I know that you're not suppose to defragment an SSD, but what are the reasons for that and what do I do if windows says there is fragmentation on my SSD?
windows uses trim to keep the ssd running smooth and I dont really know how its measuring fragmentation since ssd's work different from hard drives.
Defragging moves a file's physical location of the platter of an HDD (I believe) And SSDs don't even have platters. I don't even know what happens when you do defrag an SSD.
never ever defragmentate a SSD, there is a big chance of killing it!
defragmentation is only for mechanical harddrivers.
Additionally fragmentation was more of an issue pre-windows XP where the OS didn't write on the hard drive efficiently. With most operating systems today it's rarely an issue.
Something VERY IMPORTANT to note with windows 8, I have reproduced the problem on 2 separate machines in my own home and have seen it on several others as well,
some sata controller drivers for windows 8 force SSD to be labeled as a SCSI device, which is incorrect, but windows will allow it and will also allow disk optimizer to DEFRAG the SSD and not allow trim to function properly which is bad, very bad,
best way to be certain is to open disk optimizer and make sure your SSD/SSD's are labeled as such and not being labled in device manger or disk optimizer as an SCSI device or a Hard Disk Drive.
Everything that has already been said, plus the fact that defragging will produce a ton of extra reads and writes, contributing to shortening the SSD's life.
everytime this comes up i die a little inside,
defraging an SSD is like sanding a car tire,
you wear it down and achieve nothing
^
correct me if I'm wrong but,..
ssds write data on nand flash chips at random. Meaning they write the data out of order and on different parts of the flash all at once. This make it very disorganized in a way but very fast because it can read the different chips in parallel so say.
hdds write data in a line that spins around on a disc. so it's one really really long line. when something is fragmented it means that said data is not on one part of the line it's literally broken up on the line in different places. Defragging will literally move data around on the line to make it in order and not chunky.
you can't defrag an ssd because it's native form is randomness.
SSD is memory all it has is instant reads and writes HDD is like a vinyl player spinning spinning and spinning reading and writing. If you created a partition in windows xp the layout is like ocean waves out of place if created in windows 7 its more organized till paging file kicks in then you will have to defrag the hard drive. Probably 6 years down the road memory controllers will have its own dedicated OS chip like 30GB for example and other chip for data and programs based on my prediction. So any file marked as an OS will be moved to that chip on installation
yea, defragging a hard drive works simply because it rearranges the data on the platter so that it is easier/faster to read, ssd's use flash memory so defragging is essentially not possible since it isn't physically written per say.
Hello I am a systems engineer and I have been asked this many times by friends. The answer is it can't really improve performance at least on a noticeable level. It also lessons the life span of the SSD for more information or question this article is a good reference.
Article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2047513/fragging-wonderful-the-truth-about-defragging-your-ssd.html