Does defragmenting ssd drive affect lifespan?

[amit.rudy]

I wanted to defragment my ssd drive, using "glary utilities" suddenly message popped up that "defragmenting ssd drives affects lifespan of ssd, do you wish to continue?" So I wanted to know if it's true?

 

[DSzymborski]

I wanted to defragment my ssd drive, using "glary utilities" suddenly message popped up that "defragmenting ssd drives affects lifespan of ssd, do you wish to continue?" So I wanted to know if it's true?

It can. But it's not a big deal as there's generally no real actual reason to defragment an SSD unless you have a very specific issue. All but the earliest SSDs already have free space optimization built-in. Just becuase SSDs and HDDs serve the same basic purpose doesn't mean they store data in the same manner; save the defragmentation for your drives with platters.

 

[Chaos2Theory]

I was just going to add that windows does not support defragging solid state drives in windows 10 as it actually uses up read/write cycles in some cases actually decreasing the life of hte ssd while doing absolutely nothing for performance because as previously mentioned it does nothing to benefit an SSD.

 

[Daniel_424]

Just to add, for SSDs you should be using TRIM not Defragmentation. When you defrag a drive you reallocate blocks of data to sectors on a disk that are closer together which allows the head to read the data faster improving performance and reducing wear on the drive. With SSDs there are no moving parts so defrag wont help an SSD but rather hurts the SSD. Each SSD can only support so many reads/writes to areas of memory so if you were to defrag it would only shorten the life span and provide no gains what-so-ever. TRIM on the other hand is a way to clean up unused sectors on the drive, its like emptying the recycle bin on the desktop. In Windows 10 open the Defragment and Optimize Drives tool, and select optimize if available for the SSD. This wont cause harm and will perform the TRIM function.

 

[USAFRet]

You do not need to, nor should you, manually defrag an SSD.

Windows 7 or later knows what to do with an SSD.
If you look into the "Defrag" settings, it will show "Optimize" for the SSD>
The OS knows what it is supposed to do regarding TRIM and/or defrag with an SSD.
Trim is generally enabled by default.

Just let it do its thing.

 

[Kewlx25]

Defragging will give virtually zero benefit and will eat up write cycles. If you're not sure, then don't.