Partitions on SSDs?

[Hellfire]

Hi guys,

Having a debate with a buddy who seems to think partitioning a SSD (NVME) is bad/lead to giant problems and slow it down

Basically my plans is as follows

OS Drive (NVME part#1)
Install Drive (NVME part#2)
Data Drive (HDDs)

I personally prefer not to have my installs on the same drive as the OS, I like keeping windows contained and separated away. The same as we do in our commercial environments. It also makes for easier backups as we just back up the entire image.


Any reason not to partition? I know it doesn't increase wear or seek time. Any other solutions?

 

[blobster21]

OS drives are already partitioned whether you see it/want it or not.

Adding one more partition would not change a thing. Look at the following Kingston SA400 128Gb drive, which is my OS drive:

 

[Hellfire]

OS drives are already partitioned whether you see it/want it or not.

Adding one more partition would not change a thing. Look at the following Kingston SA400 128Gb drive, which is my OS drive:

View attachment 130498

Cheers, my thoughts exactly.

I know it doesn't affect wear leveling as the SSD doesn't work on a file system level and a partition doesn't actually force Blocks on the SSD to be used in specific partitions. As far as I am aware, the SSD wouldn't even know it had a partition due to how it works.

 

[TheLostSwede]

The only thing to keep in mind, is that as a rule of thumb, you shouldn't fill an SSD to more than 75-80%, as you'll start to lose performance. The smaller the drive, the larger the percentage you're going to want to keep empty.
It becomes harder to calculate this when you partition a drive.

 

[Hellfire]

The only thing to keep in mind, is that as a rule of thumb, you shouldn't fill an SSD to more than 75-80%, as you'll start to lose performance. The smaller the drive, the larger the percentage you're going to want to keep empty.

Absolute, that I understand and do with my current drives, Samsung magician is good at helping with that.

Now here is the kicker, the drive is actually two NVME drives in raid, (I wanted a 256gb OS drive and a 3.5 TB data drive but had to settle on a 2*2TB combo

 

[Sybaris_Caesar]

If you want to lessen endurance of the SSDs even more you can always move the system temp folder and USER folders to the hard disk. I always download and then delete stuff so moved the user files.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I agree that partitioning a SSD will not affect performance or life expectancy of the SSD.

I personally prefer not to have my installs on the same drive as the OS, I like keeping windows contained and separated away.

Umm, that's the difference between a HD and SSD. With the SSD, even with partitions, they are not kept separate. So if that is your goal, partitioning won't do it. You will need two physical drives.

However, in terms in how you "see" or "view" the contents of the SSD via File Manager, the OS folders and your installed applications folders will be "displayed" separately, as if on separate drives. So for "convenience" sake, using partitions can make it "appear" as if you are keeping them separate as the folders will be listed under separate drive letters. But as you correctly pointed out, wear leveling will move the data all over the drive as needed to distribute writes evenly and maximize the life expectancy of the drive - and that, of course, is a good thing.

...as a rule of thumb, you shouldn't fill an SSD to more than 75-80%

Yes. No. Kinda sorta. And actually, this is true of hard drives too. While you will see comments about "rule of thumb" percentages, technically speaking, there is no rule of thumb that is expressed in terms of a percentage. If you had a 2TB drive for example, a rule that was based on that percentage would have you keep 400-500GB of the drive unused! With a 4TB SSD, a full terabyte would go unused! That is a huge waste of space and money! No drive needs that much free space reserved.

If you look on the Samsung, Toshiba OCZ, Intel, WD or any of the other major SSD maker's websites for guidance in optimizing the performance of their SSDs, you won't (at least I couldn't) find any such "rule of thumb" suggestions. And you would think the makers would if it was necessary to keep their SSDs optimized as the makers sure want to keep their customers happy. At least I sure would.

