Do not defragment your SSD — Agree or Disagree?

[Hmm]

From what I read, we should never do this on an SSD. We should use Windows' TRIM command instead even if your SSD's defragmentation level is 20, 50, 80 or 100%.

Can we have a sticky on this to clarify? 

Thanks

[nukecad]

Advice has changed over the years, because SSD's have changed over the years.

Ask two different people and you'll get three or four different opinions of whether or not to defrag an SSD.
Some opinions still clinging to old advice, some opinions more up to date.

Windows itself will 'inteligently' defrag an SSD about once a month or so - or not.

It's a nuanced question, this from 2014 is a good read about it:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/the-real-and-complete-story-does-windows-defragment-your-ssd

See also:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10-alert-defragger-bug-defrags-ssd-drives-too-often/

 

Quote

Defragging SSD drives too often

The general rule has always been that you should avoid defragging solid-state drives (SSDs) to prevent unnecessary wear and tear.

Microsoft developers, though, have stated in the past that there is some benefit to defragging a solid-state drive (SSD) that has become heavily fragmented, and due to this will defrag an SSD drive once a month.

 

 

[Andavari]

I personally thing the general rule is don't do yourself using third party defrag software, and instead just let Windows decide - with that in mind I wonder how commercial defrag vendors are still surviving.

I can't remember if it was a post on this forum or elsewhere where I read that at some point a file can/will become so fragmented that Windows has no other choice but to defragment it so that it doesn't cause issues. I've personally only ran into fragmentation causing issues on a handful of occasions on old WinXP with an HDD where ClamWin Portable couldn't be used because the daily.cvd ("daily.cld") file had so many fragments in the thousands, that actually required third party defrag software to deal with since Windows Defrag couldn't deal with it at all. Even with an all SSD system I do perform a files only defrag on such things like the ClamWin Portable database because of prior issues.

[Willy2]

- My opinion is that one should defrag one's SSD. But do it only every say 3 or 6 months or when the amount of free space on a SSD is lower than say 80% or say 90%. The following article describes / explains how data is being written to /read from a SSD. Then having lots & lots of fragments on one's SSD will slow down the reading from & writing to a SSD.

https://pureinfotech.com/why-solid-state-drive-ssd-performance-slows-down/

Although even a heavily fragmented SSD is still faster than a defragmented HD.

[Willy2]

(I wasn't able to edit my previous reply. So, I post my edited answer here).

- My opinion is that one should defrag one's SSD. But do it only every say 3 or 6 months or when the amount of free space on a SSD is lower than say 10%. That means that with a SSD you must turn off standard Windows defragmentation schedule and manually put a defragmention program (e.g. Defraggler) to work.

- The following article describes / explains how data is being written to /read from a SSD. Then having lots & lots of fragments on one's SSD will slow down the reading from & writing to a SSD.

https://pureinfotech.com/why-solid-state-drive-ssd-performance-slows-down/

Although even a heavily fragmented SSD is still faster than a defragmented HD.

- On top of that, Windows itself has a number of tricks up its sleeve that will hide the slowness of a SSD or HD.