The point was made that SSDS don't need defragging. It doesn't improve performance
They don't, but they may need TRIMing.
# fstrim /
...is the appropriate Linux command to do this for the root partition..
Not sure on windows
Oh, you need to run the command prompt! hahaha
No different to Linux then
Thanks - you just reminded me to do mine.
Must set up a cron job, perhaps weekly...
Just did mine, and it took a long....time.
Some say do it on boot in the background, but I think a weekly cron is best
Of course you aren't, like most Linux nerds.
Nope. Typically automatically enabled on W7 onwards.
Very different to Linux still, not only the massive userbase but the level of support for Windows from developers, hardware manufacturers and the desktop support fraternity.
Yes, 'how to 'check' that TRIM is enabled ... (or enable it if for some reason it isn't or to disable it if you want).
Cheers, T i m
Um
SSDs are NAND devices.
NANDs are "paged" devices. Accessing data which is spread across non contiguous pages is slower that accessing data on the same page or which flows across contiguous pages.
Whilst the time saving will be completely unnoticeable when compared with delays from disk latency the difference is a significant percentage (greater than double) of the actual nominal read time.
repacking your files on the NAND *will* improve access time, even if you don't notice it
whether defrag produces the required level of repacking is another matter
tim
You don't need to use trim on windows 10! The OS understands if its needed unlike the users.
Yet again you are using a fifteen year old version to compare with a so called modern Linux!
How would he know that, like he said he doesn't know about Windows (in spite of using it for all those things he can't do with Linux). ;-(
Of course, it is.
Quite.
And who would be bothered to under normal circumstances, most Windows users just use their machines as the tools they were intended to be, not turn them into some sort of crusade or hobby. ;-(
Yup, and a quick and easy way to see if TRIM is enabled and being used. If you go into the disk tools and see 'Optimisation' then it's using TRIM on an SSD., if it's 'Defragmentisation' then it isn't (generally because it's not an SSD).
And as you say, few users get involved in any of that because they don't have to. ;-)
But the Linux nerds get all excited about stuff that most Windows users took for granted many years before, like the games platform, 'Steam'. (2003 on Windows, 2013 for Linux, now *that* is really worthy of a 'hahaha!'). ;-)
Cheers, T i m
p.s. I quite like Ubuntu MATE but not sure if it offers an in-situ upgrade (like straight Ubuntu does and Mint doesn't). That is important because unless you are happy with the LTS versions, to have an OS become 'obsolete' so quickly without the option of an in-situ upgrade is a real PITA. It's the same with the old Windows versions of course, upgrading XP to anything else isn't easy but when an OS lasts that long (and is still running (here)) after 12+ years with few issues means it's not really such an issue.
This seem to suggest it should upgrade (and even shows the old clockwork way for the nerds). ;-)
Why are contiguous pages quicker?
They do that (the nerds) and you will also see they rarely come back and apologise for their errors (FUD), they simply can't. ;-(
You can't blame them though, they are like the Jehovah's Witnesses of the OS world. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
well that is the point. People have tried it, and the only thing that made any difference was a full disk erase and start over .
SSDS have their own defrag shit going on internally all the time anyway.
TRIMming works, because the disk doesn't actually know what blocks it has data in are 'no longer used'
They probably are not.
My IMPRESSION is that SSDS spread the data all over the place according to internally decided algorithm and a 'track sector' call wont access at any given time the same bit of NAND as at another time.
And in any case the SATA bus is probably the bottle neck.
If you like with an SSD., it has its own operating system doing smart stuff internally all the time. Probably linux ;-)
Hmm... Using the "spinning rust" drives, a Linux distro didn't need defragging or TRIMing.
In fact there wasn't / isn't even a tool to defrag the drive (in the MS-DOS sense of defrag) since ext2fs. I suppose you could use It's just that 'file fragmentation' doesn't have the /impact/ in Linux that it would have in MSDOS-based systems. The performance difference between a 'file fragmented' Linux file system and a 'file unfragmented' Linux file system is minimal to none, whereas the same performance difference under MSDOS would be huge. The /only/ time I've ever heard of someone having to "defrag" was when the drive was almost full, & after telling the OS to shutdown, to perform a 'fsck -a' on the / filesystem upon reboot (as root).
In the 16+ years I've been using GNU/Linux, I've never had to defrag a drive. In fact I've seen the "defrag" question pop-up in forums for the same time, & the replies more or less the same "You don't need to defrag Linux distros".
So using SSDs would seem a bit of a backward step IMHO. I think i'll stick with the "spinning rust" HDDs!
You dont NEED top 'Trim' it. It just gives you a bit of extra free space
Ah, I see. Thanks for clearing that up.
Curious - all of mine, including a laptop heavily used and not done for a year at least, 5-10 seconds max, several filesystems were a couple of seconds.
I've been using Unix based O/S's since 1981. I've never defragged a drive.
I was told when I got my new computer with an ssd not to do any operations on it as it looked after itself and periodically sorted out any kind of poor use of space. Its Samsung, but since I've never had one before I'd have no idea what trimming is or does. Brian
cos modern devices internally cache the following page in the expectation that will be the one you ask for next
tim
But unlike a disk an SSD can cache any arbitrary page (no different access time cost) and can dynamically decide what the following page will be. In essence the SSD can know how the data is stored and predict what the next page will be.
I don't have a clue how it is actually done but it seems to me that the old physical benefit of caching contiguous pages has gone. Now the caching mechanism should be more intelligent. More analogous to a cpu pipeline with branch prediction.
So rather than rearrange the data (defragging) the SSD should just be able to rearrange the metadata.
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