If anyone can find where a manufacturer recommends free space based on a percentage of the drive's total capacity, please post a link. I know Anandtech, The How-too Geek and other respected sites state percentages, but I have never seen a maker do so. And I feel they would know best.

But for sure, whether a HD or a SSD, there does need to be a nice chunk of free space available. IMO, that should be no less than 20 - 30GB, and that is regardless the total space available - when possible. If using a small drive, then clearly, setting aside 30GB may not be practical. But IMO, those drives would not be suitable as a boot drive anyway. They should be used for "static" files and long term storage (like backups).

Boot drives, regardless drive type, need a nice chunk of free space just for the OS to operate freely in - for temporary files, the Page File, and other housekeeping chores. Hard drives need free space for defragging.

Speaking of Page Files, SSDs and Page Files are ideally suited for each other. As noted on the Toshiba OCZ FAQ page,

Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?

Yes. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well.​

As far as Samsung Magician and similar programs from other SSD makers, generally those programs are not needed - especially with Windows 10 which knows very well how to manage and keep optimized SSDs. I note Windows 10 even supports natively, "overprovisioning" without the need for any 3rd party software. So in reality, in most cases, we don't really have to think about keeping a bunch of free disk space in reserve.

I never install Samsung Magician - except to "secure erase" (the SSD equivalent of "wipe" for HDs) all data on SSDs I'm getting rid of.

If you want to lessen endurance of the SSDs even more you can always move the system temp folder and USER folders to the hard disk.

Ummm, pretty sure you meant, "if you want to increase endurance...", not lesson. While perhaps true, I see that step as a way to decrease performance of your entire system! And besides, with recent generations of SSDs, the vast majority of users will NEVER encounter endurance problems with their SSDs. This is why more and more data centers are using SSDs as cache drives for their most often accessed data.

 

[Hellfire]

Bill,

Sorry, absolutely, the "keeping the installs and is separate" comment was at a file system level and not the block level. I understand they'll be mixed throughout the actual SSD but for daily usage, creating back up imagines. This is easiest for me.

Question is, how big a partition for the OS, I was thinking 128GB for OS but wondering if 256 may be better.

 

[micropage7]

Bill,

Sorry, absolutely, the "keeping the installs and is separate" comment was at a file system level and not the block level. I understand they'll be mixed throughout the actual SSD but for daily usage, creating back up imagines. This is easiest for me.

Question is, how big a partition for the OS, I was thinking 128GB for OS but wondering if 256 may be better.

back to your os and apps
128 i guess it's enough except you have many apps

 

[TheLostSwede]

Sorry Bill, but your feelings doesn't have anything to do with it. It has been technically proven that once you fill your drive over, somewhere around 80%, SSDs slow down.
I haven't seen any affordable 4TB drives, so I think that point is a bit moot in this context. Yes, keeping 25% empty might be a bit excessive once you go over 1TB, hence why I suggested a range. It might be 15% once you go 2TB or above, I have only just gotten my first 2TB SSD, so we'll see how I get on with that one.
From experience I can also corroborate these numbers, as the Samsung OEM drive in my laptop was around 80-85% full and it grounded to a halt. Ok, so that's an older and smaller SATA drive, but even so, once I cleared out enough junk on it so it was only around 75% full, it was working at normal speeds again, so it's not just some made up number.
20-30GB isn't enough on many SSDs, unless of course you're happy with 100MB/s sequential read/write speeds.
In all fairness, if there's enough over-provisioning space, the free space you have to keep as a user, might be smaller, but it depends on how the SSD works.
On top of that, if you're using a, Intel QLC drive, you're going to want make sure you have plenty of free space, as their SLC cache shrinks as the free space shrinks, which means the performance drops accordingly.

