To Defragment SSDs or Not to Defragment Them?

[tbcda]

Please advise whether – and how often - I should defragment the SSD System Drives on my HP Envy Desktop & my wife’s HP Pavilion Desktop. I use Piriform Defraggler to defragment the Data Drives (HDDs) on both PCs, but Defraggler warns that defragmenting a SSD will shorten its life. Both PCs are three years old and I have never defragmented the SSDs. I have checked the HP Envy SSD (256 GB) and it has 5,602 fragmented files in 28,258 fragments (8% Fragmentation). Three files each have 1500+ fragments. In total, the SSD holds 294,549 files in 68,615 folders of total size 58 GB.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Never defragment a SSD. 

Since there are no movable platters in a SSD, the files stay in one place not like on a hard drive, where the defragmenting tool actually consolidates and moves them for best performance.

You use the defragment and optimize drives utility found in the Windows Administrative Tools section of your programs listing.

Set it to automatically run on a schedule, and you won't have to be concerned about running it.

Or you can run it anytime you want.

Your SSD will be 'Trimmed,' which is the equivalent of defragmenting on a SSD.

[tbcda]

Hello Paul,

Thank you for your helpful reply. I have done the ’Optimization’ on the System SSDs of both my HP Envy & my wife’s HP Pavilion and both seem to be OK. The ‘Defragment & Optimize’ section would not allow me to defragment the SSDs, but I guess this is to be expected.

The system seems to have done an automatic Optimization about 80 days ago – probably when I installed the July 2019 Windows 10 Feature Update.

I will accept your solution to close the thread, but perhaps you might find time to address the following two loose ends?

• Both System SSDs still show a large number of fragments – similar to previously – so perhaps you would kindly confirm whether (or not)  this is to be expected?
• Additionally, I am old and past it - so am unfamiliar with the term ‘Trimmed’: perhaps you would kindly explain what this means in a bit more detail?

With thanks again – and Best Regards … tbcda

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

The 'fragmented' data blocks on your SSD are totally normal and are to be expected.

This article explains what Trim does.

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/simple-questions-what-trim-ssds-why-it-useful