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Started by Linnaeus | | 3 answers
SSD Storage Capacity Question
I hear that it is bad to have your SSD at max capacity all the time. I'm planning to get a 120GB SSD. How much storage space should I leave to avoid reaching detrimental capacities? What about 240GB?
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a b G Storage
August 9, 2014 7:50:34 AM

In my original reply I said check the manufacturers web site..
What I meant to say was that (in my experience).. all the drives come with a management tool.. and they will have details and guides on how to set it up..
Page file on/off ... Pagefile size.. set up trim.. how much free space.. prefetch.. etc etc etc
So just read what it says and follow the guidance for your specific SSD..

HTH
Cheers
a b G Storage
August 9, 2014 7:32:43 AM

I believe I heard somewhere that it was 10% for mechanical hard drives and 20% for SSDs.

With mechanical drives it made more sense considering data was stored physically using tiny dots on platters, with an SSD, it's looks similar in a way, but it's stored in cells.
SSDs have no concept of where each cell needs to be, it won't operate faster if they were all neatly organised in the same way defragging a HDD would do - With that said it's still probably advisable that you leave a certain percentage for longevity sakes.

I would go with the 10% really, 20% sounds like a bit too much, especially on larger capacity drives.

Don't forget to also optimise things like the Page File and Hibernation within Windows when you buy it.
a b G Storage
August 9, 2014 4:24:49 AM

check the drive manufacturers web site..
For instance my Samsung 830 256GB says 10%... but my Intel 520 does not specify (I think it has some internal memory not part of the 120GB.. so you as a user don't need worry about it)
As a rule of thumb.. 10% I would say..

HTH
Cheers

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