How do I address Windows' file system fragmentation on SSDs?

Flashorn · Jul 19, 2023

gremlinkurst said:
Back when I was using analog drives, I regularly defragged my drives, kept them optimized, and consolidated free space. Now that I'm using solid state drives, I can't do that anymore, so there's a problem: Windows file systems still fragment, and defragging SSDs damages them. So, what can Windows users under these circumstances do to combat fragmentation safely?

This is all you should need for your Crucial M.2 drive:

Crucial Storage Executive Tool | Firmware Download

Download the latest version of Crucial Storage Executive to get the most from your SSD hard drive. Includes information on storage used & drive health.

www.crucial.com

I have the same for my Samsung M.2 and one for the Micron M.2 drive in this notebook.

hdmi · Jul 20, 2023

The real and complete story - Does Windows defragment your SSD?

There has been a LOT of confusion around Windows, SSDs (hard drives), and ...

www.hanselman.com

Everything You Need to Know about SSDs and Fragmentation in 5 Minutes

When reading articles, blogs, and forums posted by well-respected (or at least well intentioned people) on the subject of fragmentation and SSDs, many make statements about how (1) SSDs don’t fragment, or (2) there’s no moving parts, so no problem, or (3) an SSD is […]

condusiv.com

MilesAhead · Jul 20, 2023

hsehestedt said:
All the optimization for an SSD does is to send TRIM "hints" to the SSD. The OS will tell the SSD to perform a TRIM when blocks are deleted so an SSD should automatically perform a TRIM operation in the background. However, if power is lost before the SSD completes TRIM operations, it may not get all blocks trimmed. As a result, when Windows performs the regularly scheduled optimization, it simply sends TRIM "hints" telling the SSD "these are all the unoccupied blocks" and the drive will then check to see what blocks are not already TRIMmed.

I have 2 external AData SSDs. One is 512 GB, the other is 1 TB. The 512 GB allows the Explorer optimization while the 1 TB does not. If I plug in the 1 TB and/or wait after I save a backup image to it, it keeps going for about 30 seconds. As I noted originally I assumed this was auto Trim done by the drive. In any case the freeware has some other eye candy such as drive temp and other doodads. Seems like they should know how to trim their own drives at AData. I have had nothing but good luck with them. But I do make a point of staying away from USB and similar that has the "sliding guts" design. Why have moving parts in a solid state device?

I haven't tried the freeware on my 256 GB USB 3.0 yet.

hsehestedt · Jul 20, 2023

Odd that only one of your external drives seems to allow optimization. Here is something that you can try:

Open a command prompt as Administrator and then run the command "defrag x: /retrim", replace the x: with the correct drive letter.

Below is an example of me doing this on two drives. The first, drive D:, is an NVMe SSD so it does support TRIM. The second drive, E:, is a rotating platter drive so it won't support TRIM. I would be interested in seeing if both drives support TRIM. Note that some external 2.5 inch drive enclosures do NOT support TRIM. So, if you find that one does and one does not, you might try swapping the disks and see if the problem remains with the same enclosure.

If that were the case, it would certainly explain performance issues.

SIW2 · Jul 20, 2023

hsehestedt said:
All the optimization for an SSD does is to send TRIM "hints" to the SSD. The OS will tell the SSD to perform a TRIM when blocks are deleted so an SSD should automatically perform a TRIM operation in the background. However, if power is lost before the SSD completes TRIM operations, it may not get all blocks trimmed. As a result, when Windows performs the regularly scheduled optimization, it simply sends TRIM "hints" telling the SSD "these are all the unoccupied blocks" and the drive will then check to see what blocks are not already TRIMmed.

It says what it does here:

When run from the scheduled task, defrag uses the below policy guidelines for SSDs:

Traditional optimization processes. Includes traditional defragmentation, for example moving files to make them reasonably contiguous and retrim. This is done once per month.

defrag

Reference article for the defrag command, which locates and consolidates fragmented files on local volumes to improve system performance.

learn.microsoft.com

This is a mechanical disk:

TM21 · Jul 20, 2023

I find it funny, not funny Ha Ha, but funny weird, that with the five SSD's that I've purchased directly from Crucial, they have never offered me any kind of maintenance software. So I just downloaded the software offered above.

