Question on my SSD usage - I've defragged manually!!!

[idata]

I have an Intel 310 80 g SSD. Installed in Feb 2011 on a laptop with Windows Pro, 64 bit. Well I didn't receive anything on my SSD and I've defragged a few times (because this is what I used to do with the standard HD). The most recent defrag was last week. Did this because my SSD was humming away like crazy the last few months. I was told not to do a ckdisk. So I didn't. I went to update my Garmin GPS and was having trouble loading the data. Called them and bottom line I did not have enough space on my SSD to load the file. He had me check my HD storage and it was almost used up. I have 80G and believe me, my usage should not have used half of that. Well he had me do a scan disk and it freed up enough space to download my Gamin update. Since then I have gone to many sites on how to locate big files so I can delete. I've been doing this and deleting like mad but have found no files that should take up that much space.

So my computer friend tells me about the Intel ToolBox. Did it today, all is good but I have only 9.4 G free and 64.9 used. So I started googling about what could be wrong - and have seen that defragging a SSD can be real trouble.

Short of doing the secure erase and starting over (one of the suggestions) any suggestion on what I can do or if that is my problem?

Thanks

[plee21]

Hi

There is absolutely no reason to run a defrag on an SSD, in doing so all you do is wear it out quicker.

Defragging on a hard-drive is necessary because it is mechanical so you want to move files close together (even then it's debatable whether defragging helps that much), but as an SSD is electronic, it doesn't matter where data is on it as electrons move pretty fast!

Due to wear-levelling on an SSD, data is deliberately chopped up and written in different places. If you defrag an SSD, the operating system provides instructions to re-write the file into one place and the SSD simply says "Okay I'm doing that", but under the bonnet it is completely ignoring the request and just putting the file where it wants to spread out the wear and tear. You've gained absolutely nothing except perhaps a nice 0% defragged pie chart in the software you are using and the placebo effect of doing a defrag, in reality nothing has been optimised on the SDD as it doesn't require defragging, and you've just reduced its life span by a bit.

I suspect it is the Intel Toolbox optimisation that is causing any real performance improvement.

Regards

Phil