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Sandforce SSD Manual Overprovisioning.

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thistleknot said:
I have a theory, I think manual over-provisioning is useful if you plan on filling up your entire hd, my theory is, more space will be available to do trim.

The only case this may be beneficial is if your using your hard drive as a cache. Such as the synapse ocz 128GB that is over-provisioned to 50%.

I was reading about over provisioning a sandforce ssd, but then thought it didn't make sense reading this forum, but then realized that ocz does just that with their synapse drive.

So, maybe over-provisioning allows faster recovery of cells?
Click to expand...

old hippie is right. The thread was created when firmware was a bit more immature than it is now and things have progressed a bit. Only a bit though and nothing near drastic has been changed with regard to this controllers internal function and on the fly recovery process.

BUT.. I will say this to help you along just in case it's of any use for your particular usage model.

Having more spare area on these particular controllers does in fact help to create more headroom to better avoid throttling and temporary slowdowns associated with the firmwares on-the-fly recovery processes. We have to remember that the controller/processor is only so powerful and it has specific firmware algorithms coded into it and can be slowed on occasion.. and even throttled for longer periods of time if the GB's written exceeds the available "fresh block pool" too consistently. That's why larger drives are always better from a "performance consistency" standpoint and it's not just all about storage space and total lifespan.

Me personally?.. I use the bejesus out of my drives whenever I can and I would NEVER EVER use them in my particular workloads without some extra slack space set aside. I've tested them both ways very heavily and one way is always superior to the other for long term speed consistency. Manual OP does work.

Hope that helps ease your concerns if you do write heavily.. especially to an overly full drive. Otherwise, with typical light to medium write loads.. just keep it below about 70% full and don't sweat it at all. :thumbsup:
 
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