It will be interesting to see if it can make any difference in the operation of the 500GB Crucial SSD that I'm now using.
Thanks for that tip!
TM

PS: Years ago, with the old Spinners, I too did a lot of HD Cleanups followed by a Defrag, and a backup. That was just a part of my normal weekly HD maintenance routine. I loved watching Defrag move the little blocks of data around, like in a Block puzzle. It was back then, that I wrote my first Cleanup batch file. Not nearly as thorough as the one I use today.
I found that to get a More Perfect Defrag, I would do a Ghost backup, followed by a Ghost Restore, where the C: drive was re-written, file by file, with NO spaces between files and NO Fragmentation. That worked beautifully!
I wonder, if the result would be the same with an SSD? Something to ponder!

Brink · Jul 20, 2023

Hello.

You can use the usual optimize feature below built-in to Windows. It'll automatically TRIM SSDs.

Optimize and Defragment Drives in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to optimize and defragment drives in Windows 11. Optimizing your drives can help your PC run smoother and boot up faster. Windows 11 includes Optimize Drives that will automatically retrim a SSD or defrag a HDD as needed. Retrim = Generates TRIM and Unmap hints...

www.elevenforum.com

Fabler2 · Jul 20, 2023

TechnoMage2021 said:
I find it funny, not funny Ha Ha, but funny weird, that with the five SSD's that I've purchased directly from Crucial, they have never offered me any kind of maintenance software. So I just downloaded the software offered above.

It will be interesting to see if it can make any difference in the operation of the 500GB Crucial SSD that I'm now using.
Thanks for that tip!
TM

PS: Years ago, with the old Spinners, I too did a lot of HD Cleanups followed by a Defrag, and a backup. That was just a part of my normal weekly HD maintenance routine. I loved watching Defrag move the little blocks of data around, like in a Block puzzle. It was back then, that I wrote my first Cleanup batch file. Not nearly as thorough as the one I use today.
I found that to get a More Perfect Defrag, I would do a Ghost backup, followed by a Ghost Restore, where the C: drive was re-written, file by file, with NO spaces between files and NO Fragmentation. That worked beautifully!
I wonder, if the result would be the same with an SSD? Something to ponder!

This is the software they offer,

Crucial Storage Executive Tool | Firmware Download

Download the latest version of Crucial Storage Executive to get the most from your SSD hard drive. Includes information on storage used & drive health.

uk.crucial.com

Flashorn · Jul 20, 2023

The Crucial software and the Micron software are one and the same.
The Solodigm software is a bit more useful that the other two.
Solodigm was born from Intel selling their NAND side of their memory
operation to SK Hynix but, not the Intel Optane operation.
Samsung software is also very useful and I use it often on my GT73VR.

But, what differentiates all these drives is the price compared to their
performance. Solodigm right now are less expensive but, their performance
is compatible to the more popular M.2s.

This is just to show the Solodigm's software:

MilesAhead · Jul 20, 2023

hsehestedt said:
Odd that only one of your external drives seems to allow optimization. Here is something that you can try:

It allows it with the AData SSD app no problem. It just doesn't allow from the File Explorer.

Bree · Jul 20, 2023

gremlinkurst said:
....there's a problem: Windows file systems still fragment, and defragging SSDs damages them. So, what can Windows users under these circumstances do to combat fragmentation safely?

Have you actually checked the size of this supposed 'problem'? I have on all my machines that run on an SSD. This machine has been running Windows 11 since its release in 2021. It has had heavy use and has installed all the Cumulative and Feature Updates MS have issued for Windows 11.

Total fragmented space = 4%
You do not need to defragment this volume.

That one had the highest fragmentation I found, the others were 2% or 3% fragmented.

Bottom line:
Q: "How do I address Windows' file system fragmentation on SSDs?" A: Ignore it, there's no problem to address.

SIW2 · Jul 20, 2023

Let windows handle it. The microsoft link tells you that for SSD it will defrag (move files) and then run retrim once a month. Presumably it analyses first and then decides which one ( or both ) of those needs doing.

