Norton Security and SSD

[TheGardener]

Just renewed my subscription. Last month I updated to the latest version. I think I had Internet Security 2014 prior to that. I saw new Performance features in the new ugly interface, and figured out fairly quickly that Norton was cleaning out my temp files. I prefer doing this stuff myself, but I let it go for the moment.

Then yesterday I saw a Norton window popup informing me that my drive had been optimized. I have an SSD drive and my research from last year recommended not to defrag the SSD drive, as clusters are not fragmented and defragging an SSD drive shortens its life. I turned off Windows 7 scheduled defrag routine.

So after seeing the popup, I went to the Norton support site and found the following:

"In Windows 7, Disk Optimization is not compatible with SSD drives."

Sorry can't fined the link, but I don't understand why Norton can't detect Windows 7 and the SSD drive before "optimizing". Or do I not understand what Norton Security is attempting to do. I have turned off all the Performance features, as far as I can tell.

 

[Captante]

Norton considers removing temp-files to be "optimizing the drive" and will not defrag SSD's unless you over-ride settings manually for some reason.

 

[TheGardener]

Norton considers removing temp-files to be "optimizing the drive" and will not defrag SSD's unless you over-ride settings manually for some reason.

Thank you for your response. In the previous version I was using, Norton's Internet Security 2014, there were no cleanup or optimization tools, or at least none that I previously installed. But I am advising that the default for the newest version of Norton's Security, has a default to defrag the drive.

My override was to change that default setting under Tasks Scheduled for Disk Optimization from checked to unchecked. I only found out that the feature existed, because a window popped up to inform me that the disk optimization ran successively. Prior to that popup, I never even opened the Tasks Scheduled window.

 

[Mushkins]

Norton considers removing temp-files to be "optimizing the drive" and will not defrag SSD's unless you over-ride settings manually for some reason.

Why would you want to defrag an SSD in the first place? The firmware handles optimization of where data is stored on the drive, defragging it just undoes everything the firmware did and forces it to start over. This puts unnecessary wear on the drive.