That is very odd. Here is a Microsoft article on what the defrag utility does on the system with SSD. Defragging a SSD has zero benefits as data is accessed differently on a SSD and file fragmentation does not slowdown the read/write access times. Furthermore, due to SSD's wear-leveling algorithm, it is the SSD's controller that decides were the actual data resides on the SSD, the OS does not have this information. So while Windows defrag utility is busy moving a fragmented file to continuous sectors, the SSD controller is busy scattering the file randomly to various sectors based on the wear-leveling algorithm. Therefore, a defrag cycle on an SSD is doing absolutely nothing other than consuming a write cycle and shortening the life of the SSD.
I checked another MBR system with Win11 and a standard SSD. Defrag and Retrim are being performed on the C: and D: drives. My joke about the Southern hemisphere is coming true. I'll check my son's UEFI computer when he wakes.
Brian, I found another article from Microsoft confirming that a traditional defrag cycle is indeed run on a SSD when the defrag utility is set on automatic schedule! Traditional defrag is skipped when defrag is run manually. This is why my logs don't show a defrag of my two SSDs. I don't understand why in the name of ...... will MS run a traditional defrag on a SSD and then confuse everybody with different information on different articles about the same thing. I seriously recommend that you turn off the auto schedule for defragmentation and run the utility manually on demand.
Here is a nice blog post on Macrium Reflect's Website about SSDs. It is slightly technical, but still an informative read if anyone is interested. I will quote a small section from the post about defraging a SSD: I guess the good folks at Microsoft don't understand the concept behind not running a traditional defrag cycle on a SSD.
Raza, Interesting info on SSDs and defragging. If you have time, can you try this? Run the portable Defraggler64 on your SSD partitions. Analyse setting. What is the percentage fragmentation? My percentage is 2 to 10% with defragging done roughly monthly.
Brian, One SSD is showing 18% fragmentation. The other one is showing 100%, but defraggler hangs and crashes after analyzing the second SSD so it might not be the correct percentage. But I have never defragmented either SSD ever, so it might be true and fragmentation should be very high on both.
My NVMe SSDs are rated for 1200 TeraBytes written. They are almost 5 years old and haven't quite reached 2% of the 1200 number. They are heavily used for backup images and I'm not concerned about them wearing out by excessive writes.
Raza, my 2 to 10% figure was for the OS partition. The backup partition (images) is 98% fragmented and this is defragged and re trimmed by Win11. It never goes less than 98%. I'm not sure what this means. I think Microsoft has a 50 MB limit on defragging files.
My OS SSD is 18% fragmented and the second SSD with 100% fragmentation is used for VMs. While it is true that modern SSDs, depending on their size, can endure over 1000 TBW, it is still not a good idea to subject them to needless write cycles, especially since defrag does nothing to improve their performance.
If your system is defragging your SSD, or not, please mention which version of windows you have, it seems to be relevant.
kronckew, Are you using Scheduled Optimise? Is so, is your SSD being defragged? I gather turning off Scheduled Optimise disables defragging.
There are lots of opinions about defragging and SSD. It's confusing. I got another opinion about SSDs from a mate whose knowledge I really admire. "Defragging does make dealing with files more efficient even internally. I'd leave it on". So that's what I'll do. Windows has defragging SSDs as a default. I'd expect few people would be knowledgeable enough to disable Scheduled Optimise so most people are having their SSDs defragged.
The real and complete story - Does Windows defragment your SSD? https://www.hanselman.com/blog/the-real-and-complete-story-does-windows-defragment-your-ssd
Defrag should be a concern for people that use imaging software, like Macrium, to take incremental images of their SSDs and HDDs. If Windows is really defragging SSDs then next incremental will be considerably huge. As long as people are aware of it and take precautions, there is no real harm in defragging a SSD once a month, even though it is useless to do so.
