Unusually High Amount of SSD Writes?

[oXObsidianXo]

I recently built a custom PC around a month and a half ago. Of course knowing the benefits of an SSD I installed one, a 120GB Samsung 840 Evo. It has now been roughly 6-8 weeks since its construction and after comparing notes with a few other PC enthusiasts it seems as though my SSD is writing far more data than it should. Since I built it in early/mid October, according to Samsung's Magician Software, my SSD has written 3.31TB of data. Comparing to someone else's older computer, which has only written ~1.5TB. Some factors which may be affecting this are as follows:

Windows 8.1 fast boot is enabled

I had to redo a complete clean install of Windows 8
Most of my drivers are on my SSD
My browser is on my SSD
I have 3rd party themes installed on Windows 8
I game on my pc, all my games however are on my HDD

These are the only things which I could see remotely affecting my SSD's write rate.

It should also be noted that upon first booting up Samsung Magician states I have 59GB free and 41GB used. However after being turned on for a while this fluctuates.

Any and all help is appreciated and thank you in advance.


*EDIT* Since Posting this my SSD writes has gone from 3.31 to 3.41 in a mere 9 hours, with page file disabled on my SSD the whole time (Enabled on my HDD however). Also, my total space available has gone from 59GB to 56GB without any new programs being installed (less a 72MB file).

*EDIT* I went into my BIOS and disabled "Windows 8 Fast Boot" which apparently is a hybrid shutdown and saves large amounts of data temporarily so the PC can boot up faster. I will check again in a few days to see if this was the problem.

*EDIT* After disabling Hybrid boot and running a disk clean I now have 70GB of free space on my SSD.

 

[laviniuc]

1)how much ram do you have? (with 8or more you can disable the windows page file completely).
http://www.overclock.net/t/28041/how-to-disable-the-page-file

2)disable hibernate (start run cmd, powercfg -h off)

3)ahci and trim have to be on

4)os optimizations from magician: turn as many as you can according to the recommendation

5)over provisioning set it to min10% (also on the magician)

6)system restore and scheduled defragmentation have to be off

p.s. i have 0.68tb written in 6 months and 3 windows installs.

 

[Tseg]

I've had an 840 Pro 256GB SSD installed for 6 months and just checked: 4.72 TB written to date or about 26.5GB per day. I've been doing some research and I see estimates that this 256GB SSD should last close to 380TB writes... or 40 years at my current pace.

I see you are averaging about 73GB a day... not sure if a 120GB Samsung would have 1/2 the life of a 256GB, but lets assume 190TB write expectation. You are on pace to write 26.48TB per year and at 190TB write life expectation your SSD may die in about 7 years.

I suppose the big question is how accurate is my original 380TB life expectation based on piecing together various web commentary? After some more digging, I came across several actual torture tests:

Patriot Wildfire Torture Test

Samsung 840 Torture Test

The good news is, the results are even better than hoped for, by a factor of 2x - 3x.

BTW, if using Win 8, my understanding to get the most out of it, one does not want to disable hibernate as this functionality is what allows this OS to start up in seconds.

Also, in Win 8 the Defrag option is called Optimize Drives... the system automatically detects SSDs and runs TRIM vs. Defrag, so no need to disable in Win 8.

 

[laviniuc]

BTW, if using Win 8, my understanding to get the most out of it, one does not want to disable hibernate as this functionality is what allows this OS to start up in seconds.

Also, in Win 8 the Defrag option is called Optimize Drives... the system automatically detects SSDs and runs TRIM vs. Defrag, so no need to disable in Win 8.

---

and you trust microsoft implicitly to do it ... because? just go in, and make sure the ssd isn't set to defrag. i takes mere seconds. the os will already start in seconds. and the hibernate is just wrong. if you want instant boots use the s3 sleep instead, if not it takes 10 seconds instead of 5 to boot.

 

[Tseg]

BTW, if using Win 8, my understanding to get the most out of it, one does not want to disable hibernate as this functionality is what allows this OS to start up in seconds.

