Necessary to over-provision 840 Pro with Windows 8

[Eyeonthesky]

I have a fresh install of Windows 8 on a Samsung 840 Pro SSD. I know it comes over-provisioned by 7 percent from the factory already. I'm only really concerned about drive life and don't know if it's really necessary for me to use Samsung's Magician software to increase the over-provisioning. I know older drives it was a good idea but I'm not sure about this newer 840 Pro in combination with Windows 8. I've spent a lot of time looking for this info specific to my SSD.

 

[Mir96TA]

NO
not at all

 

[kbp]

Just do not fill it up much over 70% capacity.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Also ensure defrag is not scheduled to run. In win7 I had to manually turn it off as it's on by default. Defrag is a pretty quick way to kill a SSD as they spread data by nature so the defrag would probably just run forever. Never tried it though. Not sure if win8 has it disabled by default.

 

[Eyeonthesky]

Thanks guys. I was pretty sure I just needed to avoid over filling the drive and I'd be okay. And yes I've been through a recent tweaking guide and so I've got defrag turned off. Thanks again

 

[WilliamM2]

Also ensure defrag is not scheduled to run. In win7 I had to manually turn it off as it's on by default. Defrag is a pretty quick way to kill a SSD as they spread data by nature so the defrag would probably just run forever. Never tried it though. Not sure if win8 has it disabled by default.

I have never had Win 7 turn on scheduled defrag for SSD's by default. Only standard HDD's are enabled by default. 8 is the same.

 

[SSBrain]

On Windows 7 when the defrag service is enabled, it doesn't take SSDs into account.
It is possible to see this in scheduled defrag settings. SSDs can't be selected at all, as they do not even appear in the list.

So in case of a system with both HDD and SDD installed (I guess the great majority of desktop systems), it's kind of stupid to disable this service completely as in this way hard disks won't be defragmented as needed.

On Windows 8 the OS performs either scheduled TRIM or defragmentation depending on the drive (SDD/HDD). So again, its related service should not be disabled.


There might be rare cases where SSDs aren't properly detected as such, like older/cheap SSD or RAID controllers, so if this is your case it might be worth to check settings to make sure they are suitable for your hardware. With relatively modern hardware this shouldn't be necessary though. By the way, I have an X25-E SSD in one of my systems and on Windows 7 it does get detected as an SSD, so it's not that cutting-edge hardware is a requirement for that.

 

[ArchAngel777]

I have never had Win 7 turn on scheduled defrag for SSD's by default. Only standard HDD's are enabled by default. 8 is the same.

Same here. Never had any of my Win7 installs turn it on for an SSD.

 

[spandexninja]

Also ensure defrag is not scheduled to run. In win7 I had to manually turn it off as it's on by default. Defrag is a pretty quick way to kill a SSD as they spread data by nature so the defrag would probably just run forever. Never tried it though. Not sure if win8 has it disabled by default.

W8 defrag doesn't actually defrag the SSD, even if you tell it to. I forget what it does but it won't reduce the life.