Why does my SSD says its full when it isnt?

Daniel_Baines2000 · Apr 10, 2016

I had a 250gb hard drive and a 60gb ocz vertex 2 (about 55gb actually). Last week the hard drive died on me so I pulled it out. The pc worked again but the ssd says it has 7gb free but when I copy the whole files to my usb it says there is only 27gb used. Another thing to note (I know not many people car about windows index anymore but...) is that windows index has gone from a 7.1 to a 5.9 on my boot device (the ssd.)

Why? Any ideas?

USAFRet · Apr 10, 2016

Daniel_Baines2000 :

Because your "copy" is not copying everything. You are probably missing some hidden files and folders.

dudeman509 · Apr 10, 2016

Run a disk cleanup. Old system restore points take up quite a bit of space if you want to remove those (it will save the most recent one).

Solandri · Apr 10, 2016

Daniel_Baines2000 :

Windows defaults to allowing system restore points to take up 50% of the disk. 60 - 27 used - 7 free = 26 GB, which is just about 50%. So go to the system restore settings and reduce how much space it's allowed to use to something like 3 GB.

Another thing to note (I know not many people car about windows index anymore but...) is that windows index has gone from a 7.1 to a 5.9 on my boot device (the ssd.)

SSDs get slower when they start to run out of free space. HDDs can overwrite a 0 with a 1, or a 1 with 0. SSDs can't. They have to first erase the memory cell, which prepares it to write either a 0 or a 1. This erase step is a lot slower than the write step. Slow as a HDD or even slower. (If you're an electrical engineer, it functions like an EEPROM.)

So SSDs do this erase step in the background when the drive is not being used, to keep the maximum amount of free space available to write. That way you never notice the slow erase step. Until you start to run low on free space. Then you run a benchmark which writes and erases a bunch of data to the SSD, it runs out of pre-erased cells, and is forced to erase deleted memory cells before it can write new data.

As a general guideline, you should try to keep about 15%-25% of your SSD empty. Factor that into your capacity requirement when buying the SSD. Some manufacturers help you do this by keeping a certain amount of free space as reserve. So the SSD may report itself as 120 GB but it actually contains 128 GB, with the extra 8 GB hidden and not included in the drive's capacity so you always have at least 8 GB of free space.

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Why does my SSD says its full when it isnt?

Daniel_Baines2000

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