Also, in Win 8 the Defrag option is called Optimize Drives... the system automatically detects SSDs and runs TRIM vs. Defrag, so no need to disable in Win 8.

---

and you trust microsoft implicitly to do it ... because? just go in, and make sure the ssd isn't set to defrag. i takes mere seconds. the os will already start in seconds. and the hibernate is just wrong. if you want instant boots use the s3 sleep instead, if not it takes 10 seconds instead of 5 to boot.

...Because I can't go through life being a Doubting Thomas (unless someone implies that I'm an imbecile for being so trusting... then I have to check)

Use Powershell:

Get-EventLog -LogName Application -Source "microsoft-windows-defrag" | sort timegenerated -desc | fl timegenerated, message

The storage optimizer successfully completed retrim on OS (C: )

Sorry, so SSD defrags. In fact, to my understanding, the SSD will not retrim unless scheduled, so one does their SSD a disservice by disabling the optimization service.

S3 consumes twice the power as S4 (Fast Startup equivalent)... so while S3 saves me 5 seconds I may as well just leave my computer on 24/7. S4, on the other hand, saves me well over 30 seconds vs. complete shutdown.

Sleep States

System Power State S3

System power state S3 is a sleeping state with the following characteristics:

Power consumption
Less consumption than in state S2. Processor is off and some chips on the motherboard also might be off.
Software resumption
After the wake-up event, control starts from the processor's reset vector.
Hardware latency
Almost indistinguishable from S2.
System hardware context
Only system memory is retained. CPU context, cache contents, and chipset context are lost.

System Power State S4 (or Fast Startup)

System power state S4, the hibernate state, is the lowest-powered sleeping state and has the longest wake-up latency. To reduce power consumption to a minimum, the hardware powers off all devices. Operating system context, however, is maintained in a hibernate file (an image of memory) that the system writes to disk before entering the S4 state. Upon restart, the loader reads this file and jumps to the system's previous, prehibernation location.

If a computer in state S1, S2, or S3 loses all AC or battery power, it loses system hardware context and therefore must reboot to return to S0. A computer in state S4, however, can restart from its previous location even after it loses battery or AC power because operating system context is retained in the hibernate file. A computer in the hibernate state uses no power (with the possible exception of trickle current).

State S4 has the following characteristics:

Power consumption
Off, except for trickle current to the power button and similar devices.
Software resumption
System restarts from the saved hibernate file. If the hibernate file cannot be loaded, rebooting is required. Reconfiguring the hardware while the system is in the S4 state might result in changes that prevent the hibernate file from loading correctly.
Hardware latency
Long and undefined. Only physical interaction returns the system to the working state. Such interaction might include the user pressing the ON switch or, if the appropriate hardware is present and wake-up is enabled, an incoming ring for the modem or activity on a LAN. The machine can also awaken from a resume timer if the hardware supports it.
System hardware context
None retained in hardware. The system writes an image of memory in the hibernate file before powering down. When the operating system is loaded, it reads this file and jumps to its previous location.

 

[laviniuc]

and thus we ended up arguing about 10W consumption. that's what s3 uses btw. ... that would be... half of an economic light bulb. the hibernate will write the entire contents of the ram to the ssd each time you shut down. that's how i killed one of my hdd-s (yes, it's not a misspell. i killed a hdd via hibernate, i dont wanna think what it would have done to an ssd if i had one back than)

 

[oXObsidianXo]

and thus we ended up arguing about 10W consumption. that's what s3 uses btw. ... that would be... half of an economic light bulb. the hibernate will write the entire contents of the ram to the ssd each time you shut down. that's how i killed one of my hdd-s (yes, it's not a misspell. i killed a hdd via hibernate, i dont wanna think what it would have done to an ssd if i had one back than)

Ok, so I have turned off windows 8 fast boot, and I believe I disabled hibernate, TRIM is enabled, I have completely turned off paging file AHCI is enabled, and I have set 10GB of over provisioning, I have used Samsung Magician and set it to maximum reliability as well. However both yesterday and today, upon booting up my PC I found that there was almost exactly 50GB of data written both times.

