[SOLVED] What performance decrease would you see with either a HDD or SSD coming to full storage?

[ShangWang]

Is there a difference in gaming performance when either a SSD or HDD is near 80% storage?

Will this only affect download and copying speeds, or does it have any impact on FPS, boot time, app responsiveness, or anything else?

When would you start to see any decrease in performance, and why? 50%?
Will a HDD or SSD suffer differently from each other?

What if you had both a SSD and HDD with the OS on SSD and games on HDD, what happens if one was more full/over 50%?

How would you benefit from having 2 hard drives? Does it increase performance in any way or is it just for managing storage?

 

[rgd1101]

boot up is loading.

 

[ShangWang]

boot up is loading.

I see, can you answer the rest of the questions?

 

[USAFRet]

SSDs will absolutely 'slow down' if too full.
Also, this affects lifespan.

In general, don't fill it up past 80%.


Multiple drives is mainly just for data management.
See my list below...7 drives, each with (mostly) their own use.

500GB - OS and all applications
1 for CAD work
1 for photo work
1 for games
1 for video work
1 for cache space for CAD/photo/video applications
1 for general junk

 

[ShangWang]

SSDs will absolutely 'slow down' if too full.
Also, this affects lifespan.

In general, don't fill it up past 80%.


Multiple drives is mainly just for data management.
See my list below...7 drives, each with (mostly) their own use.

500GB - OS and all applications
1 for CAD work
1 for photo work
1 for games
1 for video work
1 for cache space for CAD/photo/video applications
1 for general junk

Thank you, but can you describe what exactly slows down and why?

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you, but can you describe what exactly slows down and why?

An SSD is comprised of "cells". Each cell has a limited number of write cycles. That "limit" is large, but it IS a limit.
To write new data, a cell must be first zero'd out.
If you fill it up with data, the drive takes longer to find somewhere to write new data to.

This also affects lifespan.
In idle periods, the drive firmware shuffles data around, so as not to wear out any particular cell.
Given little free space, there is no where to shuffle to. So it ends up writing to the same little spaces over and over.

 

[USAFRet]

A high level discussion on "wear leveling"
https://www.atpinc.com/blog/how-SSD-wear-leveling-works

 

[ShangWang]

If you fill it up with data, the drive takes longer to find somewhere to write new data to.

Thanks! I assume this only applies to copying, downloading, and booting up apps but it has no effect on FPS?

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks! I assume this only applies to copying, downloading, and booting up apps but it has no effect on FPS?

That applies to any interaction with the drive.

Gaming FPS mostly happens in RAM and CPU. Not the drive speed.

 

[ShangWang]

That applies to any interaction with the drive.

Gaming FPS mostly happens in RAM and CPU. Not the drive speed.

Thank you, I'm also going to assume it might have some impact on gaming performance but not by much. Just making sure page file usage/speed would have nothing to do with a near full drive?

Also to see how SSD life span is reduced, would you see more GB written in crystaldiskinfo because of how having less space works?

Is that how it reduces SSD lifespan, by making it write more GB and therefore reducing the life span? The only way I can see lifespan measured is how many TB the SSD can write left.

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you, I'm also going to assume it might have some impact on gaming performance but not by much. Just making sure page file usage/speed would have nothing to do with a near full drive?

Also to see how SSD life span is reduced, would you see more GB written in crystaldiskinfo because of how having less space works?

Is that how it reduces SSD lifespan, by making it write more GB and therefore reducing the life span? The only way I can see lifespan measured is how many TB the SSD can write left.

Consider a printed book.
300 pages.

If you continually erase and write over one page...pretty soon that singular piece of paper will wear out. Gone, never to be used again.
Then you'd need to move to another one.

But instead, if you spread out that 'erasing' over hundreds of pages....the overall book will last much longer.


CDI can show you the overall TBW so far. It does not show 'how much is left'. That is unknowable.

 

[geofelt]

Games will do some amount of drive writing and reading.
Perhaps reads for level loads, graphics content and such.
It may be writing game checkpoints for example.
I might add that a full HDD can also suffer as free space may not be contiguous, and a highly filled drive will start using some of the slower interior cylinders.

I like the book image from USAFRet.
It demonstrates why larger ssd devices with many pages or nand blocks will last longer.

 

[ShangWang]

Games will do some amount of drive writing and reading.
Perhaps reads for level loads, graphics content and such.
It may be writing game checkpoints for example.
I might add that a full HDD can also suffer as free space may not be contiguous, and a highly filled drive will start using some of the slower interior cylinders.

I like the book image from USAFRet.
It demonstrates why larger ssd devices with many pages or nand blocks will last longer.

Consider a printed book.
300 pages.

If you continually erase and write over one page...pretty soon that singular piece of paper will wear out. Gone, never to be used again.
Then you'd need to move to another one.

