Is SSD performance best without partitioning?

3dfxVoodoo · Sep 9, 2014

I've just bought my Samsung 850 Pro (256GB) and about to reinstall OS on it.

I have been wondering for some time if there would be any performance difference from loading the game files from another SSD instead of making a second partition on my new system SSD?

I'm not thinking about graphical frames per second, but overall performance feel of my operating system and in games, as in load times etc.
Will you recommend me to store my games on my other SSD (840 Pro) ?

I remember from mechanical HDD's that it could matter performance wise if you made partitions or not.
Do SSD's care about this in terms of reliability and response times in various tasks of smaller and larger operations?

A short technical explanation of your reasoning is appreciated

Thank you.

MeteorsRaining · Sep 9, 2014

I cannot fully 100% say for sure, but assuming an SSD follows the same rule of an HDD, no, it will not. Unless the partition is being ACCESSED, there will be no slow down whatsoever, or performance loss. For example, if you partition 10GBs off of your SSD to store certain games, unless those games are being accessed, there will be no performance loss, because there are no files being accessed.

^http://www.overclock.net/t/1195914/will-a-partitioned-ssd-run-slower

Partitioning doesn't have any performance drops until you access multiple programs from multiple partitions at the same time. Just make sure for them to be big enough to not suffocate and leave some space free in each partition for repair and leveling.

250GB is big enough to store the C drive, including games, so I guess you won't need the other SSD until you've really filled up 175-200GB with just programs/ games.

USAFRet · Sep 9, 2014

Rule of thumb for partitions:
Whatever partition you are trying to use at a particular moment, it will be too small.

e.g. If you partition off 10GB for whatever, you will soon need 10.5GB.

Partitioning used to be beneficial when drive space was really, really expensive, and applications/games didn't need to be reinstalled if you hosed up the OS.
Today, not so much. Better done with individual drives or just top level folders.

rhysiam · Sep 9, 2014

I'm not sure that's the best explanation...

If you partition a mechanical HDDs, it will allocate the data from the outside of the drive in. In that case you can gain a slight performance edge on the first partition. I believe (though please correct me if someone has more accurate information) that this is because the outer edge of the drive is covering more distance per second than the inner edge, meaning reads and writes are slightly quicker.

What I know for sure is that SSDs operate completely differently. The reason they are so fast is that they use multiple channels and effectively split your data up and write it across the multiple channels. You end up with data spread out completely throughout your NAND. The location of your actual data is completely abstracted from the filesystem. In other words, the SSD itself doesn't care whether data is partitioned or not, it makes no difference.

Obviously if you're trying to read/write intensively then having those commands spread across two separate SSDs will perform faster than it would on one drive. However partitioning is irrelevant.

I agree with others - there's no point partitioning an SSD unless you want to regularly reinstall or OS and don't need the whole drive for the OS... OR, if you want to dual boot with two separate OSs from the same SSD.

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