Policies - Performance & Lifespan of drives?(dedicated gaming disk/drive)

[Koozwad]

So finally got around to benchmarking(using default settings in Samsung Magician 8.0.1) the various policies in the drive properties@Device Manager. Freshly installed 870 EVO 2TB with 3 games on it and nothing else.

'Quick removal' ----------------------------------SeqRead: 559 MB/s SeqWrite: 180 MB/s RanRead: 95703 IOPS RanWrite: 10986 IOPS
'Better performance' ----------------------------SeqRead: 558 MB/s SeqWrite: 203 MB/s RanRead: 95703 IOPS RanWrite: 11718 IOPS
'Enable write caching' checked -----------------SeqRead: 560 MB/s SeqWrite: 528 MB/s RanRead: 96191 IOPS RanWrite: 84960 IOPS
'Turn off write-cache buffer flushing' checked -SeqRead: 561 MB/s SeqWrite: 529 MB/s RanRead: 95947 IOPS RanWrite: 85205 IOPS

For a game-only drive(and I imagine videos too), the TLDR seems to be just to use the Quick removal policy, as this minimises any possible data loss/corruption while also possibly(?) increasing the lifespan of the drive and system performance due to nothing 'helping' the drive to perform better(read something about RAM being utilised for one or more policies, for example). Furthermore the Read performance(which seems to me like THE important thing for gaming) is basically the same across all 4 policies.

Thoughts? Corrections?

Something to mention which probably doesn't matter much for this post is that the allocation size I set for the drive is at the maximum of 2MB(putting only games with few and large files on it).

 

[Hardcore Games]

With low actual blocks used the 970 should last

Check it with Crystal Disk Reports

 

[Koozwad]

With low actual blocks used the 970 should last

What do you mean exactly? LOWER allocation size = increased drive lifespan? Doesn't a smaller allocation size increase the amount of reads/writes?

 

[Hardcore Games]

The ratio of in use/free can affect the durability of a SSD so more free blocks allow the controller to better balance NAND cells to keep performance strong.

The idea is wear leveling as swap files and so on tend to write to the SSD a lot so over time these blocks wear more than say a typical game does.

 

[evernessince]

The ratio of in use/free can affect the durability of a SSD so more free blocks allow the controller to better balance NAND cells to keep performance strong.

The idea is wear leveling as swap files and so on tend to write to the SSD a lot so over time these blocks wear more than say a typical game does.

Free space is a non-factor on any modern SSDs. We are at the point now where wear leveling works just fine even if the SSD is 100% full. Algorithms have improved as most vendors have a cache / reserve space to handle required SSD functions.

And just to clarify, lowering the logical allocation size below the default won't increase endurance. SSDs cannot write anything less than one block at a time (Typical block size is 512 KB) which means that regardless of what you set your allocation unit size to on the SSD any written data will occupy at least one block. This is why SSD caches (both DRAM and SLC) exist, the SSD uses these to coalesce writes and reduce write amplification. So at the end of the day 4KB vs 1 KB, the only difference is that you are adding more processing overhead. You might see slightly better space utilization with a smaller allocation unit size but you are talking an infinitesimal amount.

So finally got around to benchmarking(using default settings in Samsung Magician 8.0.1) the various policies in the drive properties@Device Manager. Freshly installed 870 EVO 2TB with 3 games on it and nothing else.

'Quick removal' ----------------------------------SeqRead: 559 MB/s SeqWrite: 180 MB/s RanRead: 95703 IOPS RanWrite: 10986 IOPS
'Better performance' ----------------------------SeqRead: 558 MB/s SeqWrite: 203 MB/s RanRead: 95703 IOPS RanWrite: 11718 IOPS
'Enable write caching' checked -----------------SeqRead: 560 MB/s SeqWrite: 528 MB/s RanRead: 96191 IOPS RanWrite: 84960 IOPS
'Turn off write-cache buffer flushing' checked -SeqRead: 561 MB/s SeqWrite: 529 MB/s RanRead: 95947 IOPS RanWrite: 85205 IOPS

For a game-only drive(and I imagine videos too), the TLDR seems to be just to use the Quick removal policy, as this minimises any possible data loss/corruption while also possibly(?) increasing the lifespan of the drive and system performance due to nothing 'helping' the drive to perform better(read something about RAM being utilised for one or more policies, for example). Furthermore the Read performance(which seems to me like THE important thing for gaming) is basically the same across all 4 policies.

Thoughts? Corrections?

Something to mention which probably doesn't matter much for this post is that the allocation size I set for the drive is at the maximum of 2MB(putting only games with few and large files on it).

Indeed read speed is the most important metric for games.

Leave it at the default (quick removal). Better performance or write caching hardly makes any impact and opens up the possability of data loss or corruption in the case of a power outage or event. I don't even recommend turning it on for my clients that have a UPS (uniterruptable power supply) as the near zero performance benefit is not worth the risk.

 

[Shrek]

With low actual blocks used the 970 should last

With low filling a QLC drive can run in SLC mode and so last longer.
(3) Switching between SLC and TLC | TechPowerUp Forums

I have a 2TB TLC drive that I run mostly empty (less than one third full).

 

[Hardcore Games]

1/3 total usage is excellent for long service life

 

[Waldorf]

@Koozwad
one possible option would be to either install on a different drive, then copy everything to the game drive,
or install, copy to different drive, and then back.
seems to help with read speeds a little, especially after a major update (new maps etc).