Formatting/deleting files and defragging SSD’s?

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metamorphosis wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 8:28 am Every modern OS worth it's salt does a small amount of defragging to an SSD. This is important and should happen. There are multiple technical reasons why this should happen. Unfortunately there are some dumber OS's (*cough*osx*cough*) where no manual tool is available.
you're confusing TRIM (which tells the ssd 'this block no longer contains data' assisting the garbage collection algos on the ssd) with defragging

Also OSX/macOS has always supported TRIM (since apple released macbooks with ssds) - issue was early on MacOS would _only_ do TRIM on 'genuine apple' drives, so if you retrofitted your mac with a ssd you got no TRIM. There were various workarounds for this, and more recent versions of MacOS allow you to explicitly enable TRIM (at your own risk) via the 'trimforce' command

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^^ What he said.

Bottom line is no one needs to defrag an SSD.
Sweet child in time...

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jdnz wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 6:34 pm
metamorphosis wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 8:28 am Every modern OS worth it's salt does a small amount of defragging to an SSD. This is important and should happen. There are multiple technical reasons why this should happen. Unfortunately there are some dumber OS's (*cough*osx*cough*) where no manual tool is available.
you're confusing TRIM (which tells the ssd 'this block no longer contains data' assisting the garbage collection algos on the ssd) with defragging

Also OSX/macOS has always supported TRIM (since apple released macbooks with ssds) - issue was early on MacOS would _only_ do TRIM on 'genuine apple' drives, so if you retrofitted your mac with a ssd you got no TRIM. There were various workarounds for this, and more recent versions of MacOS allow you to explicitly enable TRIM (at your own risk) via the 'trimforce' command
No, I'm not. Please read the article rather than making me repeat myself.

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From the article:
Yes, your SSD's file system sometimes needs a kind of defragmentation and that's handled by Windows
For some reason he's conflating Windows disk optimization with defragmentation, which is not the same thing. Windows will run TRIM or RETRIM on an SSD as part of its scheduled disk optimization, but it will not run a defragmentation program on it.
Sweet child in time...

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Deep Purple wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:57 pm From the article:
Yes, your SSD's file system sometimes needs a kind of defragmentation and that's handled by Windows
For some reason he's conflating Windows disk optimization with defragmentation,
Well, according to TFA, the reason he's doing that is because the Windows storage system engineers told him that's how it is.
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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whyterabbyt wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2019 2:07 pm
Deep Purple wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:57 pm From the article:
Yes, your SSD's file system sometimes needs a kind of defragmentation and that's handled by Windows
For some reason he's conflating Windows disk optimization with defragmentation,
Well, according to TFA, the reason he's doing that is because the Windows storage system engineers told him that's how it is.
Perhaps, but it seems that the difference is made clear in the details that follow. I suppose it's just semantics, but as he's trying to get to the bottom of things it might have made more sense to not use the same term for both processes? (although if Windows engineers are not doing that, it doesn't help)
Last edited by Deep Purple on Fri Mar 22, 2019 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sweet child in time...

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whyterabbyt wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2019 2:07 pm Well, according to TFA, the reason he's doing that is because the Windows storage system engineers told him that's how it is.
and apart from the reTRIM part any other filesystem maintenance being run (to handle ntfs’s extent handling limits) sounds like a kludge to get around ntfs’s failing

maybe MS should get with the plan and roll out a moden filesystem like apfs/btrfs/zfs which doesn’t suffer those failings? Expecting a 1993 vintage filesystem to handle moden scale storage is madness

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Deep Purple wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:57 pm From the article:
Yes, your SSD's file system sometimes needs a kind of defragmentation and that's handled by Windows
For some reason he's conflating Windows disk optimization with defragmentation, which is not the same thing. Windows will run TRIM or RETRIM on an SSD as part of its scheduled disk optimization, but it will not run a defragmentation program on it.
No, I'm not.
Please read the article so that I don't have to repeat myself.
Part of windows disk optimization is defragmentation on SSD's.
Anybody in the industry has known this for a Very, Very long time.
And All filesystems have limitations as to how much fragmentation they can manage.
Get yourself together.
Last edited by metamorphosis on Sat Mar 23, 2019 12:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

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metamorphosis wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2019 11:35 pm Anybody in the industry has known this for a Very, Very long time.
And All filesystems have limitations as to how much fragmentation they can manage.
if you were actually in the industry you'd know this is rubbish - any filesystem that's properly designed will NOT need periodic 'maintenance' defragmentation - it will be intrinsically self-healing and self managing. It's just that ntfs is ancient and was never designed for even the size volumes you get on personal computers, let alone the size volumes you'll hit in a professional environment

can you imagine trying to defrag a petabyte size volume on a large array....