But instead, if you spread out that 'erasing' over hundreds of pages....the overall book will last much longer.


CDI can show you the overall TBW so far. It does not show 'how much is left'. That is unknowable.

Thank you for that example! So CDI won't increase GB written from having a fuller storage, ex. (a normal 5GB write would become 6GB) but it will basically decrease the "total" TB able to be written leftover because it wears out the pages faster than normal?

 

[Bob.B]

Is there a difference in gaming performance when either a SSD or HDD is near 80% storage?

Will this only affect download and copying speeds, or does it have any impact on FPS, boot time, app responsiveness, or anything else?

When would you start to see any decrease in performance, and why? 50%?
Will a HDD or SSD suffer differently from each other?

What if you had both a SSD and HDD with the OS on SSD and games on HDD, what happens if one was more full/over 50%?

How would you benefit from having 2 hard drives? Does it increase performance in any way or is it just for managing storage?

My basic view of things.

When a ssd starts to fill the biggest impact will be on writes.
Writes need an empty block and if there is no empty block the ssd needs to create it so that adds an extra step.

When a hdd starts to fill you get into this fragmentation stuff.
Free space is in little pieces scattered around the pack.
So files get broken up into little pieces and scattered around the pack.
Because of hdd access time this will impact reads and writes.

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you for that example! So CDI won't increase GB written from having a fuller storage, ex. (a normal 5GB write would become 6GB) but it will basically decrease the "total" TB able to be written leftover because it wears out the pages faster than normal?

CDI simply reads what the drive firmware reports.
CrystalDiskInfo.

 

[ShangWang]

My basic view of things.

When a ssd starts to fill the biggest impact will be on writes.
Writes need an empty block and if there is no empty block the ssd needs to create it so that adds an extra step.

When a hdd starts to fill you get into this fragmentation stuff.
Free space is in little pieces scattered around the pack.
So files get broken up into little pieces and scattered around the pack.
Because of hdd access time this will impact reads and writes.

Makes sense! And that's why HDD need defragmentation often especially if they're full.

 

[geofelt]

When a ssd needs to write some data, it will first try to find a completely unused nand block.
Then, only a write will be needed. Initially, all is free.
In time, all of the initially free blocks will have some data on them.
Then, the process becomes a read followed by a rewrite, two operations just takes longer.
As the drive becomes closer to full, the ssd must consolidate space which takes even longer. This can, in time, be done while the ssd is not busy.
If you delete a record, that is a read/rewrite operation if there is other valid data in the block. If the ssd is filled sparsely, and there is no other valid data in the block, the trim command simply makes the block available which is fast.

Do not worry about ssd performance. Compared to a HDD, a ssd will be 3x -6x faster in sequential operations, and perhaps 40x faster in random operations.
90% of activity will be random.

 

[ShangWang]

CDI simply reads what the drive firmware reports.
CrystalDiskInfo.

Thanks! Sorry for dragging this on but I'd like to know one more thing, let's say my SSD is said to last about 300TB writes total.

Not all SSDs which are the same exact model will have the same number of writes correct? Quality from factory production can make these write cycles differ?

 

[ShangWang]

When a ssd needs to write some data, it will first try to find a completely unused nand block.
Then, only a write will be needed. Initially, all is free.
In time, all of the initially free blocks will have some data on them.
Then, the process becomes a read followed by a rewrite, two operations just takes longer.
As the drive becomes closer to full, the ssd must consolidate space which takes even longer. This can, in time, be done while the ssd is not busy.
If you delete a record, that is a read/rewrite operation if there is other valid data in the block. If the ssd is filled sparsely, and there is no other valid data in the block, the trim command simply makes the block available which is fast.

Do not worry about ssd performance. Compared to a HDD, a ssd will be 3x -6x faster in sequential operations, and perhaps 40x faster in random operations.
90% of activity will be random.

Makes sense, thanks. Sorry to bother but I'm just curious about this since I had it in my head.

Would you say that for lifespan more existing pages would only be overwritten more often when above 50% storage space?

A SSD from 10-49% space usage will not have any more or less existing pages written/reduced lifespan and only above 50% is where this happens?

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks! Sorry for dragging this on but I'd like to know one more thing, let's say my SSD is said to last about 300TB writes total.

Not all SSDs which are the same exact model will have the same number of writes correct? Quality from factory production can make these write cycles differ?

That warranty TBW number is also something that is bandied about. Among the mostly clueless.
Normal consumer use does not write nearly as much as people think.

Consider 2 drives of similar capacity.
Drive A has a warranty of 5 years or 600TBW, whichever comes first.
Drive B is 5 years and 1000TBW.

Of COURSE people will say Drive B is sooooo much better. Bull.

Consider 2 cars:
Car A has a 5 year 1,000,000 mile warranty
Car B has a 5 year 1,500,000 mile warranty.

