I just got a Crucial MX500 SSD, and the software that comes with it recommends reserving at least 50GB for "over-provisioning," to provide space for load leveling.
But when I was trying to find out more about it, I found this post from a Micron employee, talking specifically about Crucial SSDs:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/451275-ssd-partitioning-is-reserve-space-necessary
"A key point is that, for most SSDs, and probably all of them from the big manufacturers, ANY UNUSED SPACE is used to manage garbage collection and wear leveling. It doesn't matter if it's unpartitioned space or if is is simply unused within the partition."
That makes it sound like I'll get the benefits of wear leveling without specifically setting up an over-provisioning region, and of course I'd like to have the extra 50 GB if it doesn't shorten the life of the drive. Plus, I keep reading that SSD's now are good for at least 10 years under normal use (I'm using it as my Win10 boot drive), even without heroic measures to extend their lives. And finally, I've also read that all SSD's come from the factory with about 7% reserved space for wear leveling, and that remains reserved no matter what the end user does.
So, should I go ahead and use the whole drive?
But when I was trying to find out more about it, I found this post from a Micron employee, talking specifically about Crucial SSDs:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/451275-ssd-partitioning-is-reserve-space-necessary
"A key point is that, for most SSDs, and probably all of them from the big manufacturers, ANY UNUSED SPACE is used to manage garbage collection and wear leveling. It doesn't matter if it's unpartitioned space or if is is simply unused within the partition."
That makes it sound like I'll get the benefits of wear leveling without specifically setting up an over-provisioning region, and of course I'd like to have the extra 50 GB if it doesn't shorten the life of the drive. Plus, I keep reading that SSD's now are good for at least 10 years under normal use (I'm using it as my Win10 boot drive), even without heroic measures to extend their lives. And finally, I've also read that all SSD's come from the factory with about 7% reserved space for wear leveling, and that remains reserved no matter what the end user does.
So, should I go ahead and use the whole drive?