How much space should I leave free on my SSD?

[hyp3r1onsun]

It's a 512 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD. It comes with 476 GB available for use.
PS: It's the default laptop hard drive and runs the OS.

[Kylo-Rado]

If you don't use for OS then just use your m2 for steam games only

[_I_]

like most other drives
10% free is a good mark
ssd beyond that will lose performance

nvme ssd for the os is the way it should be, speeds up everything

use the hdd for games and media
or replace the hdd with a sata ssd

[hyp3r1onsun]

Originally posted by _I_:

like most other drives
10% free is a good mark
ssd beyond that will lose performance

nvme ssd for the os is the way it should be, speeds up everything

use the hdd for games and media
or replace the hdd with a sata ssd

Would that 10% include or exclude the already unavailable space?

[_I_]

exclude
basically what the os sees on its drive when formatted

[[☥] - CJ -]

With my 250GB OS Drive i dont go below 90-100GB Free, but thats just personal preference, i have 3 or 4GB set for Over Provision

But in general for an OS Drive, i would keep 50GB+ free, never know what a windows update may require for setup, But it also depends on what you keep on the drive as well, any large games would need a decent amount of space for updates, but if the game(s) no longer get updated then it wouldnt matter.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

40gb minimum

[nullable]

If I had to use a made up number I'd go with _I_'s recommendation, 10% should work as well as anything most of the time without being tempted to waste too much space.

But I don't worry about it personally. Even 99% full the SSD will still perform many times faster than an HDD. It may not be optimal performance, but it's far from terrible. It's not going to harm the SSD either. It's not like 10% or X GB is a hard rule, it's a just a general guideline so people won't go out of their way to do the worst things, as the are often wont to do.

[h_LordEC[no-VC]]

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

If I had to use a made up number I'd go with _I_'s recommendation, 10% should work as well as anything most of the time without being tempted to waste too much space.

But I don't worry about it personally. Even 99% full the SSD will still perform many times faster than an HDD. It may not be optimal performance, but it's far from terrible. It's not going to harm the SSD either. It's not like 10% or X GB is a hard rule, it's a just a general guideline so people won't go out of their way to do the worst things, as the are often wont to do.

Eh... it can harm the SSD to completely fill it. I don't know about 99% full being faster than a HDD but anandtech showed ~90% capacity can still pull better numbers back in 2012.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/6489/playing-with-op


SSDs get their increased performance by being able to read and write to/from multiple NAND chips. As you fill the SSD, to less than 10% available, it can completely thrash your performance.

Also, with how SSD's move data around to balance performance with endurance, filling the drive can decrease your drive's life expectancy.

For near optimal performance, ~50% available.
For a small reduction in performance, ~20-30% available.
I personally won't suggest having less than 10% available.


The above are just general rules based on how SSDs are designed and used. In reality, it is going to vary a bit based on your specific SSD. How much is set aside for over-provisioning, does it have a DRAM or SLC cache, and the firmware/software for how the controller manages the data.

[Autumn_]

Originally posted by h_LordEC:

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

If I had to use a made up number I'd go with _I_'s recommendation, 10% should work as well as anything most of the time without being tempted to waste too much space.

But I don't worry about it personally. Even 99% full the SSD will still perform many times faster than an HDD. It may not be optimal performance, but it's far from terrible. It's not going to harm the SSD either. It's not like 10% or X GB is a hard rule, it's a just a general guideline so people won't go out of their way to do the worst things, as the are often wont to do.

Eh... it can harm the SSD to completely fill it. I don't know about 99% full being faster than a HDD but anandtech showed ~90% capacity can still pull better numbers back in 2012.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/6489/playing-with-op


SSDs get their increased performance by being able to read and write to/from multiple NAND chips. As you fill the SSD, to less than 10% available, it can completely thrash your performance.

Also, with how SSD's move data around to balance performance with endurance, filling the drive can decrease your drive's life expectancy.

For near optimal performance, ~50% available.
For a small reduction in performance, ~20-30% available.
I personally won't suggest having less than 10% available.


The above are just general rules based on how SSDs are designed and used. In reality, it is going to vary a bit based on your specific SSD. How much is set aside for over-provisioning, does it have a DRAM or SLC cache, and the firmware/software for how the controller manages the data.

I agree, there is data that says there will be damage at high capacities, and it will slow down the drive.

But from personal experience, I've filled my SSD up to 95-99% at times, sometimes so it's got a few MB free.
I have experienced ZERO issues with drive life or health, according to SMART data.
The drive did slow down, but it was still much more pleasant than using an HDD.

The only issue I encountered was related to pagefile, not having enough space, since it was my OS drive, and the only one I allowed to be used for pagefile.

