a few seconds. So Windows will still correctly trim rather than defrag the drive.

Instead of guessing and/or thrusting Windows to maintain de-fragmentation of mechanical HDDs, use a dedicated program like Disk speedup Disk SpeedUp - Free Defragmenter to Defrag Disk for Best Performance | Glarysoft and you will be able to see fragmentation %
Even during "Bad old times" with Windows 95/98/XP, only over 15-20% fragmentation had any influence on disks performance while HDDs at that time were much slower and therefore more susceptible to slowdowns.
"Modern" HDDs are much faster and have own Firmware/BIOS that's much "smarter" in the way it places data on physical disk surface and also have large cache which can selectively write data on disk further reducing fragmentation beyond what OS does.
Furthermore, OS like Windows sees only logical data distribution which doesn't always coincide with physical placement of data on disk surface. Example: even if Disk Management shows first partition, data in it may be somewhere else on disk surface.
Yet another thing, "modern" HDDs, specially high capacity, have multiple disks and each one has 2 own heads while often even those separate heads may have 2 or more sensors that cover several tracks on disk. That way one large file may be and often is spread among multiple tracks and disks ut in a program and OS it shows as a single, continuous space.
There are even some good things about (apparent) fragmentation. Many programs (including MS Office and even games) that handle large data bases intentionally leave empty space at end of data files to be able to write them in continuity to expand fast without searching for free disk space so if you force continuity it would negate that feature and force disk heads to "trash" around searching for free space to write to.
Solid State Drives are even more different "beast", able to at same time read and write to data cells which are assigned by single controller which all data (while reading and writing) refer to before any action, in practical use that happens instantaneously introducing minimal delays in micro seconds. Difference between logical and physical formatting and data placement is even larger than in HDDs, a cell with certain data that OS or program may see could be entirely somewhere else. Even if a defrag program "thinks" it moved data, controller will still place data where it "wants" to.
Just about only thing that can slow data write is that it may have to erase data cells with data marked as deleted before writing to them if it can't find wholly empty ones. What makes SSDs even faster is that cells (transistors) are placed only few micrometers apart with electricity having to go (at light speed) at most couple of millimeters. Any other possible slowdown when erasing and writing is handled by Garbage collection and Trim command and in most modern SSDs it's handled in firmware during "quiet" times when enough resources are left for the controller. That also happens in micro/milliseconds and is not transparent to users or OS.
Soooo..... defraging an SSD, specially newest ones is illusory, changes nothing.

Almost 4 weeks later, 6 pages and 58 (59) posts and the OP's question has not been answered. If so, I can 't find it. Just saying,........