Defragging SSD's?

[Leopardi]

I see that PerfectDisk 11 has an option to defrag SSD's. I thought you didn't have to defrag them? Is it there just not to lose customers that move to SSD's?

 

[sub.mesa]

Yes, though it may actually be 'tony-trim' and not defragment at all. Either way, no real use for such a utility. And if it really defragments, do not use it; you would be doing the exact opposite on modern SSDs like Intel.

 

[blazemonkey]

And if it really defragments, do not use it; you would be doing the exact opposite on modern SSDs like Intel.

I would have to agree with this 100%.

 

[InvisiBill]

Actually, using PD's defrag is part of the Tony TRIM process. I've always wondered exactly what it does. I think it just tries to rewrite things so that they occupy as few blocks as possible, leaving you with the maximum number of free blocks, which should help avoid write slowdowns in theory.

With the newness of current SSDs and the amount of logic they have internally, I'm not sure how much I trust PD's defrag to actually help. It seems very possible that the SSD's own functions could interfere with what PD is trying to do, and result in no improvement or even making things worse. I have no experience with it (as a user or programmer) so I have no specific reason to think it does anything bad, it just seems to be a whole lot easier to make software that doesn't quite work as advertised (whether intentionally or not).