Source: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/s...ssds/Intel_SSD_660p_EvaluationGuide337971.pdf

The fact that the SSD manufacturers doesn't tell you this, is neither here nor there. They want to sell product and they market the products accordingly and this is why we mainly see mentions of sequential SSD speeds, which have almost reached a moot level at this point in time, whereas IOPS and 4K performance is rarely mentioned, as very few drives stand out in those scenarios.
The fact that you need to keep a fair chunk of your SSD free to get full performance isn't something these companies want to highlight, as they might lose sales if they do.
Have you ever known of a single company that's pointing out the flaws of its products? I don't.
This is an unfortunate downside of how SSDs work.

Bill,

Sorry, absolutely, the "keeping the installs and is separate" comment was at a file system level and not the block level. I understand they'll be mixed throughout the actual SSD but for daily usage, creating back up imagines. This is easiest for me.

Question is, how big a partition for the OS, I was thinking 128GB for OS but wondering if 256 may be better.

Why only those two options?
And what else are you planning on installing on the OS partition?
Currently on my OS drive, I'm using up around 190GB and that includes Windows 10, Office 2016, photo and video editing software and a dozen or so other programs.
Since it's a partition, it could be 150 or 200GB, no need to go with traditional "drive sizes".

 

[theFOoL]

Meh most companies with computers like to have recovery partition, etc. So be prepared to use a live Linux with GParted

 

[Hellfire]

No reason for that number except use to dealing with the 8/16/32/64/128 numbers throughout life. Open to any suggestions.

OS drive will have OS/drivers
Data drive will have Office, Cad, Photoshop, Games, everything else on.

The program files and default install location will be changed via regedit,

 

[TheLostSwede]

No reason for that number except use to dealing with the 8/16/32/64/128 numbers throughout life. Open to any suggestions.

OS drive will have OS/drivers
Data drive will have Office, Cad, Photoshop, Games, everything else on.

The program files and default install location will be changed via regedit,

Right, so you should most likely be ok with 100-130GB then for the OS.

No need to do regedit for that if you're using Windows 10, they've added a feature where you can tell Windows where to install your programs now, although it has some limitations, as it seems it only works with "universal apps".

 

[Hellfire]

Right, so you should most likely be ok with 100-130GB then for the OS.

No need to do regedit for that if you're using Windows 10, they've added a feature where you can tell Windows where to install your programs now, although it has some limitations, as it seems it only works with "universal apps".

View attachment 130504

Cheers, the reg edit is for installing games, just to make it easier when it asks where you want to install it, it defaults to D:\ not C:\ so I don't have to keep manually changing it. If that makes sense.

May go 150GB to give some overhead, can always change it.

Cheers for the help.

 

[Joss]

With the SSD, even with partitions, they are not kept separate

So, if you partition an SSD and install the OS in one partition and files on the other there's no point of imaging just the OS partition?

 

[Hellfire]

So, if you partition an SSD and install the OS in one partition and files on the other there's no point of imaging just the OS partition?

There is, as at the file system level, where the image is taken the data isn't mixed. But on the SSD, the data is mixed.

For example the blocks could have data like the below.

Block#1 (holds drive c: data)
Block#2 (holds drive c: data)
Block#3 (holds drive d: data)
Block#4 (holds drive c: data)
Block#5 (holds drive d: data)
Block#6 (holds drive c: data)

So it's all jumbled, windows doesn't know or care it's jumbled just as the drive doesn't know or care that BLK 3 is the D: and BLK 4 is C:

Where as HDD keeps partitions together, SSDs don't, they're all over the place.

It's also why you NEVER defrag an SSD.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I haven't seen any affordable 4TB drives, so I think that point is a bit moot

That's all relative and what you consider "affordable" or not is just your opinion. Some may find $445 for a 4TB Samsung 860 QVO SSD very affordable these days - especially compared to SSD prices 7 years ago when SSDs were selling for $.99 per GB compared to just $.10 per GB today.

And I sure am not going to recommend any buyer of that SSD set aside and never use a whopping 800 to 1000GB of space.

Your link shows nothing about setting aside any percentage so that's just obfuscation.

