Storage Solutions Crucial MX500 and over provisioning ...
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dvader
Adept
Since you are using this tool, you are on Windows and TRIM is enabled on the Drive. With TRIM enabled, your entire free space is available as OP space (dynamic OP), you don't need it. That's why all modern SSDs will have it disabled by default.
Just to explain in case this seems a bit strange. Yes, you can enable a dedicated portion of your storage (10% was the recommendation) but it doesn't make sense with TRIM on. Remember those Crucial drives with 1.8 TB and 960 GB models, they were the same drives as today with dedicated OP space. (Ofc there are improvements in controller and Die but still logically the same). As modern OS(s) adopted SSD as boot drives, windows added the option to regularly optimize your SSD drive with regular TRIM commands. In short, you don't need it (but again provision like 10G won't hurt if it's a write-heavy drive), unless you are on Windows 7 or something for some reason.
www.techspot.com
forums.macrumors.com
superuser.com
(This superuser link is a bit old, so just understand the logic behind this, the Sandforce thing is not applicable to MX500)
Just to explain in case this seems a bit strange. Yes, you can enable a dedicated portion of your storage (10% was the recommendation) but it doesn't make sense with TRIM on. Remember those Crucial drives with 1.8 TB and 960 GB models, they were the same drives as today with dedicated OP space. (Ofc there are improvements in controller and Die but still logically the same). As modern OS(s) adopted SSD as boot drives, windows added the option to regularly optimize your SSD drive with regular TRIM commands. In short, you don't need it (but again provision like 10G won't hurt if it's a write-heavy drive), unless you are on Windows 7 or something for some reason.
Understanding SSDs: the need for TRIM, overprovisioning, and more
A number of years ago, the storage industry got together and developed a solution between the OS and the SSD by creating a new SATA command called...
www.techspot.com
Overprovisioning?
My last system SSD died after two years of heavy use. Some reports indicate that overprovisioning has benefits. But it seems like as long as trim is enabled and the drive is left with a lot of free space the same impact is achieved. I am using dual MX500 2TB for system and data formatted APFS...
Over-provisioning an SSD - does it still hold?
Multiple (but not very recent) sources suggest that ~7% of the SSD space should be left unallocated in order to reduce the drive wear. Is it still valid as for now or has the situation changed?
(This superuser link is a bit old, so just understand the logic behind this, the Sandforce thing is not applicable to MX500)
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dvader
Adept
Yup, that's how it should be. Crucial/Samsung don't care and it is not there in their Warranty Terms and services either so you should be good. Linux users need to enable Trim as it's not enabled by default. Apart from that yeah no need.
Just FYI I have it enabled on my boot drive that's it. I don't bother with any other drive though.
Swap is analogous to Window's virtual memory. Basically if you have less RAM or your RAM gets full when using a heavy app/game, the system will use your hard disk as virtual RAM instead of freezing and requiring a restart like the good ol' days. It is way slower than physical RAM, but prevents rebooting, and more importantly losing data.
This is also what happens on phones that claim 4GB RAM expandable to 10GB or whatever. Ideally you should not use virtual memory on solid state storage which have limited write cycles.
Win 10 has hybrid sleep enabled by default, which basically hibernates your system when you hit Shutdown. In this case, RAM contents are written to HDD (or SSD), enabling to to "boot up" faster.
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As for over-provisioning, I leave 10-20% unallocated on a drive. Except game drives, where I use up the entire space since they won't see much wear.
enthusiast29
Skilled
Overprovisioning is not swap.
It's a percentage of space left unallocated on drive for the SSD's firmware to deal with performance and endurance issues of SSDs.
Here's a more detailed explanation my Kingston: https://www.kingston.com/en/blog/pc-performance/overprovisioning
dvader
Adept
None whatsoever, however I will point out few scenarios where it can not be avoided.
1. Before SSD were main stream TRIM was not available on windows by default. This is not applicable anymore and just listing it for historic reasons. or You might be running an old OS (for work, industries and what not). I haven't seen a single manufacturing facility without a software running on win 98/XP or 7 (this is considered to be the most latest thing in manufacturing world)
2. Lets say you are a content creator or someone who regularly installs and deletes games on ur drive or any scenario where you keep filling your disk on a regular basis. As you fill your disk (Remember windows default TRIM is set to weekly but again can be modified) even with TRIM enabled you have less and less space available for SSD bookeeping. With dedicated space for OP you never fill that space and get some level of consistency. This is a very special scenario and not applicable to 90% of the population. But still good to have a feature and not use it than to miss it when you need it.
enthusiast29
Skilled
This!
If you regularly fill your drive to near full capacity, it gets slow when writing more data because it has to move data around the blocks and to move the data around it needs free space.
Free space is not updated unless TRIM is run on the drive. Even if it's updated if no OP is done then free space would be very less since the drive is nearly full, the writing will be slow as it keeps waiting for the "move" operation to complete.
Providing some OP gives the drive a permanent free space to do this activity and does not cause slow downs on the drive. Additional benefit is increased endurance since user won't be utilizing the OP'ed space so there will eventually be lesser writes on the drive.