Any reason not to use all the disk space on an HDD?

[80251]

I know SSD's like overprovisioning but is there any similar reason to not use all or most of the disk space on an HDD?

 

[oobymach]

If the HDD is the only drive in your system it's a good idea not to exceed ~80% capacity, but if the drive is a media drive for example and doesn't have any page files or system dumps there is no reason you can't fill it to 100% capacity, it should run the same speed full as it does empty.

Obviously if it's 100% full you either need to delete stuff or add another drive to store more files but as for performance there should be no difference.

 

[Mussels]

All storage mediums slow down when they get full.

Mechanical drives also suffer excess fragmentation and become a horrible mess as they fill up, with SMR mechanicals multiplying that pain.

TL;DR: Yes. Full will slow down reads and writes on a mech, while they only slow writes on an SSD.

 

[The King]

You can cause windows to crash or slow to a crawl if the drive is also your system boot drive and is full.

 

[80251]

This wouldn't be a boot drive, I don't use HDD's for that anymore.

 

[Toothless]

Just defrag as you fill and it's fine.

 

[Mussels]

Just defrag as you fill and it's fine.

i added an 80GB file to a mech with ~100GB free, and it had something like 40,000 fragments after transfer. Removing it off the drive took almost 6 hours, and i regretted my life choices.

 

[_JP_]

i added an 80GB file to a mech with ~100GB free, and it had something like 40,000 fragments after transfer. Removing it off the drive took almost 6 hours, and i regretted my life choices.

Is it a 4K native drive with a >64MB cache? That sounds really odd if the drive was doing nothing more than to receive that file.

 

[oobymach]

i added an 80GB file to a mech with ~100GB free, and it had something like 40,000 fragments after transfer. Removing it off the drive took almost 6 hours, and i regretted my life choices.

It depends on how the free space is located but I hear you, I wonder if the drive was defragged beforehand would it also have been as slow.

 

[eidairaman1]

I know SSD's like overprovisioning but is there any similar reason to not use all or most of the disk space on an HDD?

10% must be kept free for drive optimization (defrag)

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
If you have back ups also not really an issue beside a performance hit maybe depending on which hdd.

 

[docnorth]

12% is optimal, 8% should be considered the minimum free space, even for a data-only HDD that doesn't need defrag. Of course you can fill a HDD and ascertain whether it slows dooooowwwwn...

 

[MarsM4N]

For SSD's overprovisioning is already "build in", reserved space for durability reasons.
But it doesn't hurt to leave some extra space free on the drive. Also important to run TRIM weekly.

For HDD's, like mentioned above. You get performance drops & increased stress on the drive, because the head has to move a lot more, searching the free "spots" on the drive. It's just bad.
Another point, no matter SSD or HDD, you need to have free space if you want to install a bigger game.

 

[NotHereMan]

Also important to run TRIM weekly.

Is the TRIM process automated?

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

For SSD's overprovisioning is already "build in", reserved space for durability reasons.
But it doesn't hurt to leave some extra space free on the drive. Also important to run TRIM weekly.

I was just looking into that. It seems that almost if not all TLC comes in 512 Gbit and 1Tbit dies. These add up to nice round capacities, commonly found in SSD's. Unusual or Enterprise drives may come in different capacities (480GB vs 512) for overprovisioning, but I would strongly doubt any consumer TLC drive has overprovisioning built into the drive or firmware.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Unallocated space is over provisioning to ssd firmware
Once you format and take up the entire drive with partitions/ available space over provisioning is gone.

 

[MarsM4N]

Is the TRIM process automated?

On Win7 and above it should be, but better check if it is:How to Check if TRIM Is Enabled for Your SSD (and Enable It if It Isn’t)

I was just looking into that. It seems that almost if not all TLC comes in 512 Gbit and 1Tbit dies. These add up to nice round capacities, commonly found in SSD's. Unusual or Enterprise drives may come in different capacities (480GB vs 512) for overprovisioning, but I would strongly doubt any consumer TLC drive has overprovisioning built into the drive or firmware.

Hi,
Unallocated space is over provisioning to ssd firmware
Once you format and take up the entire drive with partitions/ available space over provisioning is gone.

Apparently the realocated space for overprovisioning differes from drive to drive. But there is for the user unaccessible space on all of them.

Read the part: Types of overprovisioning / Inherent vs. Vendor-configured vs. User-configured

Most interesting pice: "For example, an SSD's capacity might be reported as 500 gigabytes (GB), but the actual capacity might be 500 gibibytes (GiB). Each GiB contains 73,741,824 bytes more than a GB, which translates to about 7.37% more capacity. That 7.37% is reserved and not part of the capacity available to the host computer. The host cannot see the overprovisioning. From the host's perspective, only 500 GB -- or 465.7 GiB -- of capacity is available for use."