Have you ever known of a single company that's pointing out the flaws of its products? I don't.

Its not a flaw with their products. You can fill up a SSD with "static" files (like tunes) and performance is not degraded at all. And I note hard drive makers (often the same as SSD makers) recommend periodic defragging. Is fragmentation a "flaw"? No. Graphics card makers recommend users update drivers. Is that because the old drivers are flawed? Many times, yes!!!

Is it necessary for SSDs to have a nice chunk of free space set aside to ensure optimal performance? Absolutely yes!!!! I never said otherwise. But your 80% figure is just an arbitrary number. Even with a 1TB drive, it is not necessary to set aside a whopping 200GB. That's just wasteful.

So, if you partition an SSD and install the OS in one partition and files on the other there's no point of imaging just the OS partition?

Ummm, that would depend on the imaging program, I would think. In the traditional sense of what a disk image is, I believe you are right. For example, back in the day, to restore an image, the drives had to be the same size. This is because even the blank spaces became part of the image. But I believe marketing weenies have corrupted the definition of "image" today as you can restore an image a different size drive no problem.

It's also why you NEVER defrag an SSD.

You can't defrag a SSD even if you wanted to. Windows will not allow it. This is why in W8 and W10, Windows Defragger was renamed to Disk Optimize. But the reason why you should not defrag a SSD is simply because it places unnecessary and undue wear (writes) on the drive. And you don't defrag a SSD because of how data is stored on and retrieved from a SSD. A hard drive is like a drawer in a file cabinet with the pages (file segments) of the report (file) you need scattered (fragmented) in no particular order from front to back. To retrieve all the pages in the right order, you have to stand in front of the file cabinet and rifle through the drawer sequentially, going back and forth, front to back many times (perhaps 100s!) across the entire drawer (platters) to each storage location, picking up the pages in the correct order. This takes a lot of time - especially if page 1 is in the front and page 2 is in the back then page 3 is somewhere near the middle, and so on. And remember, this is a mechanical arm (read: slow) moving back and forth, with friction generating heat and creating wear and tear too.

For a SSD, think of a mail sorting box. You simply stand in front of the box and directly grab each page of the report. It takes the same amount of time and effort to grab every page, regardless where it is located. It does not matter if the pages are next to each other and in the correct order (not fragmented) or if the pages are scattered all over the place. It takes the exact same amount of time to gather up the whole file in the correct order. And this is not a mechanical arm moving a magnetic Read/Write head back and forth. It is done totally through intelligent electronics (read: very fast).

 

[Joss]

There is, as at the file system level, where the image is taken the data isn't mixed. But on the SSD, the data is mixed.

So if you image partition A (OS) with Macrium reflect and restore it and expect partition B (files) not to be affected, is that possible on a SSD?

 

[Vario]

That's all relative and what you consider "affordable" or not is just your opinion. Some may find $445 for a 4TB Samsung 860 QVO SSD very affordable these days - especially compared to SSD prices 7 years ago when SSDs were selling for $.99 per GB compared to just $.10 per GB today.

And I sure am not going to recommend any buyer of that SSD set aside and never use a whopping 800 to 1000GB of space.

Your link shows nothing about setting aside any percentage so that's just obfuscation.
Its not a flaw with their products. You can fill up a SSD with "static" files (like tunes) and performance is not degraded at all. And I note hard drive makers (often the same as SSD makers) recommend periodic defragging. Is fragmentation a "flaw"? No. Graphics card makers recommend users update drivers. Is that because the old drivers are flawed? Many times, yes!!!