Brian, I was reading up about how SSDs actually write data. It is the SSD's controller that decides where data is written, Windows OS or other apps like defraggler do not have a say in it. Defraggler and Windows Defrag utility only read the MFT to look for fragmentation and MFT just contains pointers to the sectors where the data is actually stored. So they are only able to defragment the MFT not the actual data. The actual data is stored on the SSD by the SSD controller, and it follows the wear-leveling algorithm to evenly distribute the data to the least written sectors. So even during a defrag cycle, data is scattered all over the SSD, regardless of what the defrag utilities are trying to do. If there is some info somewhere that says that these defrag utilities are able to bypass the SSD controller and the wear-leveling algorithm, then it might make some sense to defrag a SSD, otherwise it is pointless.
This article is from 2014 and applies to Windows 7. I do not believe the article applies to newer OS like Windows 11 that were written from ground up to run on SSDs. Is there some information that the same issue exists with Windows 11?
Hi, my ASUS PRIME Z270-A motherboard supports USB 3.1 (10 Gbps). This is straight out of the motherboard manual: Asmedia ® USB 3.1 controller - supports 3A power output - 1 x USB 3.1/3.0/2.0 port @back panel (teal blue, Type-A) - 1 x USB 3.1/3.0/2.0 port @back panel (Type-C) I'm doing system images using Macrium Reflect 8 in PE, I connect my external drive to the USB 3.1 Type-C port, but the speed never comes close to 10 Gbps, it's even under 5 Gbps. I know this depends on the internal NVME drive I'm imaging and on the external NVME drive I'm using to image to, but those two are both fast enough and have declared speeds over 10 Gbps, for reading and writing. I'm suspecting that my PE doesn't recognise the USB 3.1. How could I check this, if I have the right driver in PE so that I could reach speed over 5 Gbps?
From your post, can't tell what version of Windows you are running (which really determines what driver you should be using). Get the latest Asmedia USB driver set and integrate that for sure.
More specifically, it matters what version of Windows PE your Rescue Media is running — not what version of full Windows you’re running. Also a discrepancy there could mean you have to manually supply a driver to Rescue Media Builder rather than having it copy a driver out of full Windows. But speaking of full Windows, are you getting better speeds when you make image backups there? Even if you’re the type who doesn’t like performing live image backups, this would be a useful test troubleshooting. Lastly, “USB 3.1” is ambiguous. USB 3.1 Gen 1 is 5 Gbps; Gen 2 is 10 Gbps; and Gen 2x2 is 20 Gbps. They are all called “USB 3.1”, and in fact USB 3.0 was retroactively renamed USB 3.1. No idea why the USB-IF made these decisions, but they did. I know that YOU said 10 Gbps at the top of your post, but the section you posted from the manual doesn’t appear to say that. The specs page of the motherboard suggests you have some Gen 1 and some Gen 2: https://www.asus.com/us/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-z270-a/techspec/
Hi, thank you both for replying. @TheRollbackFrog I'm running Windows 10 Pro x64. How do I integrate Asmedia USB driver to PE? @jphughan My WinPE rescue media is running Windows PE 10 (WADK) - that's what I chose when I built it in Reflect. I chose this quite a while ago, I guess I was thinking I wanted to have a more universal PE USB to use with other computers, not just this one. If I would have went with the RE option instead of PE 10, would I have the USB 3.1 Gen 2 driver automatically integrated in the PE? Is it possible to check the current PE I'm using to see if it supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds - ie. if it has the driver? That's me yes, I'm never making live images in Windows, I like to do it in PE. Those are the two USB ports that are Gen 2 (10 Gbps), the "teal blue" colored ones, from my previous post - I'm connecting my external NVME drive to Type C teal USB 3.1 Gen 2 port: - 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 port(s) (1 at back panel, teal blue, Type-A, Support 3A power output) - 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 port(s) (1 at back panel, , USB Type-CTM, Support 3A power output)
I don’t know whether any WinPE kernel supports Gen 2. But there’s now WinPE 11 available if you want to test that. But before doing that, please test an image backup from within Windows even if you don’t keep it. If your main Windows environment doesn’t deliver any better performance, then troubleshooting Rescue Media will be a wild goose chase.
