12 Expert Tips to Extend the Life of Solid-State Drives

Solid State Drive (SSDs) optimization is known for making disk usage more efficient. Here we show you how to optimize your SSDs in different ways. Data may be lost during optimization. Therefore, we recommend that you back up your original data first.

SSDs optimization is a particular setup process; this tutorial shows you how to do it. In order to achieve optimization, you need to configure it according to your specific needs.

Be sure to read: Your computer optimization operations may cause your computer to malfunction, so it is recommended that you back up important data before performing a specific optimization. It is better to optimize the system after reinstallation to avoid unnecessary problems.

※ Preparations for SSD Optimization Settings

⑴ Make sure your computer is running in AHCI mode

The first step to optimizing SSD is ensuring your drive’s read/write mode is set to AHCI. Generally, if you’re running Windows 7, you must enter the BIOS and set the hard drive’s read/write mode to AHCI. before installing the system. If you have Windows 7 installed and you are not sure if your SSD works in AHCI mode, please read the following tutorial:

1. Click win+R to enter the Run dialog box.
2. Enter Regedit to enter the registry.
3. Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\msahci.
4. Right-click the disk mode and set it to 0. Restart the disk.

⑵ Update your chipset drivers

Maintaining the latest chipset drivers will help improve system compatibility and hard drive read/write capability. It is always necessary to update the drive’s chipset, especially since SSD updates are fast.

Trim is a very important feature that improves SSD read and writes performance and reduces latency. This is an important technology supported by win7 and should be supported through updates.

Both drivers mentioned above can enable TRIM mode. Many detection software can see that the hard drive is TRIM the process in the background after the data is wiped.

⑶ Disable the system recovery function

This is a very important step, as many recent comments have shown that system restore can affect the normal operation of SSD or TRIM, which in turn affects the read and write capacity of SSD.

1. Right-click My Computer and select Properties
2. Select system protection
3. Set the item
4. Shut down system restoration

⑷ Verify whether TRIM is enabled

Confirming whether TRIM is on or off has always been a tricky thing, as we have to monitor the computer’s health very closely to determine this, and hard drive TRIM is often instantaneous, making it difficult to detect. We can see if TRIM is properly enabled in the following way:

1. Open CMD
2. Right-click CMD to run in administrator mode
3. Enter fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify.
4. If the return value is 0, your TRIM is enabled
5. If the return value is 1, your TRIM is off

※ SSD Optimization Settings (1)

⑸ Disable disk indexes

The aim of disk indexing is to speed up access to corresponding folders and directories. However, the response time of SSD products is very low, only 0.1ms, which is 100 times faster than traditional hard drives, so indexing is not required. Too many indexes will only reduce SSD lifespan for nothing.

1. Click on My Computer
2. Right-click the SSD and select the properties
3. Uncheck the index and click OK. There may be times when you need to operate with administrator privileges.

⑹ Disable the Disk Defragment plan

In Windows 7, Disk Defragmentation is disabled by default, but it can be enabled automatically in some cases. Because an SSD doesn’t have fragmentation issues, it doesn’t need to be left powered on, and frequent operations will only shorten its lifespan.

1. Right-click the disk properties.
2. Select the Tools TAB.
3. Select the disk defragmentation plan and click the button to close the consolidation plan.
4. Click OK.

⑺ Disable Disk Paging

This is a much-discussed optimization option that many wonder if it’s good for performance. But if you turn it off, you still get an additional 3.5GB to 4GB of high-speed storage. We do not recommend users with less than 4GB of RAM disable this option.

1. Right-click My Computer
2. Select attributes
3. Select Advanced system Settings
4. Select the Advanced Options TAB of the Performance TAB
5. Select virtual memory changes
6. Disable automatic memory paging
7. Close all memory pages, confirm, and exit.

※ SSD Optimization Settings (2)

⑻ Disable System Sleep

Sleep is a very useful feature for traditional hard drives to quickly load recently used programs, but in the age of SSDs, this feature becomes useless. Since the boot time of SSDs is usually 20 seconds, which is not much different from the boot time of hibernation, it is better to use the storage capacity of about 2.5GB instead of wasting it on hibernation caching.

1. Shortcut key Win+R call run;
2. Run powercfg-h off

⑼ Turn off windows Write Cache buffer flush (or leave the default)

Note: Disabling the Windows write cache buffer can have two very different consequences, one decreases system read/write performance, and the other increases performance. Why does the same SSD device have a different cache? and OCZ’s Sandforce Controller product doesn’t even have a cache. So for OCZ products, the performance will improve while for Intel products we recommend not checking it otherwise the performance will be reversed.

1. Right-click My Computer and select Properties
2. Equipment management
3. Select a disk drive
4. Right-click the SSD and select Property Write Buffer Flush option
5. windows on the device will be closed

※ SSD Optimization Settings (3)

⑽ Turn off Prefetch and Superfetch

These two technologies are XP and Vista-era acceleration technologies that are completely unnecessary for SSDs with 0.1ms latency. So you get a performance boost when you turn it off.

1. Enter the registry and find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters
2. Right-click EnablePrefetcher and EnableSuperfetch
3. Modify the data from (1 or 3) to 0; restart

⑾ Disable Windows Search

1. Click Win+R to enter the running menu
2. Enter Services.msc and press Enter
3. Locate the Windows Search and SuperFetch options and right-click the properties
4. Stop it

⑿ Swift start-up system

This function is to close the screen when the system enters, it can probably save you 2-3 seconds of boot time, other options don’t move, they may have a negative impact.

1. Press win+R on the keyboard to enter Msconfig
2. Check that no GUI boot is checked
3. If not, please check it, OK.

※ Words in the End

These 12 SSD optimization tips may not work for everyone and should be approached with a trial-and-error mentality. As mentioned at the beginning of the tutorial, data saved during optimization may be lost, so a backup is recommended. Original data first.