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LAB NOTES
Should You Defragment Your SSD?
LAB NOTES
Should You Defragment Your SSD?
LAB NOTES
IN THE LAB^
HANDS ON WITH THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWAREThere’s a good reason you should steer clear of this common practice
D
efragmenting a hard disk has a
tangible eff ect: It reorganizes the data
that’s been scattered all around the
drive into contiguous chains. This, in theory,
mitigates the mechanical delays that occur
when the drive’s actuator arm has to jump
around and wait for a specifi c portion of the
platter to rotate underneath the drive heads.
A solid-state drive has no perceptible
delays in its reads, regardless of whether the
data is arrayed in contiguous fl ash cells or
spread out across the drive. There aren’t any moving parts, aft er all. So
there’s really no reason to defragment an SSD.
Worse, massive defragmentation operations on the drive could
dramatically lower an SSD’s life expectancy. The more you rearrange your
data across diff erent fl ash cells, the more fi nite write cycles you’re using.
SSDs can last a long time, but there’s no need to test the waters unnecessar-
ily. We’ve talked to SSD manufacturers and they agree—there’s really no
reason to defragment an SSDDAVID MURPHY
ASSOCIATE EDITORKATHERINE STEVENSON
DEPUTY EDITORWILL SMITH
EDITOR-IN-CHIEFThis month, I tested a
ton of videocards (see
the reviews online)
and also spent some
quality time with
keyboards and mice
(also online). While
I’m going to stick with
my trusty Natural
Ergonomic Keyboard
4000, I’m tempted by
some of these new
gaming mice. They
might even convince
me to ditch my G5!NORMAN CHAN
ONLINE EDITORNehalem and Intel
SSD drives weren’t
the only big products
to come out of this
year’s Intel Devel-
oper Forum. I also got
to take an early look
at USB 3.0 hardware,
quad-core extreme-
powered laptops, and
a prototype tablet-
notebook hybrid
that runs Microsoft ’s
Origami interface.TOM EDWARDS
MANAGING EDITORThis month’s cover
feature motivated
me to get organized.
I began by fi gur-
ing out where my
paycheck goes each
month by enrolling
in Mint and then I
started a training
log at Map My Run.
You can see my runs
at http://tinyurl.
com/5c3xbn—I’ll
keep the fi nances to
myself though.GORDON MAH UNG
SENIOR EDITORAdobe’s new CS4
suite makes some
big promises, so I’m
checking out betas
of the product to
get a head start on
new benchmarks.
Hopefully, the GPU
functionality will
be supported so we
can push both the
CPU and GPU in our
new suite of tests.Despite our recent
critique of Battlestar
Galactica, the show
has proven to be a
source of bonding for
the staff. As those of
us without cable or
satellite TV service
(yes, such freaks of
nature do exist!) catch
up on the BG DVDs,
we’ve had some epic
group discussions
about the show.