Shouldn't use more than 75% of SSD??

[Blue_Max]

I'm fairly new to this tidbit... it seems that using more than ~75% of a SSD begins to really affect its performance.

If this is the case, is it across the physical disk? (Say, an entire 120GB SSD) or is per partition? Specifically, a 120GB drive with a 64GB Intel SRT cache, the rest of the drive either used as another partition or just left empty.

If it's per drive, it would make sense to use a 120GB SSD, dedicate 64GB to SRT then leave the remainder unused.

If it's per partition, SRT would have no way of controlling that 64GB to ensure it remains optimal.


Any experts able to chime in?

 

[Elixer]

Yeah, lots of SSDs have issues when they get too full.
It is across the whole disk, not partition.
Some are more over provisioned than others though.

 

[ShintaiDK]

HDs gets terrible slow too when full.

I havent seen an issue with speed at 75%. Maybe around 95%. But nothing I noticed yet.

In short, dont worry about it, dont care about it until you can actually feel it outside a benchmark.

 

[Cerb]

When the SSD gets full, it's running out of free space to easily map, so it slows down, and your WA will go up. Enterprise SSDs have lots of spare area, while consumer SSDs tend to have at most ~12%, with most at ~7%, and some, like the Sandisk Ultra Plus, and Samsung 840 Evo, being a bit more complicated (~7% or ~9% is set aside, but less than is actually available).

With more spare area, it's easy for the SSD to make new writes simple and sequential, and keep its mapping structures from getting too deep. Likewise, free space from OS' side allows it to allocate space better, minimizing file-level fragmentation.

With free space and TRIM support, you get the effects of having more spare area, on most SSDs, when you have the space free, while still having that space to use if you need it. Also, even so, most current SSDs can maintain <1ms access times >1k IOPS, even when 100% full, with the regular 7% free space (still much slower than not being full, but also still many times faster than HDDs, and often faster than older SSDs with plenty of free space).

 

[TemjinGold]

When my old G2 160gb hit past 75% filled the real world speed plummeted. I don't know if that still happens on newer SSDs but we're not talking a benchmark-only difference--we're talking it took me as long as a spindle to open MS Word.

 

[DigDog]

is this even an issue? you don't store data on the SSD, you store it on the HDD. i hardly believe you can get 150Gb worth of applications on your system drive. and if you can, you probably can afford a bigger SSD.
15gb W7 + 10~Gb basic apps (firewall, antivirus, zip, DT, a media player, etc, the basic stuff)
then what ? 90Gb worth of video editing software? really?

 

[SparkyJJO]

Friend of mine has a 64GB M4 as his OS/program drive and it gets pretty darn full. Still seems to run OK though.

 

[beginner99]

I'm fairly new to this tidbit... it seems that using more than ~75% of a SSD begins to really affect its performance.

If this is the case, is it across the physical disk? (Say, an entire 120GB SSD) or is per partition? Specifically, a 120GB drive with a 64GB Intel SRT cache, the rest of the drive either used as another partition or just left empty.

If it's per drive, it would make sense to use a 120GB SSD, dedicate 64GB to SRT then leave the remainder unused.

If it's per partition, SRT would have no way of controlling that 64GB to ensure it remains optimal.


Any experts able to chime in?

My old 80 GB G2 recently was completely full because Acronis true Image automatically without me telling it to do so activated system restore. (Note: Acronis is full of bugs, I do not know why it get cited so often, IMHO it sucks).

Anyway at that point I had like 100 Mb left on it and it became very, very slow compared to normal. Felt like I was using an old, full and soon to fail HDD (except the lack of noise ).

I would say it depends what you do but filling it up to 85%-90% should be fine too in most cases. The slowness then happens when you do heavy multi-tasking including writing. But for the average OS install that should not matter.

