How to take care of SSDs
Do the new SSDs need care and how?
Once they were expensive accessories for the haves, the professionals and the "technophiles", today they are the standard. We are talking about the SSD (Solid State Drive) hard disks of 2.5΄΄, those fast disks that gave new life and life to our computers. Suddenly, from where we were waiting for it to load functional, we see it open almost like a television, where we expected it to load a program, we see it popping up on the chopping block and our lives have become easier with computers. Combined with the large amounts of memory RAM which are now cheap, computers (even older models) become rockets.
A simple upgrade (increasing the RAM if the computer can handle it and change the old slow hard drive with a fast SSD) is enough to make us think we bought new PC.
These disks do not have platters and heads to read data, but use memory chips " flash" - similar to those of memories RAM - and there record The data hence the speeds.
So as prices keep dropping and capacities increase, the once forbidden product that we all crave became accessible to everyone and the SSD started to replace the old mechanical discs. But, as we say, "new times, new mores" and the question that arises is: "do they need care SSD like the old mechanical discs needed?"
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On the old hard disks we had to run from time to time some utilities that accelerated the data and made it somewhat faster to access it - like defragmentation for example. The SSD do they need something like that?
Lifetime of SSDs
All things have a shelf life. Even the tough ones that were "too tough to die" might eventually start to show defects in the Magnetic material (bad clusters) and when that started to happen, it was only a matter of time before we started looking for our data.
We can say that since the SSD have no mechanical parts that wear out from use and show mechanical damage, that they will be immortal - right? Not at all. Even chips age as the electrical voltages applied to them for Registration and reading of the data, cause damage, over time, to the inside of the chip.
The SSD use something called a program-erase (P/E) cycle. Each time data is written, one block "disappears" and another "appears" in its place with the new data written.
This "trick" makes these discs so dramatically fast and reliable, but, as with genies, you have a limited number of "wishes". Then, the light bulb goes out forever. So it is with the SSD, after a number of P/E cycles the disc will start to wear out, in the sense that the chips will no longer perform and, at some point, "give up the ghost". This cycle of their life numbers 3.000-4.000 circles P/E.
Another issue is that as the mood increases and prices fall, so does the quality and with it their strength (something had to be sacrificed). But before we start counting the cycles P/E of our record it is good to remember that the above number refers to each block of a record and each record has millions of them. blocks.
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Tips for the good health of your SSD
Welcome then, comrade computer scientists, to the "brave new world" of SSD and improving their performance (or rather their good health). The first thing to do is to forget everything you knew about hard drives. All disk improvement-maintenance practices and programs up to this point were written for mechanical hard disks with moving parts. So using them is like trying to fit square boxes into round holes.
Forget about it }, "defrag", The "scandisk" and other such practices don't work here. You don't have to worry too much about environment, temperatures, jolts, etc - they don't affect them. So how do we take care of the SSD us? Here are some useful practices.
- TRIM command: The order TRIM ensures that the SSD will not begin to slow down over time. It helps to increase efficiency and performance in writing data. The memories flash operate by finding empty cells and electrically writing information into them. If it doesn't find empty cells, it has to erase some and write the new data onto them - and that can slow down its operation considerably SSD. The order TRIM well, it pre-deletes all cells with useless data so that they are "clean and ready" for new entries. On Windows computers you can enable Automatic TRIM (if you are in the mood for settings see here ) and on Mac the command can be used on third-party disks - but the OS X he doesn't get along very well with her.
- Management software: Many SSD have some management software made by their manufacturer for their specific needs. This software allows, among other things, firmware upgrades, patches, etc., and is important for keeping the drive in good condition. This software usually comes in two "flavors". First of all, there is software exclusive to the manufacturer - such as Magician software of Samsung. And there are third-party manufacturers that do for everyone like the Tweak SSD. If you have the manufacturer's, use that. It's enough and it will be free.
- Data sharing: Yes, the SSD are very good with tapes and large amounts of data in general. However, it is advisable to store them on other classic disks because the constant use of such files by a SSD shortens their lifespan faster. Very large documents are written and reread block data and, as we said, this is not good. Better to have an external hard drive for this job.
- Size matters: If you can buy as big as you can SSD you can. Because of the way they work, the more GB are left free, the fewer deletions will be made to make room for new data. Plus, larger SSDs are usually faster and more durable. A small SSD will fill up quickly and when it reaches the point of running out of space, it will experience delays.
- Increase RAM: This is not so new. We used to say that. The more RAM, the faster the machine because the data is loaded to it and the disk does not need to "host" the swap files that the operating system creates on the disk to get by. With the SSD but there is an additional reason for more RAM. due to the non-creation swap files from the operating system, additional disk writes are limited.
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Do not do these
We said what to do, let's say what not to do.
- Do not de-bulkhead: As we said: defrag over and out. Usually the system will notify you that the defrag is not necessary on such a disc, but if you insist on doing so, you know you are doing damage to it. The defrag he's constantly signing up and down to do his job, so you can see the wear and tear it causes.
- Do not use past optimization programs: All the tools and software created for mechanical disks are not only useless, but also dangerous for the good health of the SSD Your. Just delete them.
- Do not fill them: We have said it before, but we will stress it again because it is much more important than you think: do not "tweak" them into data. The filling of a SSD in percentage 90% and above, it's like asking Problems. The flash memory will be looking for empty blocks to write data and, failing to find it, will erase and write continuously. We learned what is the result in such a practice.
from Elichord
