SSD lifespan optimisation guide

[Ket]

A Guide to SSD Optimisation


Introduction

This is a brief guide to minimising wear and tear on a SSD, do bare in mind that while these steps are advised to maximise the lifespan of a SSD it is still generally accepted that you should still occasionally defragment a SSD to help prevent data corruption / loss, you just don't need to do it anywhere near as often as a typical HDD demands. How often should you defrag a SSD? That depends on the type of usage scenario such as how much data is written to and removed from said SSD. I generally recommend a SSD defrag every 3-4 months so much less frequently than you should defragment a HDD (which I would recommend doing once every 7-14 days).

There won't be any pretty pictures today with this guide as it is very straightforward so there really isn't any need for them.


Disable Windows drive indexing

- Open Control Panel
- Click Administrative Tools
- Double-click on Services in the list

Scroll untill you find either Indexing Service or Windows Search in the list of services then just double-click it, select "Disable" from the drop down menu then click "Apply". You can also choose to immediately stop the service without having to restart by clicking the "Stop" button.


Disable Windows Superfetch

With Services.msc still open, scroll until you find the Superfetch service, then just disable it exactly the same way you did for Windows Search.


Disable automatic / scheduled defragging

Once again in administrative tools double-click "Optimise and defragment drives", check under "Scheduled optimisation" and make sure it is set to "off" for any SSDs you have.


Disable Windows Prefetching

Something actually a bit more geeky now, firstly we need to open the registry editor. To do that;

- Locate "command Prompt" in the start menu, right-click it and select "run as administrator"
- Now type; regedit.exe and press enter. Regedit will then open.

Now navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Session Manager > Memory Management > PrefetchParameters

Double-click on EnablePrefetcher in the right side pane to open its DWORD value box.

Valid values for EnablePrefetcher:

0 - Disable Prefetcher
1 - Enable prefetching on application launch
2 - Enable boot prefetching
3 - Enable boot and application prefetching

The default value is 3, which is only really useful for HDDs and even then if you have a fast HDD you can likely change the prefetcher to only be enabled at boot and not notice any difference.

Now just enter a dword value (Value data) of 0, Click OK and Exit. All done.


Disable Windows Hibernation / Sleep

On a PC you simply do not need Windows Hibernation / Sleep, the last Windows version I remember to have this enabled when installed on a PC was Vista but I guess some people might be running Vista with a SSD and in some cases it is possible it might be enabled on 7 / 8.1 / 10 PCs when it doesn’t need to be so I’ll add this too.

To disable Hibernation / Sleep simply open Command Prompt and type; powercfg –h off then press enter. Thats it, no more Hibernate / Sleep function eating space needlessly. If you need to enable this again for some reason repeat the process only substituting the word “off” with “on”.



For the truly SSD lifespan obsessed

While all of the above methods will extend the life of your SSD there is still a few more things you can do so we will cover them here.


Disable Windows Page File (not recommended)

Sometimes referred to as the swap file the page file simply put stores any “overflow” of data that cannot be stored in physical memory and dynamically “swaps” the data in to and out of physical memory as required. This can lead to significant system slowdown when large amounts of data have to be swapped in and out of physical memory so making sure you have enough physical memory is important.

To disable the Page File navigate to;

Start > Control Panel > System

Now click on “Advanced system settings” under “Performance” click “Settings” then the “Advanced” tab. Now click the “Change” button. Now just remove the tick next to “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives” then select “No paging file”.

Click “Set”, then “OK”. You might also have to click the “Apply” button on the “Performance Options” window (if it is greyed out you are ok) then click the “OK” button. Windows might now prompt you to restart the system.

What I recommend you do however is slightly different. Disable the Page File, restart if needed, check the data on your SSD is nicely organised with a defrag tool drive map, if it’s scattered do a defrag on the SSD then back where you disabled the Page File click on “Custom size”. For the minimum value input 1024 or 2048, then for the maximum value input 2048 or 4096. Click “Set”, then “OK”. Windows might prompt you to restart again.

The reason for this is that even if you have plenty of physical memory Windows and some applications still make use of a Page File so unusual behaviour can occur in such scenarios without a Page File.


Change the default location of where Pictures, Videos, Music, and Downloads are stored

Finally, the last thing you can do to reduce SSD wear and tear if you are really hellbent on preserving the SSD is to change the default location of where you store pictures, music, videos, downloads, etc. Of course doing this will require you to have additional storage in the system but is a nice way of ensuring that SSD remains in peak operation.


That as they say, is that. You have now minimised wear and tear on your SSD thus helping to extend it's lifespan.

[alpha0ne]

Also Disable hibernate/sleep

Turn off/Shrink Page File

I also move my docs/vid/pics/music to a mech HDD

[Ket]

Is hibernate / sleep even enabled when Windows is installed on a PC? Last Win version I remember stupid enough to leave it enabled when installed on a PC was Vista. I wouldn't recommend disabling the page file though as even if you have enough RAM in the system Windows for whatever reason still wants a page file for some things so odd behaviour with some software can sometimes happen if it's fully disabled, plus a lot of people still have 8GB of RAM even in a gaming system so the page file is definitely still needed in those cases.

I did forget to add though that music/pic/vids etc along with the default download location should be changed to a non-SSD drive to really maximise it's lifespan so I'll add those in a bit