 

[Cerb]

is this even an issue? you don't store data on the SSD

Yes, we do. What there's no point in storing is data where access time doesn't matter. If access time matters, and it can fit on the SSD, why put it on an HDD?

you store it on the HDD. i hardly believe you can get 150Gb worth of applications on your system drive.

It's easy. My Bethesda/Obsidian games folders almost total 150GB, and will surely exceed that very shortly, now that I have a PC where Skyrim isn't fuzzy nor a slideshow. It wasn't terrible on an HDD, after the first loading (after which most of what was needed at any given time was cached), but it is worth spending my SSD's space on them.

and if you can, you probably can afford a bigger SSD.
15gb W7 + 10~Gb basic apps (firewall, antivirus, zip, DT, a media player, etc, the basic stuff)
then what ? 90Gb worth of video editing software? really?

No, though you can use that much with enough different productivity software applications (not many are small). You'll have a 8-16GB page file, 6-16GB hibernate file, and then space was a way of gradually disappearing, between crud from applications, WinSXS, metadata collections, and so on (Win7 is about 15GB without a page file or hibernate file).

 

[razel]

Don't worry about it. Like everyone has mentioned, in real life, if you have an HDD at 75% or more capacity then you are already thinking about how to deal with that space. Ok Ok... in real life if you are beyond 75% capacity then you are an average joe downloading alot of p0rn or movies.

Regardless that 25% spare area-test is an investigation by Anand of a near-worse case scenario and affects write performance FAR more than read. It should be one of the last things to consider when purchasing SSDs. Your primary decisions in no particular order should be capacity, price, warranty. Yes... performance is not one of them... if you blind test yourself you won't be able to tell a difference in real life between any 2013 model SSDs. Even if you COULD, you wouldn't care to pay for the difference. You'd rather spend that difference on a larger sized SSD.

 

[swchoi89]

Right noow, I have about 92% filled up on one. I just installed a new SSD which has additional 240GB. Should I transfer some games over?? I mean, I haven't reaely noticed anything slow.

 

[TemjinGold]

is this even an issue? you don't store data on the SSD, you store it on the HDD. i hardly believe you can get 150Gb worth of applications on your system drive. and if you can, you probably can afford a bigger SSD.
15gb W7 + 10~Gb basic apps (firewall, antivirus, zip, DT, a media player, etc, the basic stuff)
then what ? 90Gb worth of video editing software? really?

You can believe what you want to believe and yes, I can afford a bigger SSD. That's why I replaced my G2. I was simply sharing my experience with it because the OP asked.

 

[jiffylube1024]

I'm fairly new to this tidbit... it seems that using more than ~75% of a SSD begins to really affect its performance.

If this is the case, is it across the physical disk? (Say, an entire 120GB SSD) or is per partition? Specifically, a 120GB drive with a 64GB Intel SRT cache, the rest of the drive either used as another partition or just left empty.

If it's per drive, it would make sense to use a 120GB SSD, dedicate 64GB to SRT then leave the remainder unused.

If it's per partition, SRT would have no way of controlling that 64GB to ensure it remains optimal.


Any experts able to chime in?

It's across the entire drive, so if you had a 120 gb ssd and made a single 100gb partition and left the rest as spare space you could comfortably fill up your ssd to high 90% (say 95gb+) and have zero slowdown.

It's not per partition, ssd controllers map data dynamically across the entire drive based free space space. This is unlike hdds which simply block off physical chunks of the drive for partitions (which is also why the first partition on hdds are the fastest - because they use the larger outside tracks of the physical disk).

 

[DigDog]

Yes, we do.

I disagree with you, but i respect your liberty to do as you please with your SSD.
I simply don't believe much of my stored data needs that access time; and i don't find any use in 16Gb of page file, nor do i use hybernate - when i can start and shut down in a few seconds - and i dont keep 160Gb of games on my machine.

 

[Cerb]

I disagree with you, but i respect your liberty to do as you please with your SSD.

