Choosing the right SSD...

ThrashZone · Dec 10, 2021

Hi,
Partitions just overly complicate disks and you eventually realize they need resizing.
I just use a simple folder scheme pretty much why gpt has never been needed.

The-Hive · Dec 10, 2021

I am with the @TheMystic I love Samsung SSD's, in fact I like pretty much all Samsung stuff. especially their phones, I had an old J3, fantastic but I had to replace it with an S10 as the J3 wasn't compatible with my car and S10 works great with the My Phone app and a better one the Alienware Connect app.

The-Hive · Dec 10, 2021

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
Partitions just overly complicate disks and you eventually realize they need resizing.
I just use a simple folder scheme pretty much why gpt has never been needed.

Same here. I have an SSD with is all data, if I partition it, it will have several partitions of well, data :ROFLMAO:

ThrashZone · Dec 10, 2021

Hi,
Last thread I saw was How to copy a partition
Wonder if it's as easy as copying a folder

Dru2 · Dec 10, 2021

I think to many worry about things not worth worrying about. I've been using SSDs since 2010 when I bought my first SSD in a 128gig OCZ Vertex II. In all those years since and now I've never done any over provisioning, nor worried about wear levels.

My only concern is will the drive work when I get it, and will it continue to work while in use. Haven't had one fail yet. Today my main rig has 3 SSD, and 2 NVMe drives, while my backup rig features 1 NVMe drive and 2 SSD's. The backup rig gets its parts from my main rig after upgrades.

Thus far none have failed. And I still don't bother with overprovisioning. Oh, and that OCZ drive is still in use :wink:

My two cents :)

hdmi · Dec 10, 2021

@NavyLCDR

Good info. So basically, what TRIM does is that when Windows sees that a file has been deleted, it uses the driver of the SATA or NVMe controller hardware to send a TRIM command which lets the controller inside the SSD know that the cells that no longer are used to store user data can be marked as unallocated, after which these cells get added to the pool of unallocated cells. Also, back at the time when Windows 7 had just come out and SSDs were the latest hype, if you bought a Crucial C300, you didn't actually have to worry about TRIM support because this particular type of SSD had garbage collection that gave the same net result of freed up cells getting marked as unallocated. So, all you had to do was just avoid letting your C300 get full.

ThrashZone · Dec 10, 2021

Hi,
Yeah firmware is supposed to only need unallocated space to function

It does also need the os to be inactive to I believe example being hibernation.

I asked crucial support long ago and they said boot to bios and leave it there for a few hours once and a while is the easiest way for the firmware to kick in and do it's thing without os interruptions.

PerpetualCycle · Dec 10, 2021

TheMystic said:
Here is one good reason why over-provisioning is more beneficial than distributing free space among partitions:

You have the ability to use it as and when you want!

Let's assume I have 5 partitions on my disk and free space of 100 GB. Instead of apportioning this equally (or any distribution) among the partitions, leaving it unallocated would help more in times of space crunch. Because every OS can access unallocated space.

If I were to instead distribute the free space among the partitions, I am limiting my ability to only the free space that is available on partitions my OS can see.

1. Over provisioned space is not available to the OS. It is unallocatred space on the drive (like when you shrink a partition). Or think of it as a partition that is never used by the OS.
2. You do not have to distribute any free space equally among the partitions. It is all the same to the SSD however it is distributed.

PerpetualCycle · Dec 10, 2021

Bree said:
TBW is important, as you say. Your Samsung 840 has 3-bit MLC if it is an EVO, or 2-bit MLC if it's an EVO Pro. The Samsung QVO that is getting such bad reviews in this thread uses 4-bit MLC. For a 4-bit MLC device the TBW is typically half that of a 3-bit MLC device with the same capacity.

The QVO range is fine for long term storage, but not really appropriate for a drive that gets frequent writes.

MLC is almost exclusively used to refer to 2 bit/cell NAND. Just saying this because it may get confusing when looking at literature. In common usage SLC = 1 bpc, MLC = 2bpc, TLC = 3 bpc., QLC = 4 bpc.

PerpetualCycle · Dec 10, 2021

hdmi said:
@NavyLCDR

Good info. So basically, what TRIM does is that when Windows sees that a file has been deleted, it uses the driver of the SATA or NVMe controller hardware to send a TRIM command which lets the controller inside the SSD know that the cells that no longer are used to store user data can be marked as unallocated, after which these cells get added to the pool of unallocated cells. Also, back at the time when Windows 7 had just come out and SSDs were the latest hype, if you bought a Crucial C300, you didn't actually have to worry about TRIM support because this particular type of SSD had garbage collection that gave the same net result of freed up cells getting marked as unallocated. So, all you had to do was just avoid letting your C300 get full.