So, from my own experience, I personally say don't worry about it to much, if you can get some extra space on it, go for it. If you fill it up a bit, don't worry, it's not instantly going to kill the drive.
Though, I would recommend, if you can, keep some space clean, just for performance sake.
(I'm sure you could just create a partition couldn't you? That would leave x space free, and allow normal operation? I've never read anything on it, and I'm unsure if it would work, if you have any information, please share.)

[h_LordEC[no-VC]]

Originally posted by Autumn_:

I agree, there is data that says there will be damage at high capacities, and it will slow down the drive.

But from personal experience, I've filled my SSD up to 95-99% at times, sometimes so it's got a few MB free.
I have experienced ZERO issues with drive life or health, according to SMART data.
The drive did slow down, but it was still much more pleasant than using an HDD.

The only issue I encountered was related to pagefile, not having enough space, since it was my OS drive, and the only one I allowed to be used for pagefile.

So, from my own experience, I personally say don't worry about it to much, if you can get some extra space on it, go for it. If you fill it up a bit, don't worry, it's not instantly going to kill the drive.
Though, I would recommend, if you can, keep some space clean, just for performance sake.
(I'm sure you could just create a partition couldn't you? That would leave x space free, and allow normal operation? I've never read anything on it, and I'm unsure if it would work, if you have any information, please share.)

Good to know that even near max capacity, some drives are still more capable than HDDs.

And yes, the life expectancy decrease will not happen just because you filled the SSD, but it will decrease with continual use (over an extended period of time) as fewer and fewer blocks are free for it to use.

The main concern is that if it is nearly filled, it will be continually writing/moving data back and forth between the same small number of blocks causing them to wear quicker than the other blocks that already have stored data.

The firmware and other features will continue to try and cycle through to level out the amount of wear across more blocks but with a very small amount of capacity available, it does hamstring the software quite a bit.

Again, this is sort of an extreme situation occurring over an extended period and is just something to be aware of so it can be avoided when possible.

[nullable]

Originally posted by h_LordEC:

Eh... it can harm the SSD to completely fill it.

I've never seen any evidence to support this. People claim it. People repeat other claims they've heard ad nauseam. But SSDs are just storage. And it's not magic. Filling the drive up won't damage the drive.

Although one might ask themselves if this is a real problem why there aren't strict guidelines on the SSD manufacturers websites and protections built into the drive to prevent it from being damaged? Does filling a SSD void its warranty? No? We're just going to rely on word of mouth FUD to manage this issue? I don't think so.

My biggest problems with a lot of claims like this is they are so nebulous that no one making them can come anywhere near to quantifying them. Just the idea that there might be "some effect" is reason enough to perpetuate an idea without any concern for its relevancy. It's textbook pedantry at best, and just pure ignorance and magical thinking at worst.

We normally don't fill storage up to capacity anyway just as a matter of normal use, it wasn't encouraged with HDDs either. Isn't that enough? Just treat it like storage? We've got to make up scary reasons to make people behave correctly? I'm just not interested in that.

[h_LordEC[no-VC]]

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

Originally posted by h_LordEC:

Eh... it can harm the SSD to completely fill it.

I've never seen any evidence to support this. People claim it. People repeat other claims they've heard ad nauseam. But SSDs are just storage. And it's not magic. Filling the drive up won't damage the drive.

Although one might ask themselves if this is a real problem why there aren't strict guidelines on the SSD manufacturers websites and protections built into the drive to prevent it from being damaged? Does filling a SSD void its warranty? No? We're just going to rely on word of mouth FUD to manage this issue? I don't think so.

My biggest problems with a lot of claims like this is they are so nebulous that no one making them can come anywhere near to quantifying them. Just the idea that there might be "some effect" is reason enough to perpetuate an idea without any concern for its relevancy. It's textbook pedantry at best, and just pure ignorance and magical thinking at worst.

We normally don't fill storage up to capacity anyway just as a matter of normal use, it wasn't encouraged with HDDs either. Isn't that enough? Just treat it like storage? We've got to make up scary reasons to make people behave correctly? I'm just not interested in that.

Your concern is noted, thanks.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Its always been said that it isnt good to completely fill an SSD
But for an OS SSD thats really just common knowledge/common sense because of Updates/Pagefile etc etc

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

If I had to use a made up number I'd go with _I_'s recommendation, 10% should work as well as anything most of the time without being tempted to waste too much space.

But I don't worry about it personally. Even 99% full the SSD will still perform many times faster than an HDD. It may not be optimal performance, but it's far from terrible. It's not going to harm the SSD either. It's not like 10% or X GB is a hard rule, it's a just a general guideline so people won't go out of their way to do the worst things, as the are often wont to do.

That idea of 10-15% free space died when... we started using ssds. But also when we started using Win10. As the OS itself basically needs upwards of 30-40gb to be free should you do a feature update which basically downloads and installs a whole new OS with your user and data intact and the pewvious OS getting moved to "c:/windows.old"