• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Is there any way to set unpartitioned SSD space as reserve space?

Joined
Feb 18, 2010
Messages
1,850 (0.33/day)
System Name Eldritch
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 5800X3D
Motherboard ASUS TUF X570 Pro Wifi
Cooling Satan's butthole after going to Taco Bell
Memory 64 GB G.Skill TridentZ
Video Card(s) Vega 56
Storage 6*8TB Western Digital Blues in RAID 6, 2*512 GB Samsung 960 Pros
Display(s) Acer CB281HK
Case Phanteks Enthoo Pro PH-ES614P_BK
Audio Device(s) ASUS Xonar DX
Power Supply EVGA Supernova 750 G2
Mouse Razer Viper 8K
Software Debian Bullseye
I'm using a 500GB WD Blue SATA drive solely for a 128GB swap partition, and I would like set the unpartitioned space as reserve space for bad sectors. Naturally I looked at the hdparm man page, but the closest I can find is -N (which sets the Host Protected Area) and I'm pretty sure that's not quite what I want. Are there any other places I should be looking?
 
Doesn't the drive handle this on it's own? Just leave it unpartitioned.
 
I'm using a 500GB WD Blue SATA drive solely for a 128GB swap partition, and I would like set the unpartitioned space as reserve space for bad sectors. Naturally I looked at the hdparm man page, but the closest I can find is -N (which sets the Host Protected Area) and I'm pretty sure that's not quite what I want. Are there any other places I should be looking?

I know on Samsung Magician software there is overprovisioning where you can allocate empty space as much you want for longevity purposes. I know my Micron SSD has software I can download that does this too. I am going to just assume Western Digital dashboard has something similar. I am not sure if this helps or answers the question, I don't think you can pick and choose which sectors to make this apply to
 
wait i thought this was about over provisioning at first, SSD's dont really do 'bad sectors'
 
this automatically happens, just leave an unpartitioned section at the end and the drive does it automatically

So when you do a clean install of windows say on a 1tb drive ssd, just create 30gb unformatted partition? or does windows do it automatically on clean installs?
 
So when you do a clean install of windows say on a 1tb drive ssd, just create 30gb unformatted partition? or does windows do it automatically on clean installs?

i edited my post, sir ninja. If you shrink a partition when in windows (or installing windows, or letting samsungs program shrink it for you) the free space is automatically used for over provisioning and keeping the drive running properly. I'm really not sure if the OP is talking about that or actual bad sectors, which is not how SSDs work.
 
why do you need a 128g swap?
 
Doesn't the drive handle this on it's own? Just leave it unpartitioned.
I'm not sure, and I'm trying to make sure that it gets handled the way I want it to.

I know on Samsung Magician software there is overprovisioning where you can allocate empty space as much you want for longevity purposes. I know my Micron SSD has software I can download that does this too. I am going to just assume Western Digital dashboard has something similar. I am not sure if this helps or answers the question, I don't think you can pick and choose which sectors to make this apply to
Can't find anything similar for Linux (well, gparted kind of, but it's mostly just partioning).

why do you need a 128g swap?
The story is a mildly complicated, but let's say "future-proofing."

wait i thought this was about over provisioning at first, SSD's dont really do 'bad sectors'
Okay, that is what I'm thinking of - and on that note:
 
ok my view on it is
the ssd should handle it on its own
you wont be writing enough for anything to die
its a massive waste of a 500 gig ssd
do it to a 32g<
 
okay yeah if its over provisioning, just leave an empty partition and the drive will use it on its own. That's how they work for all free space, partitioned or not... you're just guaranteeing it, by leaving an empty partition.
 
ok my view on it is
the ssd should handle it on its own
I'm making sure that it does.
you wont be writing enough for anything to die
That's the plan.
its a massive waste of a 500 gig ssd
Maybe, but the 250GB and 500GB had a single digit price difference and I'd rather err on safety.
do it to a 32g<
I'd rather do it once and use it for a long as SATA exists.

Anyways,
Success.png
 
No need to reserve space, your swap should be written in different spots each time. I use an m2 ssd solely for a pagefile. My temp folders are on an hdd thus keeping the the main os ssd low on writes.
 
Back
Top