Running disk defrag on an SSD

[notleks2411]

I'm very aware that you should never defrag your SSD, that is not what I am asking. What I am asking, is if it's safe to defrag my second hard drive which is used for my Steam library amongst other stuff.

[Wampum Biskit]

the idea from not defragging SSDs stems from the early generations of SSD's which had a limited read/write cycle , it's not that it's bad nowadays to defrag a SSD it's just not neccesary because of the neglible speed difference it would make.

and yes it is safe to defrag your 2nd drive IF it's really fragmented... it shouldn't be though...unless you constantly delete and re-instal games.

[notleks2411]

Awesome! Cheers, dude.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

If you have Win8 or 10, it is safe to run Microsoft Disk Defrag on SSD as it can tell (like most Defrag apps now) difference between mechanical HDD and an SSD. "Defrag" would be for HDD, "Optimize" for SSD. Optimize basically goes ahead and forces a TRIM garbage collection/cleanup to occur.

For Win7, that MS Disk Defrag will not work this way. For Win7 use the SSD Toolbox app that comes with your SSD in order to do TRIM. Like Corsair SSD Toolbox, Samsung Magician; etc.

Or you can always use 3rd party apps like Auslogics Disk Defrag; just be sure to setup the Options in such an app to tell it which drive letter is an SSD so that only Optimize/TRIM is allowed for your SSD. It might still allow a Defrag option for them, just do not do defrag for an SSD/Flash Drive. It serves zero purpose really.