SSD Maintenance: Tips to Maintain Performance and Prolong the Life of Your Solid State Drive

Introduction

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are growing in popularity in the storage industry, owing to their low cost, durability, low power consumption, and speed.

An SSD can improve a computer's performance in several ways, but the real game-changer is in access time. When you request data from a hard disk drive (HDD), it has to be transferred from the disk to the read/write head, and sometimes also to dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). That means the head has to wait, even if the disk is spinning at 7,200 revolutions per minute.

Like an HDD, an SSD stores data on spinning disks. However, an SSD has no moving parts, and its data storage is electronic. This means that there's no need to seek out the information you need. You don't have to wait for the disk to spin around to the right spot — your data is available immediately!

Data integrity is crucial for enterprises, including governments, defense organizations, healthcare providers, and financial institutions, which often have legal requirements to ensure that data can be easily recovered and read. Traditional hard drives rely on disks to store the data itself, which can be lost or corrupted due to potential crashes or physical damage. As mentioned earlier, SSDs store data in memory chips, preventing such occurrences and ensuring the security and reliability of your information.

That's why SSDs are becoming more popular. If you want to test the performance of an SSD, click the link below:

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To maintain the speed and performance of your external or internal SSD storage, follow these steps to prolong the lifespan of your solid-state drive.

Tip 1: Update SSD Firmware
Tip 2: Avoid Defragmenting the SSD
Tip 3: Enable TRIM Support
Tip 4: Don't Fill Your SSD to Capacity
Tip 5: Avoid Storing Large Files on the SSD
Tip 6: Enable AHCI Mode
Tip 7: Disable Hibernation

Tip 1: Update the SSD firmware

Firmware is the low-level software that runs on all devices. Firmware updates typically aim to fix security vulnerabilities and add features to important products.

Like your computer's solid-state drive (SSD) and any other digital storage device that can have its firmware updated, your smartphone, tablet, and PC all have code that controls their functionality.

Do I need to update the SSD firmware?

There are several reasons to update firmware, with the primary one being to maintain overall performance. Updates may occur monthly, quarterly, or annually. I typically recommend checking for and updating SSD firmware as it can enhance both the performance and capabilities of the SSD.

Tip 2: Do not defragment an SSD

We've all defragmented a hard drive at least once. But what does that mean for an SSD?

Defragmenting is meaningless if you use an SSD as your boot drive. On a magnetic hard disk, defragmentation improves performance by replacing physically scattered data with a single file, because the disk's head can access contiguous data more quickly. But an SSD has no head. It has no moving parts, so defragmenting an SSD won't do any good.

Defragmenting an SSD, moreover, not only fails to speed it up; it can shorten its life.

TIP #3: Enabling TRIM

The TRIM function was first introduced in the SATA specification in 2009. The TRIM command is also known as SCSI UNMAP or ATA Unmap. It is an important feature on solid-state drives (SSDs). TRIM is a command that allows the operating system to inform the SSD which data blocks are no longer in use. This prevents the SSD from unnecessarily zeroing out these sectors, thus helping to maximize its lifespan, among other benefits.

If your operating system supports the TRIM command, it tells the SSD controller which blocks are no longer in use. This allows the SSD to adjust its wear leveling and garbage collection algorithms accordingly.

Without TRIM, an SSD has no way of knowing which blocks are no longer in use, making it difficult for built-in garbage-collection algorithms to do their work, and leading to decreased performance over time.

Really, performance is one of the key reasons we choose solid-state drives (SSDs) for our laptops or desktops. SSDs have a clear performance advantage over traditional hard disk drives (HDDs). The Trim command lets the operating system tell the SSD which data blocks it can wipe. Getting rid of unnecessary files on your SSD can improve its performance and prolong its life. So, if your SSD and OS support TRIM, you should keep it enabled to extend the lifespan of your SSD.

Rule No. 4: Don't fill up the storage.

This issue has troubled many businesses and individuals contemplating an SSD upgrade.

When an SSD has a large amount of its capacity in use, issues can arise. With less available space for writing, the transfer speeds slow down, especially when your PC is used for gaming, and error messages may pop up during the writing process. You might also experience performance drops during system boot-up or shut down, and your system may become unstable.

Yes, it's not a good idea to fill an SSD due to performance issues related to cache overflow. The flash on an SSD is used as a cache for frequently read data. While it can still read from a full cache, it starts discarding some of the older data that's deemed less important (even if it's still in use). This process slows down the SSD because it has to decide what data to keep and what to flush deeper into the drive.

The secret to keeping a solid-state drive (SSD) running fast is simple: don't fill it up, or at least not too much.

Rule #5: Don't store large files.

Storing large files and infrequently accessed files requires specialized hardware solutions for high availability and reliable content distribution. Therefore, it's not advisable to store large and seldom-accessed files on SSD drives, as that would be an inefficient use of expensive storage.

