When to defragment a hard disk, activate the trim on an ssd and perform other maintenance tasks on our storage units

Many people still don't know exactly when they should be optimizing for their storage devices. The answer is very easy, since Windows often takes care of automatic maintenance for these types of units, while other times you don't have to do things that are too complicated.

Even so, in the next post we will explain exactly what maintenance and optimization operations can be performed on the different storage units that exist.

Index of contents

Recommended maintenance tasks for hard drives and SSDs

Next we are going to leave you up to 5 tips, which we recommend doing on your computer.

Defragmentation

Defragmentation of hard drives (not SSDs) is a limited possibility since Microsoft switched to the NTFS file system, especially since this format is automatically optimized and we rarely see a degradation in hard drive performance even years after using it..

That said, many external drives come in the FAT16, FAT32, or exFAT formats, which from time to time might benefit from some optimization, depending on whether you notice slow performance or not.

On the other hand, it must be emphasized that you should never defragment an SSD, since its operation is totally different from that of a hard disk.

Search for errors

The Scan drive command and the CHKDSK (on the command line) are very different and are used to analyze the disks after some system failure, blue screens of death and other similar things.

You can scan or apply the CHKDSK command to an SSD easily (right click on the drive letter, and then Properties> Tools> Analyze / Check ) as long as you do not scan sectors, since it would be a waste of time due to the construction of SSDs.

If you run the CMD / CHDSK command and receive a permissions error, you will have to run the CMD as administrator. Type CMD in the Windows search box and right click on Command Prompt to see that option.

Optimization and TRIM

Windows uses optimization to cover both defragmented drives and to apply TRIM on an SSD. The optimization console is available by right-clicking on the drive letter in Windows File Explorer, and then selecting Properties> Tools> Optimize . With hard drives, the Optimization option will do a little defragmentation or check of the system files. For SSDs, you will apply the TRIM command.

The TRIM function removes cells and NAND blocks that no longer contain data, in addition to consolidating the data in a more restricted area.

Because these operations take forever, they are often postponed until the unit is no longer in use.

Secure erase

For hard drives, Secure Erase is an easy way to erase all data irretrievably. In other words, the files will not only be erased to give rise to a new partition, but all the data will simply be overwritten so that they cannot be recovered. This process can take a very long time.

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In the case of an SSD, secure erase gets rid of all data, but it also brings the drive to a factory state, with the best possible performance. Even with the TRIM command the performance of the SSDs is not as good as when performing a secure erase of the data.

SSDs are normally very fast, so a safe erase should only be done if the drive has been running near full capacity in recent times, or if you see a decrease in performance, which is very rare today.

conclusion

For most users, the Windows Optimize / Optimize console results in an automatic maintenance mode, but for more advanced users who want to get the most out of their storage drives, manual TRIM on an SSD is recommended. defragmentation of the hard drive. Also, if you plan to do a safe erase, don't forget to create a backup beforehand.