UPDATED 7/2/2024: If your device includes a Solid-State Drive (SSD), you probably notice that the performance slows down dramatically as it fills up. You’ll see this when opening apps and copying files, which will take longer than usual. Sometimes, this will also cause freezing issues, making your device harder to use.
You may now be asking: Weren’t SSDs supposed to be faster? The short answer is yes. Solid-state drives are faster than traditional rotating platter hard drives. However, there is a performance problem with how these new drives and NAND Flash storage work.
SSD blocks and TRIM
Solid-state drives work differently than traditional hard drives. Although they are both technologies designed to store data for a long time.
When working with a file and ready to save it, the Solid-State Drive finds the necessary empty blocks and writes your data for long-term storage. The process of filling an empty block with information is the fastest way to write to the storage, which is the main reason operating systems, such as Windows 10 or Windows 11, include support for TRIM.
TRIM is a feature used by an operating system to command the drive to find and delete any data on blocks that make up a deleted file so that later on, the drive can quickly fill them up again with new data. (This process prolongs the life and performance of the drive.)
If the blocks are not empty, the Solid-State Drive must delete the data inside them before information can be written again, which can add significant delay and affect performance.
As you continue to store data and storage fills up, the drive will begin to run out of blocks, and because Solid-State Drives can only write data in pages of 4KB or 8KB inside a 256KB block, you end with blocks that are not completely filled.
The problem is that SSDs cannot use the leftover space in a block to write new data directly because doing so would destroy any data already on it.
The solution to this problem is a write operation that loads the data inside a block into the cache, modifies its content by adding the new data, and then writes pages back to the block.
The only caveat is that the entire process takes time, and repeating the process on many blocks dramatically reduces speeds, affecting performance.
Overcoming SSDs performance issue
Many drive manufacturers add extra storage to their drives that are unavailable to the user to prevent Solid-State Drives from degrading performance. However, this helps ensure SSDs do not get completely full, keeping speeds at a more acceptable level.
In other words, adding extra storage reduces the need to modify a partially filled block to add new data. The Solid-State Drive will end up with more partially filled blocks, ensuring performance won’t decrease quickly.
Solid-State Drives also include a “garbage collection” (GC) solution that can help overcome performance issues. Once the storage reaches capacity, the garbage collection will look for blocks that are not entirely filled and consolidate them to free up space.
Keeping SSDs speedy
While Solid-State Drives are ridiculously faster than traditional rotating platter hard drives, they dramatically slow down performance as you fill them up.
The rule of thumb for keeping SSDs at top speeds is never to completely fill them up. To avoid performance issues, you should never use more than 70% of the total capacity.
When you reach the 70% threshold, you should consider upgrading your computer’s SSD with a larger drive.
If you are not up to the challenge and need more storage, there are many alternatives. You could get an external hard drive to connect using a USB cable. For example, the Western Digital 10TB external hard drive is a good choice, adding a ton of storage to store movies, music, photos, and documents for a reasonable price.
If you need more storage and SSD speeds, the Samsung 870 EVO 1TB internal Solid-State Drive is a good choice. Then get an inexpensive external 2.5-inch hard drive enclosure like the one from Inateck, mount the Solid-State Drive, and connect it to your computer.
It’s worth noting that Solid-State Drives performance is not only affected by the amount of data you store in them, but also performance will vary per manufacturer, components quality, features, and grade level.
Update July 2, 2024: This page has been updated to ensure accuracy and include the latest information.
Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 15 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 21 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me. Email him at [email protected].