The link has been posted at least twice on this thread.

When run from the scheduled task, defrag uses the below policy guidelines for SSDs:

Traditional optimization processes. Includes traditional defragmentation, for example moving files to make them reasonably contiguous and retrim. This is done once per month.

Click to expand...

MisterEd · Jul 20, 2023

TechnoMage2021 said:
PS: Years ago, with the old Spinners, I too did a lot of HD Cleanups followed by a Defrag, and a backup. That was just a part of my normal weekly HD maintenance routine. I loved watching Defrag move the little blocks of data around, like in a Block puzzle. It was back then, that I wrote my first Cleanup batch file. Not nearly as thorough as the one I use today.
I found that to get a More Perfect Defrag, I would do a Ghost backup, followed by a Ghost Restore, where the C: drive was re-written, file by file, with NO spaces between files and NO Fragmentation. That worked beautifully!
I wonder, if the result would be the same with an SSD? Something to ponder!

I wouldn't do that with an SSD because it does a lot of writing to it. Don't forget the more you write to the SSD the more wear you put on it. You risk shortening its life. It is better to let TRIM handle this.

BTW, I also used to be fascinated by the little blocks moving during Defrag. I lost interest a long time ago.

hdmi · Jul 20, 2023

SIW2 said:
This is a mechanical disk:

View attachment 65188

Yea, TRIM/UNMAP is supported for HDDs with SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) for dataset management and to improve SMR performance over time. One of the shingled write benefits is that all physical sectors are written sequentially in a direction radially and are only rewritten after a wrap-around. Rewriting a previously written LBA (Logical Block Addressing) will cause the previous write to be marked invalid and the LBA will be written to the next sequential physical sector. The TRIM/UNMAP enables the OS to inform the drive which blocks are no longer considered to be in use and can be reclaimed internally by the HDD to ensure that later write operations perform at full speed. There also exists a white paper from Western Digital about this:

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-purple-hdd/whitepaper-generic-benefit-for-hard-disk-drive.pdf

Dark Knight · Jul 20, 2023

gremlinkurst said:
The "uni" that I attended was not of inferior quality...it's just that SSDs had not yet been invented...and neither had the internet.

Actually , the internet has been around since the start of the Cold War , founded by then President Eisenhower , it was known as ARPANET , it was just a military tool.

"It was originally created by the U.S. government during the Cold War. In 1958, President Eisenhower founded the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to give a boost to the country’s military technology, according to the Journal of Cyber Policy. Scientists and engineers developed a network of linked computers called ARPANET.
ARPANET's original aim was to link two computers in different places, enabling them to share data. That dream became a reality in 1969, according to Historian Jeremy Norman. In the years that followed, the team linked dozens of computers together and, by the end of the 1980s, the network contained more than 30,000 machines, according to the U.K.'s Science and Media Museum."

SIW2 · Jul 20, 2023

hdmi said:
Yea, TRIM/UNMAP is supported for HDDs with SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) for dataset management and to improve SMR performance over time. One of the shingled write benefits is that all physical sectors are written sequentially in a direction radially and are only rewritten after a wrap-around. Rewriting a previously written LBA (Logical Block Addressing) will cause the previous write to be marked invalid and the LBA will be written to the next sequential physical sector. The TRIM/UNMAP enables the OS to inform the drive which blocks are no longer considered to be in use and can be reclaimed internally by the HDD to ensure that later write operations perform at full speed. There also exists a white paper from Western Digital about this:

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-purple-hdd/whitepaper-generic-benefit-for-hard-disk-drive.pdf

Yes, I know.

One of the posters erroneously stated mechanical disks dont have trim.

I am not keen on these smr disks, they can be very slow.

MisterEd · Jul 20, 2023

Dark Knight said:
Actually , the internet has been around since the start of the Cold War , founded by then President Eisenhower , it was known as ARPANET , it was just a military tool.

"It was originally created by the U.S. government during the Cold War. In 1958, President Eisenhower founded the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to give a boost to the country’s military technology, according to the Journal of Cyber Policy. Scientists and engineers developed a network of linked computers called ARPANET.
ARPANET's original aim was to link two computers in different places, enabling them to share data. That dream became a reality in 1969, according to Historian Jeremy Norman. In the years that followed, the team linked dozens of computers together and, by the end of the 1980s, the network contained more than 30,000 machines, according to the U.K.'s Science and Media Museum."