Is it necessary for SSDs to have a nice chunk of free space set aside to ensure optimal performance? Absolutely yes!!!! I never said otherwise. But your 80% figure is just an arbitrary number. Even with a 1TB drive, it is not necessary to set aside a whopping 200GB. That's just wasteful.
Ummm, that would depend on the imaging program, I would think. In the traditional sense of what a disk image is, I believe you are right. For example, back in the day, to restore an image, the drives had to be the same size. This is because even the blank spaces became part of the image. But I believe marketing weenies have corrupted the definition of "image" today as you can restore an image a different size drive no problem.
You can't defrag a SSD even if you wanted to. Windows will not allow it. This is why in W8 and W10, Windows Defragger was renamed to Disk Optimize. But the reason why you should not defrag a SSD is simply because it places unnecessary and undue wear (writes) on the drive. And you don't defrag a SSD because of how data is stored on and retrieved from a SSD. A hard drive is like a drawer in a file cabinet with the pages (file segments) of the report (file) you need scattered (fragmented) in no particular order from front to back. To retrieve all the pages in the right order, you have to stand in front of the file cabinet and rifle through the drawer sequentially, going back and forth, front to back many times (perhaps 100s!) across the entire drawer (platters) to each storage location, picking up the pages in the correct order. This takes a lot of time - especially if page 1 is in the front and page 2 is in the back then page 3 is somewhere near the middle, and so on. And remember, this is a mechanical arm (read: slow) moving back and forth, with friction generating heat and creating wear and tear too.

For a SSD, think of a mail sorting box. You simply stand in front of the box and directly grab each page of the report. It takes the same amount of time and effort to grab every page, regardless where it is located. It does not matter if the pages are next to each other and in the correct order (not fragmented) or if the pages are scattered all over the place. It takes the exact same amount of time to gather up the whole file in the correct order. And this is not a mechanical arm moving a magnetic Read/Write head back and forth. It is done totally through intelligent electronics (read: very fast).

Win 7 was defragging one of my NVMe, caught it doing so and remedied it in the scheduler.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Win 7 was defragging one of my NVMe, caught it doing so and remedied it in the scheduler.

Not possible - not unless the NVME SSD (or your BIOS firmware) was defective!

Remember, the defragging program in W7 is called "Disk Defragmenter". And it provides different services depending on the drive type. But it does not defrag SSDs. It does, however, run TRIM (if supported by the drive) and will appear in TM and scheduler as Disk Defragmenter because that is the name of the running program. Disk Defragmenter may run on the SSD, but it is not defragging the SSD.

That caused confusion for many and is exactly why Microsoft renamed "Disk Defragmenter" to "Optimize Drives" in W8/W10.

When a drive device is detected in the BIOS during boot, the device tells the BIOS firmware it is either a HD or SSD. You can confirm this by looking in your BIOS Setup Menu. Windows (or Linux) then learns during POST what type of drives are attached and will only run the appropriate routines for that drive type. Windows will NOT, for example, try to run TRIM or wear leveling on a HD.

 

[Ruyki]

I have Windows 7 with 2 SSDs and 2 mechanical drives. Windows periodically automatically defragments both mechanical drives but does not touch the SSDs (the defragment tool lists them as "Never run"). I didn't have to change any settings to achieve this. By this I mean it's the default behavior, at least on my system.

 

[trog100]

i always run a smaller C drive.. it was was just a smaller ssd now its a partition on a fast 1T nvme drive.. 126 gb is enough.. i use macreum to make a daily back ups of my C drive..

actually a virgin windows install is only around 20 gb.. though mine has grown to 90 or so.. the install is a few years old.. user data seems the culprit.. i install anything big on my other drives but the C drive still keeps growing.. he he

trog

 

[theFOoL]

I have Windows 7 with 2 SSDs and 2 mechanical drives. Windows periodically automatically defragments both mechanical drives but does not touch the SSDs (the defragment tool lists them as "Never run"). I didn't have to change any settings to achieve this. By this I mean it's the default behavior, at least on my system.

Heh good to know. Did this happen by default or by the Latest Windows 7 Image?

 

[Ruyki]

Heh good to know. Did this happen by default or by the Latest Windows 7 Image?

It was like that since I installed Windows back in 2014.