[SOLVED] Samsung Magician Over Provisioning - what percentage of OP should I set?

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Deleted member 2841972

Guest
Hi,

I have a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB SSD. I would like to set OP for my drive, however I can't guess what percentage I should apply. Maybe 10% (93GB) would be higher than enough, or maybe less and uneffective, I really dont know.

I mostly play games on my PC. Sometimes I record my gameplay using Nvidia Shadowplay and each 5 minute clip is 2GB in size. Of course, doesn't matter if I save it or not, when Nvidia Shadowplay is turned on, the disk drive will write data continuously. Except this, I don't transfer much data. In this case, what percentage of OP I should set? Magician itself telling me 10% is recommended but I would not like to lose much storage if 93GB OP would be an overkill.

Thank you.
 
Solution
i have mine set to 10% (same NVME) but I can find some saying 7% and some saying 20% as OP gets mixed up with how much free space should be on a drive, and they 2 different things

https://superuser.com/questions/944913/over-provisioning-an-ssd-does-it-still-hold

over-provisioning refers to a function that secures extra space to allow for efficient use of the SSD by allo-
cating a certain amount of the SSD’s NAND flash to an over-provisioning space. This space can only be accessed by the SSD’s controller and not by the host. Consisting of free blocks only, the OP region assists in efficient delivery of free blocks when wear-leveling or garbage collection is in progress and contributes to improved performance and lifetime of...

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
i have mine set to 10% (same NVME) but I can find some saying 7% and some saying 20% as OP gets mixed up with how much free space should be on a drive, and they 2 different things

https://superuser.com/questions/944913/over-provisioning-an-ssd-does-it-still-hold

over-provisioning refers to a function that secures extra space to allow for efficient use of the SSD by allo-
cating a certain amount of the SSD’s NAND flash to an over-provisioning space. This space can only be accessed by the SSD’s controller and not by the host. Consisting of free blocks only, the OP region assists in efficient delivery of free blocks when wear-leveling or garbage collection is in progress and contributes to improved performance and lifetime of the SSD.

OP Ratio Formula: OP (%) = ((Physical Capacity – User Capacity) / User Capacity) * 100
Ex) When 120 GB of a 128 GB SSD is used as the user capacity while 8 GB is assigned to the OP, the OP (%) is ((128 – 120) / 120) *100 = 6.7 %.

https://www.samsung.com/semiconduct...SUNG-Memory-Over-Provisioning-White-paper.pdf

All Samsung ssd have a default op of 7% but you can add more.
 
Last edited:
Solution
Hi,

I have a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB SSD. I would like to set OP for my drive, however I can't guess what percentage I should apply. Maybe 10% (93GB) would be higher than enough, or maybe less and uneffective, I really dont know.

I mostly play games on my PC. Sometimes I record my gameplay using Nvidia Shadowplay and each 5 minute clip is 2GB in size. Of course, doesn't matter if I save it or not, when Nvidia Shadowplay is turned on, the disk drive will write data continuously. Except this, I don't transfer much data. In this case, what percentage of OP I should set? Magician itself telling me 10% is recommended but I would not like to lose much storage if 93GB OP would be an overkill.

Thank you.
There's no need to set any, it's just a way to force users to leave some empty space for proper operation. Any disk with OS on it (even HDDs)
should have at least 20 -25GB free for proper windows operation. SSD's firmware will take care of write leveling and GC using that free space.
As opposite of HDDs, SSDs don't have special place to use as spare. any cell can be used for that.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
I doubt i will miss it anyway. I have 600gb free still on nvme, if I ever got anywhere near full I could just turn it off.

I guess its more useful if you read/write tons of data to NVME to have it on. But most home users don't come anywhere near the usage needed to worry about it.
 
D

Deleted member 14196

Guest
10% is standard. But you could just said to 0% as mentioned above to manage it yourself make sure it doesn’t go above 80-90% full
 
OP Ratio Formula: OP (%) = ((Physical Capacity – User Capacity) / User Capacity) * 100
Ex) When 120 GB of a 128 GB SSD is used as the user capacity while 8 GB is assigned to the OP, the OP (%) is ((128 – 120) / 120) *100 = 6.7 %.

That example is wrong. The SSD actually has 128 GiB of NAND flash, not 128 GB.

Therefore the default OP is 14.5%, not 6.7%.

https://ipv4.google.com/search?q=((128+GiB+–+120+GB)+/+120+GB)+*100
 
Hi,

I have a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB SSD. I would like to set OP for my drive, however I can't guess what percentage I should apply. Maybe 10% (93GB) would be higher than enough, or maybe less and uneffective, I really dont know.

I mostly play games on my PC. Sometimes I record my gameplay using Nvidia Shadowplay and each 5 minute clip is 2GB in size. Of course, doesn't matter if I save it or not, when Nvidia Shadowplay is turned on, the disk drive will write data continuously. Except this, I don't transfer much data. In this case, what percentage of OP I should set? Magician itself telling me 10% is recommended but I would not like to lose much storage if 93GB OP would be an overkill.

Thank you.
Don't bother run it with the OP that comes stock.
Set a schedule that fits your needs and just tidy up.
 

jasonf2

Distinguished
The reason we overprovision SSDs is that Flash memory has for all given purposes an unlimited read cycle, but limited number of write cycles per block. Because of the way it is designed the entire block needs to be erased and rewritten for each write operation. So unlike a rust drive that simply swaps a per bit magnet off to magnetic on with no real consequence of failure a SSD can only write each block so many times. Overprovisioning allows those block writes to be moved around on the hard drive to wear level as blocks go bad. It also gives a place to move data to as the blocks fail. On the original SSD drives overprovisioning was built into the drive total memory size and not advertised as part of the total usable size. The newer drives are doing it this way to market more size while actually giving you less. It is a good best practice to run some over provision and I just run the suggested amount in magician.
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
If Samsung says it's a 1Tb drive, it's a 1Tb drive and will have 7-13% redundancy that's not used except as replacements for bad cells. But thats only concerning lifespan.

Users of smaller drives, such as the 128Gb 840Pro or the 120Gb evo's were advised to leave 10% minimum unused space, simply for the windows swap file use. This had nothing to do with over-provisioning or redundancy provisions either added or already in place.

Added over provisioning above and beyond the redundancy cells just adds to the redundancy, giving a drive possible longer lifespan by halting usage of the over provisioned cells until needed. TRIM will take care of moving and maintaining cell health for the remaining % of the drive.

It's not a bad idea for smaller drives, but unnecessary for larger drives unless they constantly remain full or close and see high TBW use.