You are mixing terms. The fact that the Internet was based on the ARPNET doesn't mean that they are the same thing.

Your analogy is like me saying I had a home computer in 1969. Well actually it was an Abacus made out of plastic. Little did I know that only 10 years later I had a real home computer a TRS-80 Model I.

The ARPNET was a government network only. The Internet is based upon that an other advances in technology since the development of ARPANET. The Internet is the commercialization of that, that took place around 1995. Also, It took the development of another technology the World Wide Web before the Internet became popular and usable by the general public.

hdmi · Jul 21, 2023

SIW2 said:
Let windows handle it. The microsoft link tells you that for SSD it will defrag (move files) and then run retrim once a month. Presumably it analyses first and then decides which one ( or both ) of those needs doing.

The link has been posted at least twice on this thread.

It always performs a retrim, as it has no way of telling whether or not trim commands were missed. The reason why trim commands can end up getting discarded has been explained in the 1st link I posted in this thread, it's because the queue size is limited, and, during those times when the storage device is busy doing what it's supposed to do under load, processing ALL these trim commands would otherwise slow performance as a result of read/write operations having to wait on them. So, for SSDs, once per week by default, the Automatic maintenance task in Task Scheduler just sends the trim command a 2nd time (hence it's called retrim) for every sector that was deallocated by the filesystem of the storage volume.

As for the analyze part of this same Automatic maintenance task, this particular part is skipped unless the volume's optimization "last run time" on the SSD exceeded 30 days (this is determined by the volume optimizer itself, not the scheduled task in Task Scheduler that runs it). Only after the analyze finished successfully will it determine (based on the analysis result) whether to proceed with a traditional defrag for the volume in question on the SSD or not. For the average user usually this means that it will not, excepting only every once in a very, very long while (i.e. only when absolutely necessary). Whenever it does decide to defrag the SSD, it will only defrag it to some certain, moderate extent. A near-optimal tradeoff between performance and endurance of the SSD is achieved in this manner. For the average user, this strategy is very adequate. Whereas more complex types of heavy workload (datacenters, servers, heavy workstations and the like) typically can benefit greatly from using I/O optimization software (DymaxIO).

This task has its Period element set to P7D, or one week by default and uses the Unified Scheduling Engine (due to having its UseUnifiedSchedulingEngine element set to true). So, it runs weekly by default, which it does under regular Automatic maintenance. If this task fails to complete over and over again for a month (e.g. as a result of it having its StopOnIdleEnd element set to true), then it will be started during emergency Automatic maintenance, i.e. due to it having its Deadline element set to P1M, or one month. See:

hdmi · Jul 21, 2023

SIW2 said:
Yes, I know.

One of the posters erroneously stated mechanical disks dont have trim.

I am not keen on these smr disks, they can be very slow.

SMR can still be useful for things like video surveillance when you need to make copies of stream fragments that are only relatively short in comparison to the full-length recording or when the copying of large streams can be possible to avoid altogether by mirroring/duplexing.

MisterEd · Jul 21, 2023

List of WD CMR and SMR hard drives (HDD)

List of WD CMR and SMR hard drives (HDD)

List of WD CMR and SMR hard drives (HDD) If you know an SMR type of drive, share it with others in a table below! PMR, also known as conventional magnetic recording (CMR), works by aligning the poles of the magnetic elements, which represent bits of data, perpendicularly to

nascompares.com

My 1st My Book was CMR while its replacement was a SMR drive

Old My Book (CMR)
Ext HDD: WDBBGB0060HBK-NB
Int HDD: WD60EZRZ-00RWYB1

New My Book (SMR)
Ext HDD: WDBBGB0060HBK-NESN
Int HDD: WDC WD60EDAZ-11U78B0

You can run CrystalDiskInfo to show whether a drive is CMR or SMR. SMR drives will have a TRIM feature like shown below.

How do I address Windows' file system fragmentation on SSDs?

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