Because SSDs are more expensive, you shouldn't use them for mass storage. Types of files that you shouldn't save to your SSD include movies, music, songs, and photos that you don't access regularly.

The less you access a file, the more economical it is to store it on an HDD. Games are a good example. Some save their levels within the same .EXE file that runs the game. These programs are not used very frequently, but they are large. Instead of moving such hefty EXEs to an SSD, keep these big programs on an HDD to save money and power.

You can store movies, music, and other items on a standard HDD, which will allow your SSD to operate at peak speed and efficiency.

Only your operating system, essential apps, and important program files would be on the SSD. Everything else would be on the HDD.

Tip 6: Enable AHCI

AHCI stands for Advanced Host Controller Interface, which provides a high-speed platform for data transfer between a computer's hard drive and the motherboard. Enabling this mode is particularly beneficial for solid-state drive (SSD) users, as it allows for faster write speeds with Enhanced Command Queuing (QC) support. Most modern motherboards support AHCI, so users can simply enable it through the BIOS.

When your computer is running in IDE mode, the write speed to your SSD will be limited. Even an entry-level SSD can manage transfer rates of around 70-80 MB/s (megabytes per second). In AHCI mode, that speed can jump to 600-800 MB/s or more.

You can use this official Windows 10 guide to enable AHCI.

Tip #7: Disable Sleep Mode

When you put your Windows computer to sleep, it saves your state and then turns off. To wake it up, you just hit the power button, and – bam! – your computer is back on. Very convenient, right? Except not always. The problem is that enabling sleep on an SSD can shorten its lifespan quite a bit. For one thing, sleep mode uses more electricity than simply turning your computer off. And when it boots up, it has to load everything back from the SSD.

Most computer users have no issues with the Windows Hibernate feature, which saves your work for hours and lets you pick up where you left off later, without having to start from scratch. However, some people worry that using hibernate can cause SSD data to degrade gradually, leading to drive failure after days or months.

Disabling hibernation on an SSD is a valuable performance tweak that extends the life of the drive by reducing the number of writes to the disk.

To disable hibernation in Windows, open a command prompt and type powercfg.exe /hibernate off.

Pressing the Enter key will resume playback.

Disable Hibernation

SSD Maintenance: How to Optimize SSD with Partition Master Tool

tools Partition Master Free Edition is a reliable hard disk partition manager that offers a set of features to help users allocate disk space more efficiently.

Partition Master can clone a partition from one location to another, which is particularly useful when the target partition is smaller than the source but you want to copy the data from a larger partition to a smaller one, or copy data from a hard drive to an SSD (for example). It also has a "Drive Clone" feature that copies all partitions from one disk to another. The product includes many other features as well, such as a disk defragmenter and tools to remove unnecessary programs, among others.

You can easily adjust drive sizes to expand disk space. Safely and easily increase the size of a hard drive partition while keeping your original data intact. It can copy an entire hard drive, including the system partition or operating system, to another hard drive without losing any data. You just select the source partition and target partition, then click "Clone Partition" to clone the source partition to the target partition. The cloned partition will be an exact replica.

Another key feature to maintain and optimize an SSD is 4KB alignment. The 4KB alignment feature of the Partition Master tool optimizes SSD performance by adjusting it to 4KB. 4KB alignment on an SSD means that all sectors are aligned to 4096 sectors. This way, when you read from or write to the SSD, it's much faster because all sectors are arranged for even sector access.

"Partition Master tool allows you to resize or move partitions on your hard drive, maximizing disk space with its unique and advanced features. Now, you can resize FAT32, NTFS, and EXT2/3 partitions without losing data. By dividing large partitions into smaller ones, you can enhance system performance."

The first step is to shrink the partition to free up space for the expansion.

If there's enough unallocated space on the hard drive to extend the target partition, skip to Step 2. If not, free up some space first:

In the "Partition Manager" section, right-click on a partition next to the target one and select "Resize/Move". Drag the partition's boundary to free up space, making sure you leave enough unallocated space behind the target partition, then click "OK".

Free up disk space to get unallocated space:

Step 2: Extend the target partition.

Right-click the partition you want to expand, and select “Resize/Move.”

Drag the target partition handle to the unallocated space to extend the partition.

Step 3: Save all changes.

Click the Run Task button and click Apply to save all your changes.

In short

Solid State Drives (SSDs) are amazing – they make loading files and applications feel like magic. However, SSDs are not just about speed. Like regular hard drives, regular maintenance is crucial to extending their lifespan. By understanding best practices and things to watch out for, you can be confident that you're doing everything you can to keep your SSD running at its optimal state for as long as possible.

While SSDs have come a long way in recent years, this doesn't mean they're without their limitations. They can still fail, and even with the most careful use, an SSD will eventually wear out. That said, if you take preventative measures to keep your SSD running at its best, regularly defragment it with software designed for the purpose, and use cleanup tools where appropriate, it should serve you well for many years.

All of these tips will significantly improve an SSD's performance, speed, and longevity.