Arguing with a friend about defragmentation and later finding yourself defragmented your SSD? Don’t know what you did? Or don’t know what’ll happen? Or you’re about to defragment your SSD right now?

I don’t know your case. But hey, don’t worry. I have been using and programming for computers since the ’90s, and I have done this multiple times.

I know exactly what happens when you defrag your SSD, every bit of it. I will explain technical and non-technical terms to understand which one makes you comfortable. Make sure you read till the end.

So, what happens if you defrag an SSD?

Seems pretty cool, right?

But if this helps you with space and storage, why is it not vastly recommended?

Something Let’s dig dive and find out everything regarding this issue. Save your time and make the best out of it.

Is it Okay to defrag an SSD?

It’s perfectly alright if you wish to defrag your SSD or not. But it depends on whether you should do it or not.

Before going through that section, first, check on you know the following basics.

So, What is data fragmentation?

But as more and more data pile up and more platters are engaged, saving a large file in a sequential platter becomes less likely. When the drive fills up, large pieces of data have to be fragmented to fit.

In short, this sums data fragmentation up.

So, What is defragmentation?

Defragmentation improves the drive’s speed and efficiency as well. There was a time when facing problems with HDDs, people defragmented their HDDs, and it still isn’t very uncommon.

But today, people tend to use SSDs along with HDDs, and it’s okay if you replace your HDDs with SSDs. It depends on what your need and work are.

Also, check out our expert’s recommended fastest PCIE 4.0 SSDs.

So, do you really want to defrag your SSD?

You know what, I don’t care what your answer is. But I want you to understand what happens if you do defrag your SSD, i.e., the basis of defragmentation, first.

Suppose, You are writing something on a new drive, the program is written on some places, say cells, the first program is written on cell no 111, 112, 113, the second program is written on cell no 114, 115, the third program is written on cell no 116, 117, the fourth program is written on cell no 118, 119.

But suddenly, for any reason, you wish to delete the second and the third program. So, you delete it. The controller will let the CPU know that cells 114, 115, 116, 117 are empty. When you work with another program, such as installing it, if it’s bigger than fitting one or two, it will first write on these four cells; 114, 115, 116, 117, and then write the remaining files to cells no 120, 121, and so on.

When you defragment your drive, your CPU will work like:

• First, it will move the data from 114, 115, 116, 117 to 122, 123, 124, 125.
• Then it will move data from 118, 119 to 114 and 115.
• Finally, it will move data from 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125 to 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121.

On an SSD, the different drive addresses are comparatively the same. As an SSD has no physical moving parts, there is no speed penalty when you use yours. SSDs access the data directly from the chips like RAM.

So, defragmenting an SSD won’t speed up in the tiniest bit, or maybe a little, say .000001 seconds.

Would you do it? Defrag your SSD? Or maybe you should know a little bit more?

I think you should.

If you also think so, do read till the end as I’ll let you know what options are there and what you can do about it.

How Often Should I Defrag my SSD?

People always tell me that they think their Windows miraculously defrag their SSDs and whatnot. So, be clear about this misconception people have. If you have a similar question like this one, help yourself by reading this.

Is Windows defragging my SSD?

No. Absolutely not. Windows isn’t defragging your SSD or anyone’s at all, yet it optimizes the SSD. Even defrag is disabled by Windows, and both Windows and Mac OS run optimization in the background.

Just make sure you have enabled the TRIM command.

So, Windows already performs necessary optimizations for you, and you don’t need to do anything on this issue.

If you defrag your SSD, there is a strong possibility of tearing it apart. Defragging an SSD will at least reduce its lifespan. They are not like HDDs. They are designed to be low maintenance while giving you remarkable performance over HDDs.

So, the answer is simple—you shouldn’t defrag your SSD as it can’t make your SSD perform better, and it can shorten your SSDs life.

Note: You may get confused with the ‘defrag.exe’ while it is one of Window’s core system files. Don’t poke it.

Does Defragmenting A Solid-State Drive Cause Data Loss?

As SSDs have no read-write head assembly, file fragmentation is a non-issue. So you don’t need to defrag your SSD to improve it’s performance.

But as you are still reading, I believe you still have a tiny bit of desire for defragmenting your SSD.

An SSD can be too fragmented at a particular point. At maximum file fragmentation, you’ll see errors while writing files or updating them; thus, your SSD may slow down. But if you are a Windows 10 or Mac OS user, you won’t notice anything like this as they will run optimization in the background.

Defragmenting an SSD may not cause any immediate data loss. But if you defrag manually, it’ll make your device less reliable. So, defragmentation will harm your media and your SSD’s lifespan. So, don’t be dumbfounded if defragmenting your SSD causes massive data loss.

Conclusion

If you ask me, “what would you do if you were in my position?” Well, I defragged my SSD a few times, and I know now what exactly will happen or not. But reading this article, I wouldn’t defrag my SSD at all.

The technology that SSDs utilize indicates their capability of looking after themselves, so it is not recommended to defragging an SSD. Whether you defrag your SSD or not, it’s up to you at the end of the day. But if this article helps you by any means, let me know.