Windows keeps defragging one of my SSDs

[chrcoluk]

I have read it included the paragraph you quoted, the process has finished now and its stopped auto defragging, so what I can observe its doing what Microsoft have said should happen which is a defrag every month on SSDs which have shadowcopy enabled.

 

[Bill_Bright]

which is a defrag every month on SSDs which have shadowcopy enabled.

"IF" needed.

And not the same defrag as performed on a hard drive which essentially touches the whole disk.

I think at this point, set your calendar and see what happens in 30 days.

 

[Deleted member 57642]

Shortly after installing Windows - i always disable Scheduled Optimizations. I even disable the service SysMain, Indexing, FastBoot, etc. Since i moved to SSD for main tasks - i find most of this old-school optimizations redundant. I still defragment the HDD and trim the SSD once a week (or longer) - Manually - but not Automatic. I don't like to take a brake - and when i come back to feel like the system is running sluggish all of a sudden - cause of some of this features running in the background (except for the AV - since i never noticed any negative impact or slight slowdown - on a SSD).

Your Windows seems bugged too. As others mentioned above - defrag option shouldn't be available for an SSD. Only Trim.

 

[Mussels]

Sounds like that disk was formatted or cloned from an existing one, and while windows in the task manager is aware its an SSD, the file system internally must be marked as a mechanical drive somehow



Empty the disk out, use diskpart to clean it and re-format it as GPT/NTFS, copy the files back and see how it behaves

Being an F: drive it shouldnt exactly have bootable content on it, such as bootloaders or anything - but if the drive was cloned or repurposed it's entirely possible they exist, even invisibly

 

[chrcoluk]

Thanks for the comment, I can confirm it was not cloned, it was previously my OS SSD before I got the 980 Pro, and when it went back in it was reformatted (and repartitioned) using the built in windows disk management tool, so the existing boot partitions no longer exist. Its a single NTFS partition with around 10% of unpartitioned space afterwards.

The data from old mechanical F: drive was backed up via file and folders in Macrium (not image), and then restored via files and folder in Macrium. This was done deliberately instead of image/clone to ensure it was a fresh start on the partition.

Did you have a look at https://www.hanselman.com/blog/the-real-and-complete-story-does-windows-defragment-your-ssd ?

 

[eidairaman1]

Windows.

Windows 10

Check the Task Scheduler too

 

[claes]

Thanks for the comment, I can confirm it was not cloned, it was previously my OS SSD before I got the 980 Pro, and when it went back in it was reformatted (and repartitioned) using the built in windows disk management tool, so the existing boot partitions no longer exist. Its a single NTFS partition with around 10% of unpartitioned space afterwards.

The data from old mechanical F: drive was backed up via file and folders in Macrium (not image), and then restored via files and folder in Macrium. This was done deliberately instead of image/clone to ensure it was a fresh start on the partition.

Did you have a look at https://www.hanselman.com/blog/the-real-and-complete-story-does-windows-defragment-your-ssd ?

There’s a long thread over here about what’s actually happening to your SSD

Are there wear problems from partitioning a SSD?

My way of politely questioning birdie https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/are-there-wear-problems-from-partitioning-a-ssd.297459/post-4811935 He was saying that Defrag utility in Windows runs TRIM on a SSD, right?

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Mussels]

using the built in windows disk management tool, so the existing boot partitions no longer exist.

Disk management should cover it all, but i'd still check if the disk is GPT or MBR

Generally what happens when a file is being defragged vs the entire drive, is that one file is read and written again - and the previous copy is deleted and marked as free space. Shadow copies keep that second copy as a second tier of "in use" for the ability to be un-deleted

So while reading "SSD defrag" might be worrying if its the case of writing a single extra file? It's nothing at all.

Those links specifically cover exceptions where they need to be defragged since they need contiguous space for the snapshots to work properly, but that;s unlikely to even double the write load of what's being written let alone amplify them even further


This is my 1TB drive in Defraggler

If the snapshots needed more space they use up that solid white space near the bottom, then move whatevers below (especially already fragmented files) up into the free space higher above

That's not the same as running a full defrag like defragglers free space defrag or ultimate defrags alphabetical system where every single file gets moved, and possibly more than once
File defrags and disk defrags are very veeeeeery different in terms of writes, and windows tools only do file defrags - "quick" defrags


The reason this is done is to REDUCE writes. To prevent one large file needing to be written to 10 half full NAND cells instead of to 5 empty ones - Not to add more or wear the drive out.

Deletes don't use a write - they simply mark the space as empty, when they're just removing it's location from the file table.

Gah as a great example, this bastard of a file is spread over 16,000 fragments on my C: drive
Great job, Ryzen master!
It's gunna take a lot less writes to do one contiguous file, vs 16,000 fragments to NAND with existing files in them

One of my games files (~10GB) had 5,000 fragments
Zero concern from me to defrag that one file to speed it's load times up

 

[chrcoluk]

It is GPT.

 

[chrcoluk]

It did another so those who are curious how often it would be done, it was today, also on the gaming partition (that one completed almost instantly though as its done practically no writes for months).

So about a 4 month gap.