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No, that's not the case. Any 'self-healing' involves reducing fragmentation. The fact that you don't know the very basics and are resistant to any outside information from people who actually know what they're talking about suggests that you're not worth talking to, or dealing with. Goodbye-

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metamorphosis wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2019 11:35 pm
Deep Purple wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:57 pm From the article:
Yes, your SSD's file system sometimes needs a kind of defragmentation and that's handled by Windows
For some reason he's conflating Windows disk optimization with defragmentation, which is not the same thing. Windows will run TRIM or RETRIM on an SSD as part of its scheduled disk optimization, but it will not run a defragmentation program on it.
No, I'm not.
Please read the article so that I don't have to repeat myself.
Part of windows disk optimization is defragmentation on SSD's.
Anybody in the industry has known this for a Very, Very long time.
And All filesystems have limitations as to how much fragmentation they can manage.
Get yourself together.
My comment wasn't directed at you - I quoted the article writer and noted that HE is conflating the two. Defragmentation and optimizing SSD space with a TRIM command are not the same thing - they address two somewhat similar, but ultimately different issues.

Simply by stating that "Anybody in the industry" agrees with your viewpoint (which a quick Google search will show is patently untrue) does not make your viewpoint valid. Even in the article you cited the writer states that "It turns out that the answer is more nuanced than just yes or no", and also describes how TRIM works.

Defragmentation of hard drives involves moving data from one place to another so that the arm of the read/write head does not have to travel so far to read or write files.

Optimization of an SSD involves letting the SSD know which data blocks can be erased because they are no longer in use - this contributes to more efficiently managing disk space and avoiding unnecessary read/write processes on data blocks that contain data that the operating system no longer requires.

As I said, the author of the article is seemingly conflating the two things by calling both of them "defragmentation". The latter is not defragmentation, and does not involve pulling fragmented file data into contiguous blocks.
Sweet child in time...

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You haven't read the article - please stop pretending you have - as I said all filesystems have limits to how much fragmentation they can handle - he is quite explicit about it- bye

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metamorphosis wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:54 am You haven't read the article - please stop pretending you have - as I said all filesystems have limits to how much fragmentation they can handle - he is quite explicit about it- bye
I quoted from the article more than once - why do you think I haven’t read it?

You actually said:
metamorphosis wrote:Every modern OS worth it's salt does a small amount of defragging to an SSD
So please don’t move the goalposts then effect an exit.

Rather than continually tell people that they haven’t read your article, why not specifically address why you don’t agree with what they have written? I am explaining why I don’t agree that SSDs get defragmented, and explaining what to my understanding does occur with SSDs - if you disagree, why not elucidate?
Sweet child in time...

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Deep Purple wrote: Sat Mar 23, 2019 12:25 am Defragmentation of hard drives involves moving data from one place to another so that the arm of the read/write head does not have to travel so far to read or write files.

Optimization of an SSD involves letting the SSD know which data blocks can be erased because they are no longer in use - this contributes to more efficiently managing disk space and avoiding unnecessary read/write processes on data blocks that contain data that the operating system no longer requires.
Going by my reading, the article writer isnt referring to either of those; its a third case; in essence he's saying there's an inbuilt finite number of file chunks that can be stored; the algorithm is concatenating files, not to reduce access, and not to free up data blocks, but to reduce the total number of file chunks so that maximum is not reached.

Substitude 'fragments' for 'chunks' and that's what this implementation of defragmentation would appear to be about.
As I said, the author of the article is seemingly conflating the two things by calling both of them "defragmentation". The latter is not defragmentation, and does not involve pulling fragmented file data into contiguous blocks.
I really dont think he's conflating anything, this is neither of the two things. But it certainly involved 'pulling fragmented file data into contiguous blocks', but for a different reason than optimising files positionally for minimising mechanical travel.

Here are the two parts where I believe that's being explained (my emphasis).
. It’s also somewhat of a misconception that fragmentation is not a problem on SSDs. If an SSD gets too fragmented you can hit maximum file fragmentation (when the metadata can’t represent any more file fragments) which will result in errors when you try to write/extend a file. Furthermore, more file fragments means more metadata to process while reading/writing a file, which can lead to slower performance.
Additionally, there is a maximum level of fragmentation that the file system can handle. ...
Fragmentation has long been considered as primarily a performance issue with traditional hard drives. When a disk gets fragmented, a singular file can exist in pieces in different locations on a physical drive. That physical drive then needs to seek around collecting pieces of the file and that takes extra time. This kind of fragmentation still happens on SSDs, even though their performance characteristics are very different. The file systems metadata keeps track of fragments and can only keep track of so many. Defragmentation in cases like this is not only useful, but absolutely needed.
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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@whyterabbyt - I’m not disagreeing with the quotes above, and they are of course an integral part of the writer’s arguments. However, he points out the nuanced nature of his answer to the question, but also uses the term “defragmentation” for the disc optimization processes that operating systems run on SSDs.

Perhaps I’m being unfair using the term ‘conflate’ - maybe it’s more accurate to say he doesn’t differentiate between the disc management processes clearly?

It is a fact that fragmentation can become an issue for both hard drives and SSDs, but I don’t think it’s accurate to describe the process that prevents fragmentation from becoming a problem as “defragmentation” in both cases.

I think I said earlier it’s probably just semantics, but in the context of the OP’s question, I’m trying to answer “no, traditional defragmentation does not need to be done on SSDs”.
Sweet child in time...

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