Any reason to overprovision an SSD if it already has lots of free space?

Just got a Samsung 870 EVO SSD and the software they provide permits you to overprovision these drives -- it looks like it reserves about 10% over the factory amount of space reserved for that purpose. If my drive already has more than 20% free, is there any reason to overprovision? My (limited) understanding is that this is basically a way to make sure there is sufficient free space on the drive to keep it functioning optimally, and it doesn't matter whether that space is set aside by overprovisioning. Is that correct?

Personally, I don't like Samsung Magician.
It's useful to see if there's a firmware update, but that's about all.

I have two 500GB Samsung 860 EVO.
Once a year I install Samsung Magician, check for a firmware update, then uninstall it again.

As for provisioning... that's hard to answer without seeing a Disk Management screenshot.


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I'm no drive guru, but on my Samsung 500 gig 870 EVO SSD & my 500 gig 980 M.2, the "used" space is only 135 gig, so I just let the software set the OP. As far as does it matter, I don't know, personally, it doesn't matter to me .

This is some information I found on using OP on the Samsung drives.

The reason we overprovision SSDs is that Flash memory has for all given purposes an unlimited read cycle, but limited number of write cycles per block. Because of the way it is designed the entire block needs to be erased and rewritten for each write operation. So unlike a rust drive that simply swaps a per bit magnet off to magnetic on with no real consequence of failure a SSD can only write each block so many times. Overprovisioning allows those block writes to be moved around on the hard drive to wear level as blocks go bad. It also gives a place to move data to as the blocks fail. On the original SSD drives over provisioning was built into the drive total memory size and not advertised as part of the total usable size. The newer drives are doing it this way to market more size while actually giving you less. It is a good best practice to run some over provision and I just run the suggested amount in magician.

Ghot said:

As for provisioning... that's hard to answer without seeing a Disk Management screenshot.

Click to expand...

I'm asking a general question about the need for provisioning on a new Samsung 2TB SATA SSD, so I don't think a screenshot will reveal much. The drive is not the boot drive, is currently about 55% full and is not partitioned.

Hi,
Samsung magician is the only app that doesn't break the recovery partition off C if you use it to active OP
SM will keep it at the end of C and OP space = "unallocated" will be at the end of the disk.

Should you ?
Well that is something many opinion conflicts
I doubt SM would offer the option if it didn't think people with their products didn't need it.
Only issue is I don't know if a user can resize the SM OP space it does if activated because you don't need a lot frankly 1-200gbs is fine.

But as stated above OP is nothing but Unallocated space not just free unused space user and os system can use.
But unfortunately with the recovery partition at the end of C it complicates the process of a user simply shirking C a little because once a user does in example disk management the recovery partition is broken off C.

Have no fear a large windows update like 24h2 will recreate the recovery partition at the end of C again hehe
So no big loss.

You could use free minitool to enlarge the recover tools partition 1-200gbs then resize it back down to 1gb and end up with 1-200gbs of unallocated space at the end of the disk and not break the recovery partition hehe it's that good

ThrashZone said:

You could use free minitool to enlarge the recover tools partition 1-200gbs then resize it back down to 1gb and end up with 1-200gbs of unallocated space at the end of the disk and not break the recovery partition hehe it's that good

Click to expand...

Clever!

ThrashZone said:

Hi,
Samsung magician is the only app that doesn't break the recovery partition off C if you use it to active OP
SM will keep it at the end of C and OP space = "unallocated" will be at the end of the disk.

Should you ?
Well that is something many opinion conflicts
I doubt SM would offer the option if it didn't think people with their products didn't need it.
Only issue is I don't know if a user can resize the SM OP space it does if activated because you don't need a lot frankly 1-200gbs is fine.

But as stated above OP is nothing but Unallocated space not just free unused space user and os system can use.
But unfortunately with the recovery partition at the end of C it complicates the process of a user simply shirking C a little because once a user does in example disk management the recovery partition is broken off C.

Have no fear a large windows update like 24h2 will recreate the recovery partition at the end of C again hehe
So no big loss.

Click to expand...

Crucial creates op after the last partition on the disk. Following the manufacturers recommendation makes sense.

SIW2 said:

Crucial creates op after the last partition on the disk. Following the manufacturers recommendation makes sense.

Click to expand...

Hi,
Yep western digital app doesn't have OP as an option
I leave unallocated anyway though.