All SSD have garbage collection. Garbage collection consolidates partially filled blocks into filled ones and generates free unused pre-erased blocks for new writes. The only difference between the gargabe collection on the C300 without TRIM and an SSD with TRIM is that the garbage collection with TRIM has the information of deleted blocks.
So it was not as good as an SSD using TRIM or we wouldn't have TRIM. Also, you could and should have over-provisioned the C300 operating without TRIM.

PerpetualCycle · Dec 10, 2021

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
Yeah firmware is supposed to only need unallocated space to function

It does also need the os to be inactive to I believe example being hibernation.

I asked crucial support long ago and they said boot to bios and leave it there for a few hours once and a while is the easiest way for the firmware to kick in and do it's thing without os interruptions.

It doesn't need the OS to be inactive, it's controller does this work in the background. Modern SSD have several cores doing this, for example the 970's Phoenix controller has an ARM processor with 5 Cortex cores. The new Elpis controller can process 128 concurrent i/o queues, not sure how many cores it has.

Slavic · Dec 10, 2021

NavyLCDR said:
I'm not seeing anything in that article that talks about problems with NVMe SSDs. The article is talking about OS problems.

Apparently you misunderstood my shortened phrase: "PCWorld about problems with NVMe SSD"
= An article in PCWorld tells about problems with NVMe SSD in Windows 11

I often try to express more sense with less words, usually it's easy to understand. The article told about the performance problems in Windows 11, but where we are? On the forum directly related to this OS, so its name obviously can be omitted, right? Not so obviously, as I see...

BTW, you also used a shortened sentence: "The article is talking about OS problems."
= The article is talking about OS Windows 11 problems with NVMe SSD performance. These problems are quite specific, related to this thread.

Well, about the article: it supposes that performance issue will be fixed soon by developers, like the problem with AMD processors in the past. But until that update, it would be better to inform forum users about existence of such issue.

BunnyJ · Dec 10, 2021

Slavic said:
Apparently you misunderstood my shortened phrase: "PCWorld about problems with NVMe SSD"
= An article in PCWorld tells about problems with NVMe SSD in Windows 11

I often try to express more sense with less words, usually it's easy to understand. The article told about the performance problems in Windows 11, but where we are? On the forum directly related to this OS, so its name obviously can be omitted, right? Not so obviously, as I see...

BTW, you also used a shortened sentence: "The article is talking about OS problems."
= The article is talking about OS Windows 11 problems with NVMe SSD performance. These problems are quite specific, related to this thread.

Well, about the article: it supposes that performance issue will be fixed soon by developers, like the problem with AMD processors in the past. But until that update, it would be better to inform forum users about existence of such issue.

The title says this "Windows 11 might seriously slow down your SSD",, key word.. might. You left that out. Oh and one of the sources is Redit not the best one on the internet.

ThrashZone · Dec 10, 2021

Hi,
Titles don't mean much anymore.

BunnyJ · Dec 10, 2021

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
Titles don't mean much anymore.

Reading the story.. that's where it's at.

hdmi · Dec 10, 2021

geneo said:
1. Over provisioned space is not available to the OS.

Only the dynamical over-provisioned space can be a part of the space available to the OS.

As an aside, here is an old article to help explain some of the basics of how an SSD works. The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ

PerpetualCycle · Dec 10, 2021

Dang, sorry I am in and out here. Having Internet issues - modem keeps dropping out since yesterday and now it is like every 5 minutes, I have to go out and replace the modem. Sigh.

gewb · Dec 10, 2021

TheMystic said:
Why should anyone choose a HDD over an SSD?

At higher capacities, the SLC cache and DRAM are also higher. The QVO performs as well as any HDD once the SLC cache is exhausted, so there isn't any reason to choose a mechanical disk over flash storage.

Well, I have over 15TB of storage with about 10% free space (lots of photographs and videos I make). About 10TB is archival and the cost/benefit ratio for HDDs wins over SSD hands down. Also important to me is up time. Some of my HDDs have 24,000 hours up time.

BunnyJ · Dec 10, 2021

gewb said:
Well, I have over 15TB of storage with about 10% free space (lots of photographs and videos I make). About 10TB is archival and the cost/benefit ratio for HDDs wins over SSD hands down. Also important to me is up time. Some of my HDDs have 24,000 hours up time.

In that case it makes a lot of sense.