As an owner of multiple computers it also comes with many disks to maintain. Physically checking them from time to time, recycling trash files and doing software checks for example.
I asked Bing for some additional tips for maintaining my SSD's and the HDD in my Minecraft server.
Optimizing SSDs
Overprovisioning your SSD
Usually done with tools from the manufacturer or during the partition size configuration during the SSD setup. You can also shrink a partition using Disk Management, found in the Computer Management. You end up with "unallocated space" and recommendations for the size of this area vary between 5-10%. Confirm the change by simply going to the file explorer and checking the drive size.
Basically you want to leave the rest for normal user data. Overprovisioning can increase performance by helping with the garbage collection and wear-leveling (spreading the use of the blocks). It increases lifespan and also gives room for error correction.
TRIM:
First tip was about the TRIM command, which essentially helps your computer keep track of where data is located that you want to move or delete.
Open PowerShell and run fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify and if it returns 0 on your results everything is fine. If you instead need to activate it, run fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0 which then should optimize erasure and writing speeds on your SSD.
Disable disk defragmentation:
When left on default settings, your computer will optimize and defragment your drives on a weekly basis for example. This wears the SSD out more than necessary, the computer should be left to handle this on its own. Defragmentation is really best for HDD (spinning disks), as they operate functionally different from SSDs. Enter the defragmentation program and turn it off, this require administrative rights.
Disable indexing service?
To some small degree you can get benefits from disabling indexing, as it increases wear on the SSD. Usually indexing takes place when there isn't much load on the CPU anyway. The consequence is that you now manually have to find files or that search is slower. In theory you increase the lifespan, especially with older hardware. Search becomes slower and general system performance remains pretty much the same, but the SSD might live longer. So it is up to you.
Enable cache writing:
Go to the device manager and then go to your disk drives, select the SSD, click "change settings" and then policies. Make sure the write cache is enabled. Do not check the other box that mentions Windows write-cache buffer, this is for devices that has uninterrupted power supply.
Modify power plan so that SSD doesn't sleep:
If you plan to keep your PC running for a long time, you can try this setting in the power settings.
Go to "edit plan settings", select change advanced power settings. Under hard disk you can see how quickly the SSD will fall asleep. Try put it to never. This will increase power consumption, so monitor if this choice is right for you.
SSD Alignment:
SSD data is worked with in blocks. If the starting point is off, the SSD might need to work across two blocks. This slows performance and can cause more wear than needed, alignment makes sure that writing is even across the cells who have limited amount of write cycles. We can check for misalignment by opening PowerShell as administrator and writing "msinfo32". This brings up a new window, press components, storage and disk. Take the numbers from "partition starting offsets" and divide the numbers with 4096. If the result is a whole number the SSD is aligned.
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