How can you just "disagree"? You said that we don't do it, but we in fact do. Being able to do so is quite nice, as it allows cold starts to be fast, and starts with changes to mods to be fast, along with save scrolling. It's not Earth-shattering or anything, IMO (which is very much unlike some others' opinions, here), but it's worth spending the money for, at the same time. Some MMOs, and even a few current FPSes, are known to be disk-limited, too, and are best put on SSDs.

Different users have different uses for their hardware. Some users couldn't fill up a 120GB drive if they tried. Some still haven't found a good cloud backup service for their TBs of data (though, Glacier is getting popular), which typically includes audio, video, photos, and/or scans. Some are just packrats, and feel they must keep crap they don't need that they used to have on floppies, so have excess data all over. Some get documents sent all the time in their email, and can have 50GB+ inboxes. The very amount of space needed varies all over the place.

But then, there are performance priorities. If you run databases (even if you don't know it, like a non-techie accountant, or CAD program user), regardless of size, you want an SSD specifically for your data. I've seen several accounting software packages that quickly become HDD-limited. If you edit video, you generally want to use an SSD for your working data, if it can fit. And so on. There's no reason for basic sequentially accessed large data sets to go on the SSD, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of data out there fit for SSDs.

I simply don't believe much of my stored data needs that access time;

And maybe it doesn't. I also have a much bigger HDD, and am not putting everything possible on the SSD.

and i don't find any use in 16Gb of page file, nor do i use hybernate - when i can start and shut down in a few seconds - and i dont keep 160Gb of games on my machine.

160GB of games? No, I was only counting my sandbox Bethesda & Obsidian ones, there . Right now that and DF (which is portable by nature) are all I have, but that's just because I haven't taken the time to move other games (in particular, my modded TW2 install, which I was in the middle of a replay of, when my old mobo crapped out). Still, I only have one of those, the games, and non-modded/moddable ones I'll probably put and leave on the HDD. But most people don't even mess with those settings, or they read something like, "if you have 4GB RAM, you should disable the page file," and then have some kind of issue trying to play new games, or open too many Chrome or IE instances, or whatever else .

 

[DigDog]

because the smaller capacity of the SSD demands a more sensible approach to data hoarding - for the regular consumer. (i.e put yer frikkin pornos on the HDD, keep the sw on the SSD)
in those cases where one is a professional, and does in fact use many Gb worth of software, and *wants* the access times because it's stuff being used daily, and not just on a whim, then that said individual should accept that he needs more than measly 64Gb of a system disk.

my page file is 512Mb; plenty, since 8Gb ram (really cheap)

160Gb for bethesda games? do you keep multiple games, all modded, with the saves all on the system disk .. for fun ? not to criticise, but a little discipline goes a long way. just moving my torrent software (used for legal torrents, mmk ?) to the HDD keeps me away from any issues, and if i want to watch a film, i have to endure the painstaking 3 seconds load time ..

 

[Morbus]

This is called overprovisioning, and it only affects WRITES not reads. So for a cache SSD it's pretty much irrelevant, but not for a normal SSD. Yes, you chould leave 10 to 25% of spare space (just deallocate it and don't think about it again).

A full SSD will run slower and DIE FASTER. You DO NOT WANT to run a SSD that is near full. It will severely wear it down and shorten its life. I don't have figures, but I wouldn't be surprised that it wears twice as fast or more, depending on the writes.

 

[Cerb]

160Gb for bethesda games?

Not quite yet, but as soon as I restore TW2, which I was replaying around the time my motherboard crapped out, I'll be over that amount in games, and nearly 150GB just of Bethesda and Obsidian. I still have about 4GB to go to make 150 (I have about 8GB of textures to try, once I get a video card with more VRAM). So, not long, I've just been busy enough at work that I haven't felt like it. But, anyway, that's now and in the very near future. In not too long, there will be, at the very least, TW3 and CP2077, which I'm sure will also get enough mods to eat up GBs after GBs.

do you keep multiple games, all modded, with the saves all on the system disk .. for fun ?

