Solid State Drives (SSD or “flash drives“) have become increasingly popular in recent years and have come to compete with traditional hard drives as very fast storage media. The sole use of memory chips accounts for all the moving mechanical parts you find in a traditional hard disk, meaning SSDs have lower power consumption and generate less heat. In addition, SSDs operate silently and are insensitive to shock or vibration.
One thing however has not changed: anyone using an SSD, whether that is as a stand-alone disk or combined with traditional hard disks, still needs to optimize their SSDs, make backup copies of the data on their SSDs, securely delete data from them and rescue data from them when it goes missing. In other words, they may be different disks but the people using them still need to care for them as they do for their traditional hard disks.
One major difference – Defragmentation and SSDs
The question often asked is whether SSDs need to be defragmented. The answer is no. An SSD stores cells of data on so-called flash blocks. An SSD can distribute a file that is non-fragmented across thousands of different flash blocks without that having a negative impact on speed of access and performance. As we already know, when Windows does that with a file on a traditional hard disk it has a substantial impact on access and performance. A defragmentation of an SSD is not only unnecessary but if it is done on a regular basis it can actually have a negative impact on the life expectancy of an SSD. The reasons for this are too detailed to cover here in total so if you would like to read more on the technical background, please take a look at our white paper “O&O Defrag and solid state drives” which provides a thorough, technical explanation.
O&O Defrag uses TRIM technology to extend life span of SSDs
“In computing, a TRIM command allows an operating system to inform a solid-state drive (SSD) which blocks of data are no longer considered in use and can be wiped internally.” (Source: Wikipedia) TRIM commands were implemented in the latest ATA Standards and are used to instruct the internal management in an SSD to intelligently wipe data from blocks that are no longer being used in order to create space and to avoid wear and tear. What O&O Defrag does is it implements these TRIM commands too. First, it recognizes the actual existence of an SSD. Secondly, O&O Defrag then uses TRIM to optimize SSDs while at the same time running a normal defrag process on any traditional hard disks that it recognizes in the setup.
For the first time then, O&O Defrag allows a user-friendly solution for optimizing all the drives on a computer – regardless of their manufacturer, or whether they are SSDs or mechanical hard disks.
The bottom line
Whilst defragmentation of SSDs leads to no improvement in their performance, and may even negatively influence their life expectancy, the automatic and regular execution of the TRIM command by O&O Defrag increases SSD performance while simultaneously defragmenting traditional hard disks – a win-win situation regardless of your disk setup and regardless of your disk manufacturer.
And as for your data security (stopping unauthorized access), your data backups or computer images and data rescue, you still have those basic everyday needs with SSDs that you have with HDDs. These needs can be met as before by products from O&O Software and O&O Complete Protection. With 16 years experience in optimizing performance and protecting your data and our status as Microsoft Gold Partner, we can move seamlessly forward in tandem with Windows new technology and hardware advances. For more information on of all these topics and to try or buy our solutions, check out our Study or go to our website.