Well, it makes sense. Otherwise loads of folks would just reformat the drive to have all space & kill it before the warranty runs out, lol.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Hi,
Unallocated space is over provisioning to ssd firmware
Once you format and take up the entire drive with partitions/ available space over provisioning is gone.

Apparently the realocated space for overprovisioning differes from drive to drive. But there is for the user unaccessible space on all of them.

Read the part: Types of overprovisioning / Inherent vs. Vendor-configured vs. User-configured

Most interesting pice: "For example, an SSD's capacity might be reported as 500 gigabytes (GB), but the actual capacity might be 500 gibibytes (GiB). Each GiB contains 73,741,824 bytes more than a GB, which translates to about 7.37% more capacity. That 7.37% is reserved and not part of the capacity available to the host computer. The host cannot see the overprovisioning. From the host's perspective, only 500 GB -- or 465.7 GiB -- of capacity is available for use."

Well, it makes sense. Otherwise loads of folks would just reformat the drive to have all space & kill it before the warranty runs out, lol.

Ok, didn't think about how space available to OS is always lower than the advertised space. So drives with nice round capacities (e.g. 512GB) will have it built into firmware whereas a drive like the Kingston DC450R (480GB) have it built into the hardware.

Also, if you want to kill a SSD just run the Chia miner for a bit...

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Nope 1gb in windows is 1024mb do the math so reality is always smaller than sold size
Linux reports 1gb as 1000mb this is why 1tb = 1tb storage
There is no hidden storage.

Run samsung magician it will Make/ reserve unallocated space for over provisioning.

 

[MarsM4N]

Ok, didn't think about how space available to OS is always lower than the advertised space. So drives with nice round capacities (e.g. 512GB) will have it built into firmware whereas a drive like the Kingston DC450R (480GB) have it built into the hardware.

Also, if you want to kill a SSD just run the Chia miner for a bit...

That's something only the manufacturer can answer. But my wild guess is that when they advertise it as 480GB there is already 32GB "vendor-configured" overprovisioning reserved.
In the end they most likely all use 512GB chips. And if you increase overprovisioning, you'll earn increased reliability.

When they advertise it as 512GB it will be a gamble. Maybe some info in the fine print. It's just very untransparent. But you will never get 512GB of usable space.

 

[eidairaman1]

Is the TRIM process automated?

In Windows 7 or Higher (Maybe Windows Vista).

Windows XP or older no.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Ok, so my Crucial BX500 2000GB drive is reported as 1862.89 GB by Windows. So, technically, Windows reports GiB, rather than GB (also 1GiB > 1024Mb). Therefore no overprovisioning in firmware.

That's something only the manufacturer can answer. But my wild guess is that when they advertise it as 480GB there is already 32GB "vendor-configured" overprovisioning reserved.
In the end they most likely all use 512GB chips. And if you increase overprovisioning, you'll earn increased reliability.

When they advertise it as 512GB it will be a gamble. Maybe some info in the fine print. It's just very untransparent. But you will never get 512GB of usable space.

Yes, those drives are "enterprise" grade - as data centers etc. have different requirements they are set up differently. The usable space is advertised.

 

[MarsM4N]

Ok, so my Crucial BX500 2000GB drive is reported as 1862.89 GB by Windows. So, technically, Windows reports GiB, rather than GB (also 1GiB > 1024Mb). Therefore no overprovisioning in firmware.

Yes, those drives are "enterprise" grade - as data centers etc. have different requirements they are set up differently. The usable space is advertised.

It's advertised as 2000GB, size of the chips combined would be 2.048Gbit (which is ~2.200GB).

So you have already 200GB reserved for overprovisioning (around 9%). Here is another explanation of this confusing topic.

 

[eidairaman1]

Binary vs decimal

1 GigaByte is 1000 MegaBytes (decimal base 10). 1 GibiByte is 1024 MebiBytes (binary base 2)

 

[Mussels]

Is it a 4K native drive with a >64MB cache? That sounds really odd if the drive was doing nothing more than to receive that file.

4TB WD red. You only need windows or a browser to delete a temp file and free up some clusters to have fragments thrown willy nilly and cause chaos.

It's advertised as 2000GB, size of the chips combined would be 2.048Gbit (which is ~2.200GB).

So you have already 200GB reserved for overprovisioning (around 9%). Here is another explanation of this confusing topic.

over provisioning is an entirely different thing, this is just a terminology difference.

Some countries use GiB's not GB's to avoid this issue, it's a rounding difference of using 1000 vs using the correct 1024