Well...yes. I also have a ~180W video card for fun, and will likely be replacing it with a similar-power one, soon (was thinking R9 280X, but this coin business is making me think a R9 270X would be a better buy, despite only about doubling performance over my GTX 460). I'm not as clever as those NSA guys that got to play WoW for work.

not to criticise, but a little discipline goes a long way. just moving my torrent software (used for legal torrents, mmk ?) to the HDD keeps me away from any issues, and if i want to watch a film, i have to endure the painstaking 3 seconds load time ..

I have my browsers' DL folder set to the HDD. That pretty much takes care of it, for me. If it installs, or is added to something that installs, it goes on C:. I figure if I leave about 50-100GB (11-22%) free most of the time, TRIM will do its magic, and all will be fine. I don't bother with streaming media on the SSD.

 

[VirtualLarry]

A full SSD will run slower and DIE FASTER. You DO NOT WANT to run a SSD that is near full. It will severely wear it down and shorten its life. I don't have figures, but I wouldn't be surprised that it wears twice as fast or more, depending on the writes.

And then there are those people that use software FDE, and fill their SSDs to the edge with uncompressable data. this is especially fun on SandForce drives.

Either way, it is relying on the drive's built-in OP (usually 7%) to keep writes up to speed.

 

[blastingcap]

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...63982-ocz-vector-150-240gb-ssd-review-10.html

 

[Morbus]

And then there are those people that use software FDE, and fill their SSDs to the edge with uncompressable data. this is especially fun on SandForce drives.

Yeah, I read they get slower as you fill them up, but that it doesn't matter if it's 30%, it'll still be slower than if it was 10% full, only much faster than if it was 100%.

 

[TemjinGold]

because the smaller capacity of the SSD demands a more sensible approach to data hoarding - for the regular consumer. (i.e put yer frikkin pornos on the HDD, keep the sw on the SSD)
in those cases where one is a professional, and does in fact use many Gb worth of software, and *wants* the access times because it's stuff being used daily, and not just on a whim, then that said individual should accept that he needs more than measly 64Gb of a system disk.

my page file is 512Mb; plenty, since 8Gb ram (really cheap)

160Gb for bethesda games? do you keep multiple games, all modded, with the saves all on the system disk .. for fun ? not to criticise, but a little discipline goes a long way. just moving my torrent software (used for legal torrents, mmk ?) to the HDD keeps me away from any issues, and if i want to watch a film, i have to endure the painstaking 3 seconds load time ..

I think it's important to realize not everyone is YOU. YOU feel your money isn't worth the tradeoff and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Note that we aren't disagreeing with your choice to make that tradeoff. The problem is that your claim is essentially that EVERYONE has the same priorities as you. When we countered with proof of the contrary happening, you disagreed, which is rather strange. You are essentially disagreeing that we are actually using that much space, so you are essentially calling us liars because that's the only way to disagree.

Understand that everyone's time and preference is worth different amounts. The benefits aren't worth it to you and I get that. But they are worth it to me and others. You are free to pay for whatever experience you want but to represent that to the OP as THE de facto way it should be is misleading because that is not the case.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I have 65.9 gbs of 111 gbs open.

The only game I have on it is Counter Strike Source.

Windows is 22.7 gbs

So over 50% of my used space on my SSD is windows :sneaky:

 

[DigDog]

@TJ.

No, thats not it.

What i disagree with is people over-prioritizing certain media. (and then also complaining that SSDs are too small).
If someone is in the habit of keeping all their games installed at the same time, or hoards every family guy show ever, and wants to move to SSD, then they should understand that the new technology will have its limitations, and maybe they should move the weightier stuff to the HDD.

or buy a bigger SSD.

I do think that my way is more mainstream, and a reasonable recommendation of use for a SSD. If someone wants do do otherwise, they are free to, but aren't using it to its strengths.