 

[Tseg]

Sorry I cannot help you why it continues to write so much.... however...

I feel comfortable that newer SSDs can get at least 2K writes (based on further searching on torture tests) which would put your write life at 240TB+. If you write 50GB every day that is 18TB per year. You should get 12 years before all your writes bring down the SSD. It is likely something other than writes will bring down your SSD before then (and who keeps a hard drive for 12 years anyway?). If it were me, I would set it back to default and not lose any sleep.

 

[laviniuc]

http://www.ssdready.com/ssdready/

try this tool to find out exactly what's responsible for the writes...

 

[oXObsidianXo]

http://www.ssdready.com/ssdready/

try this tool to find out exactly what's responsible for the writes...

Ok, thanks a lot for the help. I will be running it tomorrow and seeing what results I get. I guess worst case I just don't worry about it and just leave it alone.

 

[laviniuc]

ofcourse. as stated above the ssd should have no problems with that amount of writes anyway.

 

[oXObsidianXo]

ofcourse. as stated above the ssd should have no problems with that amount of writes anyway.

So I downloaded the SSDReady program you suggested. And I can't help but notice that even when sitting on my desktop not doing anything, my SSD is writing data. I know it should be reading data because my OS is on it, but in 20 minutes, it has written 900MB. Also, it is giving me an estimated life span ATM of 1.2 years, which seems shockingly low.

 

[laviniuc]

doesn't it show what's writting to it? you can search also on the resource monitor (task manager -> resource monitor) disk tab and sort by writes descending. at 900 mb/20 mins you would indeed exhaust the estimated max writes in 1.2 years. that sounds like a lot. something must be writting without you knowing

 

[oXObsidianXo]

doesn't it show what's writting to it? you can search also on the resource monitor (task manager -> resource monitor) disk tab and sort by writes descending. at 900 mb/20 mins you would indeed exhaust the estimated max writes in 1.2 years. that sounds like a lot. something must be writting without you knowing

Upon uninstalling my anti-virus (AVG 2014) which was installed to my 2TB HDD my writes have decreased to 600MB in 50 minutes. And my estimated life span is 3.5-4 years. Also, I appreciate the quick replies.

 

[oXObsidianXo]

doesn't it show what's writting to it? you can search also on the resource monitor (task manager -> resource monitor) disk tab and sort by writes descending. at 900 mb/20 mins you would indeed exhaust the estimated max writes in 1.2 years. that sounds like a lot. something must be writting without you knowing

Just used a program called "SSDLife Pro" and it gave me an estimated life span of 8 years 5 months. It also had the same record of data written @ 3.61TB. So, I really don't know.

 

[oXObsidianXo]

doesn't it show what's writting to it? you can search also on the resource monitor (task manager -> resource monitor) disk tab and sort by writes descending. at 900 mb/20 mins you would indeed exhaust the estimated max writes in 1.2 years. that sounds like a lot. something must be writting without you knowing

I believe I have found the issue...and it's name is Google Chrome. I started using Firefox and have been monitoring my GB written and so far they are less than when using chrome. Just browsing the internet on chrome writes 100's or MB every minute.

 

[laviniuc]

k, glad it worked out

 

[oXObsidianXo]

It was Nvidia Shadowplay. Even though it was saving video to my HDD, it was caching the last 5 minutes of gameplay to my SSD.

 

[laviniuc]

yes, because the cache goes where the nvidia experience is installed... makes sense

 

[oXObsidianXo]

Shadow play was the problem. The solution was simply changing the location of my TEMP folder to my D:\ drive. To do this I simply went to "This PC" "Advanced Settings" "Environmental Variables" then changed the location of TEMP and TMP folders.

 

[emo_boy_zagreb]

so i need to change only NVDIA SHADOWPLAY TEMP FOLDER LOCATION? what about %appdata% i see nvdia shadowplay also there and is on :C (my ssd) will this make written bytes on ssd also or im good when i change in program on :F?

 

[emo_boy_zagreb]

bump pleas?