[SOLVED] Chrome high disk writes to NVMe M.2 SSD

[avg9956]

I am looking to further reduce the amount of disk writes done on my SSD. Does anyone have good suggestions how to reduce Google chrome's disk writes (any Google chrome tweaks)?

My NVMe M.2 SSD is Samsung 970 Evo Plus, it has a TBW of 600TBW (for the 1TB model).
My OS was installed on 3/29/2021

https://imgur.com/PVqKrDk

View: https://imgur.com/PVqKrDk


In just a span of 55 days (3/29/2021 - 5/23/2021) I have 7.02 TB of writes done to my NVMe M.2 SSD! which translates to (7.02/600)*100 = 1.17% of my SSD's TBW already.
This equals to 0.12763 TB ~ 127.63 GB writes per day on average (7.02TB/55 days).

One may argue that perhaps I'm overdoing things, but I just want to have the best longevity for my SSD - part of which is reducing its writes.

I look at task manager > checked in disk reads I/O and disk writes I/O and found out that Google chrome does a lot of disk writes as well as discord

https://imgur.com/4TrLODq

View: https://imgur.com/4TrLODq


In contrast, firefox has very low disk writes

https://imgur.com/FDAhanv

View: https://imgur.com/FDAhanv


I am considering to reinstall them to Drive D. I haven't tried installing chrome to a drive other than the boot drive, but I will then have to reinstall all the plug-ins I used with Chrome so I will have to sort that out.
I am not quite sure if the Seagate Barracuda is up to the task of constant writes. If I recall its a SMR type of drive which is only good for archival purposes, not for a program that keeps doing writes on it constantly (like the OS).

SMR hard disks are a good choice if they are primarily used as pure data storage or if a large hard disk is to be used for a PC on which data is stored. They offer more storage capacity and are more energy efficient than CMR, which makes them ideal for archiving tasks. Basically, SMR hard disks are not particularly well suited if the hard disk is to be constantly and permanently doing write operations, as this can lead to a cache overflow. In this case, a hard disk with a CMR recording method should definitely be used.
CMR hard disks are a good choice when data is to be stored at high transfer rates or particularly large amounts of data. This includes a large number of activities from music streaming and image processing to use for NAS servers.

SMR? CMR? Which Hard Drive is best for which purpose? - reichelt Magazin

Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) or Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR)? Many people ask themselves this question when it comes to finding the right hard drive for the intended use. Because the different recording methods behave differently and are therefore sometimes better and sometimes...

www.reichelt.com

I may possibly look to replace it for a CMR HDD. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

I have already moved my downloads folder to my HDD, and I also disabled Comodo Firewall's logging (which tremendously reduced Disk writes I/O).
For archiving tools such as Winzip and Winrar, not sure if its possible to move their default extraction directory which is normally located on the boot drive (%temp folder). If its possible, pls. let me know.

 

[USAFRet]

For the first few weeks of a brand new drive, the write numbers feel like a LOT.
That use levels out quickly.

You need to check this over time, and keep a log.
A one time snapshot of 7.02TB doesn't really mean anything.

Check it once a week or so. Make a graph.


Also....55 days at ~1%.
That extrapolates to 15 years. If you are still using this drive in 2036, I'd be shocked.

Lastly, that 600TBW is just the warranty number. It will not fall over dead at 601TBW.
Just like the year number on the warranty.


To reiterate....don't stress over this one time number. Monitor it over time.
And do NOT try to force everything to go to the HDD. We have SSDs for a reason.

 

[Jamato]

I have recently observed similar behavior through Samsung Magician on my NVMe drive 970 EVO (1Tb). My drive seemingly gets 0.1 TB written every two days with a warranty of 1200 TBW. And Chrome seems to write very often. Nowadays you can't even tell Chrome to install on HDD. I tried killing a couple extensions but that didn't do much.
I must note that I have fast startup disabled and there is no pagefile on the NVMe SSD so Windows shouldn't be writing much to it.

 

[USAFRet]

I have recently observed similar behavior through Samsung Magician on my NVMe drive 970 EVO (1Tb). My drive seemingly gets 0.1 TB written every two days with a warranty of 1200 TBW. And Chrome seems to write very often. Nowadays you can't even tell Chrome to install on HDD. I tried killing a couple extensions but that didn't do much.
I must note that I have fast startup disabled and there is no pagefile on the NVMe SSD so Windows shouldn't be writing much to it.

0.1TB per 2 days
1200TBW warranty number

At that rate, your drive will go over the TBW number sometime in the year 2087.
I think you're safe.