Improving SSD performance on Windows involves proper setup and maintenance.
Improving SSD performance on Windows involves proper setup and maintenance.
There are no up-to-date resources available for optimizing an SSD on Windows 7. Most current guides date back to 2011.
Click the drive with the right-click menu, choose Properties, then go to Tools. Click "Optimize" and select "Defragment and Optimize Drive." Turn off all scheduled optimization for both your SSD and any system-reserved storage. When Windows prompts to optimize, it means defragmenting—you don’t want that for your SSD. I also adjusted my schedule to once a month for my HDD because it rarely gets new data.
Also includes actions such as trimming and relocating the hard drive to an HDD.
I don't feel equipped to offer solid advice here. Running the default optimization mode (which usually means defragmenting) can harm SSDs. You're better off avoiding it entirely, especially if you want regular maintenance. @ FIXXX, you should have Windows' TRIM support since version 7, so that's fine. In short, just try to stop Windows from defragmenting your drive. It seems your drive is likely a SATA model, as M.2 SSDs didn't get TRIM support until later.
It seems many people are overly concerned about SSDs these days. Initially, their write speeds were quite low, but nowadays an SSD can last several years—possibly even longer. Just ensure the trim feature is active and turn off automatic defragmentation. That should cover it.
I verified TRIM status in the console; it was active. Also confirmed the OS excluded it from the list to be defragged. Note: My HDD never got defragged by the OS, which is fine—though I thought it should have been automated. It might only happen if the main drive is an HDD instead of an SSD. Thanks for the help!