Car B is 'better', right? Nonsense.
In neither case, in normal consumer use, will you reach that mileage before the warranty ages out at 5 years.
You will have gotten rid of that car long before reaching 1 million miles.

My SSD collection (see below)....all 7 drives combined are below 100TBW. Total. A couple of them are years past the warranty age, and most others nearing it.

In independant tests, consumer grade SSD's have proven to last far far beyond that warranty number. Into the petabyte range for some.

 

[geofelt]

When ssd devices were 40gb in size, endurance was an issue.
Today with cheaper 500gb devices, endurance is no longer a practical issue for a desktop user.
It would take intense server type activity for 10 years to have any impact.
By then, the device will be obsolete.
And, even when no more writes are possible, a ssd can still be read so you can copy it to a new, larger device.

Do not depend too much on vendor ssd performance benchmarks.
They are done in an unrealistic environment.
As a practical matter, do not worry about ssd performance, they are all good and fast. Quality matters, some vendors buy cheap parts and assemble them.
Better vendors like Intel and samsung design and make their own parts.
Here is an amusing video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKLA7w9eeA

 

[ShangWang]

That warranty TBW number is also something that is bandied about. Among the mostly clueless.
Normal consumer use does not write nearly as much as people think.

Consider 2 drives of similar capacity.
Drive A has a warranty of 5 years or 600TBW, whichever comes first.
Drive B is 5 years and 1000TBW.

Of COURSE people will say Drive B is sooooo much better. Bull.

Consider 2 cars:
Car A has a 5 year 1,000,000 mile warranty
Car B has a 5 year 1,500,000 mile warranty.

Car B is 'better', right? Nonsense.
In neither case, in normal consumer use, will you reach that mileage before the warranty ages out at 5 years.
You will have gotten rid of that car long before reaching 1 million miles.

My SSD collection (see below)....all 7 drives combined are below 100TBW. Total. A couple of them are years past the warranty age, and most others nearing it.

In independant tests, consumer grade SSD's have proven to last far far beyond that warranty number. Into the petabyte range for some.

I see, thanks! I'm coming to about 1.9TB of total writes and I had this SSD for about 4 months. I do tend to keep electronics for a long time, but I guess this shouldn't be an issue.

I consider this a decent amount but I'm going to assume the number of write cycles left has no affect on performance either even if you were going to use up to 50% of it's life.

 

[ShangWang]

That warranty TBW number is also something that is bandied about. Among the mostly clueless.
Normal consumer use does not write nearly as much as people think.

Consider 2 drives of similar capacity.
Drive A has a warranty of 5 years or 600TBW, whichever comes first.
Drive B is 5 years and 1000TBW.

Of COURSE people will say Drive B is sooooo much better. Bull.

Consider 2 cars:
Car A has a 5 year 1,000,000 mile warranty
Car B has a 5 year 1,500,000 mile warranty.

Car B is 'better', right? Nonsense.
In neither case, in normal consumer use, will you reach that mileage before the warranty ages out at 5 years.
You will have gotten rid of that car long before reaching 1 million miles.

My SSD collection (see below)....all 7 drives combined are below 100TBW. Total. A couple of them are years past the warranty age, and most others nearing it.

In independant tests, consumer grade SSD's have proven to last far far beyond that warranty number. Into the petabyte range for some.

I see, thanks! I'm coming to about 1.9TB of total writes and I had this SSD for about 4 months, I consid

When ssd devices were 40gb in size, endurance was an issue.
Today with cheaper 500gb devices, endurance is no longer a practical issue for a desktop user.
It would take intense server type activity for 10 years to have any impact.
By then, the device will be obsolete.
And, even when no more writes are possible, a ssd can still be read so you can copy it to a new, larger device.

Do not depend too much on vendor ssd performance benchmarks.
They are done in an unrealistic environment.
As a practical matter, do not worry about ssd performance, they are all good and fast. Quality matters, some vendors buy cheap parts and assemble them.
Better vendors like Intel and samsung design and make their own parts.
Here is an amusing video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKLA7w9eeA

Thank you! So even if you were going to come close to using all TBW, no performance degradation will happen? The SSD will just die before that?

 

[Lafong]

1.9 TB in 4 months; aka 6 TB a year.

That is absolutely ordinary. You aren't a heavy user and should pay little or no attention to TBW. Get the drive you want at a price and capacity you want.

 

[USAFRet]

I see, thanks! I'm coming to about 1.9TB of total writes and I had this SSD for about 4 months, I consid

Thank you! So even if you were going to come close to using all TBW, no performance degradation will happen? The SSD will just die before that?

Endurance test, from several years ago:

The SSD Endurance Experiment: Data retention after 600TB

Six weeks have passed since our last SSD endurance update. When we last visited our heroes, they had just crossed the half-petabyte threshold—no small feat for a collection of consumer-grade...

techreport.com