Questions About Optimising SSD

Why would you want/need to defrag an SSD anyway? Wasn't the whole point of defragging a hard drive to make the files continuous to reduce the head having to seek to non-contiguous sectors during reading a file? There is no head in an SSD to be doing the seeking.

whs said:

Here you can read up about Trim and Garbage collection. It is bit more complicated than you thought.

Garbage Collection and TRIM in SSDs Explained - An SSD Primer | The SSD Review

And never defrag an SSD - unless you want to ruin it. Just make sure the SSD is aligned. Then you will be OK.

SSD Alignment - Windows 7 Help Forums

The first article is way too technical for me. Reading thru, I'm thinking the first thing I need to ask is, how do I check whether TRIM is already enabled. I'm wondering if this TRIM is something that might already be in operation on a new windows 10 OS, or is it something I'll likely need to set up?


The second article has introduced a new term into the equation - alignment. It says windows 7 will do it automatically for you, so you don't need to worry and I'm hoping as I'm running an even newer OS (windows 10) that will also be the case. It isn't clear as the article only references older OS's. So the next question is, can I easily check if my drive is aligned, if it was done automatically at some stage?

Also, is alignment something that only needs to be done once, or regularly?


Tbh, even command prompts are out of my comfort zone!

OldMike65 said:

Well you NEVER defrag any SSD for starters. 2nd the only command you can use for any SSD is the TRIM command.
That other drive that shows you "never optimize" is a partition on your c-drive.....which is never optimized. This should answer your questions I hope :)

Ok, that's good. So I'm hearing I don't need to worry about doing anything with regards the partition.

It reminds me, when I was sorting out the recovery disk a while back, reading around, there was some talk about a potential 'partition' that could be deleted once the recovery disk was sorted, if there was a need to free up space. I wasn't sure what the partition was that was being talked about, and thought it might be the recovery disk D being referenced. In hindsight, perhaps it was this particular partition. I won't delete it anyway out of caution.

if you don't mind guys, I'll try to state my remaining two queries more concisely.

Firstly, should I change the 'optimise' setting to manual, rather than the default setting - automatic weekly, so I can be sure the process is being completed. (I'm reluctant to interfere with the standard setting unless it's quite prudent to do so).


Secondly, is it definitely best to be having TRIM going on, as well as optimise (assuming they are separate things). If so, how do I check if it's already enabled, and if it isn't, how do I get to a situation where it's covered, as simply as possible.



Obviously, I'm interested in the best possible longevity and performance of my SSD, but with no discernable technical skills whatsoever!

ouroboros72 said:

The first article is way too technical for me. Reading thru, I'm thinking the first thing I need to ask is, how do I check whether TRIM is already enabled. I'm wondering if this TRIM is something that might already be in operation on a new windows 10 OS, or is it something I'll likely need to set up?


The second article has introduced a new term into the equation - alignment. It says windows 7 will do it automatically for you, so you don't need to worry and I'm hoping as I'm running an even newer OS (windows 10) that will also be the case. It isn't clear as the article only references older OS's. So the next question is, can I easily check if my drive is aligned, if it was done automatically at some stage?

Also, is alignment something that only needs to be done once, or regularly?


Tbh, even command prompts are out of my comfort zone!

Windows will optimize your sdd using the TRIM option, so you are all set. You don't need to worry about any "alignment" its not really needed to do this, I never have and I have 2 computers with 2 different brands of SSD's running my Windows OS. They both run very fast with no problems. I think you will be just fine. Enjoy your NEW SSD, and don't worry so much. :)

I finally took the SSD plunge yesterday. I have an old netbook (Acer Aspire One - like first generation) that my daughter wanted to use for college. It was slow as molasses and the only part not already maxed out was the HDD. Good sale on 120GB SSD at Best Buy, so connected it via USB adapter. Used MiniTool Partition Wizard to copy over HDD partitions to the SSD (resizing the Windows partition).

Permanently installed the SSD in the netbook - no boot. Booted from Macrium Reflect Free USB, ran the fix Windows boot utility. Rebooted just fine into Windows 10 on the SSD. Checked reagentc /info and it was still enabled and pointed to the recovery partition. Ran SFC /SCANNOW and the Dism restorehealth. Neither one found errors.

That's all I did. Didn't mess with any other Windows 10 settings, so I hope it switched over and is doing the proper built-in maintenance.

NavyLCDR said:

I finally took the SSD plunge yesterday. I have an old netbook (Acer Aspire One - like first generation) that my daughter wanted to use for college. It was slow as molasses and the only part not already maxed out was the HDD. Good sale on 120GB SSD at Best Buy, so connected it via USB adapter. Used MiniTool Partition Wizard to copy over HDD partitions to the SSD (resizing the Windows partition).

Permanently installed the SSD in the netbook - no boot. Booted from Macrium Reflect Free USB, ran the fix Windows boot utility. Rebooted just fine into Windows 10 on the SSD. Checked reagentc /info and it was still enabled and pointed to the recovery partition. Ran SFC /SCANNOW and the Dism restorehealth. Neither one found errors.

That's all I did. Didn't mess with any other Windows 10 settings, so I hope it switched over and is doing the proper built-in maintenance.

Why the heck did you wait sooooo long?? lol :) You are gonna love your new found speed!!!

Word Man said:

Hi, ouroboros72.

As long as Windows is correctly identifying the type of disk you have (SSD in your case) in the Optimize Drives GUI, you can optimize at any time by clicking the Optimize button. It will not normally optimize drives such as the "\\?\Volume(047c…. " labeled one you mentioned. That drive would not normally see much write traffic and may not actually need it as much as the GUI leads you to believe . However, it MAY optimize by running "defrag /C /O" from an elevated (admin) command prompt..

Ok, thanks that first part is certainly comforting to know. Re: the 'volume...' drive, it was just really because it is listed as being, 'never run' and says 'needs optimisation' in the current status column that made me wonder if some sort of action was required. Based on what you've said I think I'll just leave it alone.

Note: 1) Neither of these methods will defragment an SSD, whether it be clicking "optimize" or the defrag command as specified. 2) I say the command line MAY optimize that one drive/partition because I've seen it work on mine before but it's not clear to me it will do it for each person's system - it was a try it and see result of my own.:)

For reference see Brink's excellent tutorial here: Optimize and Defrag Drives in Windows 10 , especially "Option Two" regarding the command line method

As I say, I'm not really actually looking to get into defragging the SSD as I think it may be beyond my ken and therefore risky. I will read thru the article though out of interest. Thanks.