" Defragirajte^(Defrag) svoj tvrdi disk" bio je lijek za sve probleme s performansama računala budući da je naredbeni redak bio standardno sučelje za kućna računala. To je tehnika namijenjena poboljšanju performansi tradicionalnih mehaničkih tvrdih diskova, ali trebate li defragmentirati SSD ?

Ovi noviji solid-state diskovi rade na potpuno drugačijim principima od mehaničkih pogona, pa postoji li razlog za to? Što je još važnije, može li to zapravo biti loše^{(bad )} za vaš SSD?

Da bismo razumjeli odgovore na ova pitanja, moramo malo kopati ispod površine što znači "defragirati" SSD disk.

Koja je poanta defragmentacije?^{(What’s The Point Of Defragmentation?)}

"Fragmentacija" je nešto što se događa svakom pogonu kao prirodni rezultat zapisa podataka na uređaj. Kada formatirate pogon, dijelite njegov prostor za pohranu u uredno organiziran sustav. Karta pogona koja omogućuje računalu da točno zna gdje se nalazi svaki (doslovni) bit informacije.

Na svježe formatiranom pogonu novi podaci se zapisuju neprekinutim slijedom. Međutim, kada izbrišete datoteku, ona ostavlja prazninu u tom nizu. Računalo označava taj prostor kao dostupan za prepisivanje. Zasada je dobro.

Problem je u tome što se vaši novi podaci vjerojatno neće uredno uklopiti u tu prazninu. Tako će operativni sustav popuniti prazninu s prvim dijelom datoteke koju piše, a zatim će potražiti sljedeći otvoreni prostor – što će dovesti do fragmenata podataka raširenih po disku.

Kao što možete zamisliti, to čini čitanje cijele datoteke ili skupa povezanih datoteka složenijim jer morate skakati s jednog mjesta na drugo. To također može biti recept za probleme u izvedbi. Barem je to bilo za mehaničke pogone. Zašto?

Zašto je mehaničkim pogonima (teoretski) potrebna dobra defragmentacija^{(Why Mechanical Drives (Theoretically) Need a Good Defrag)}

Mehanički tvrdi diskovi, koji su se samo zvali "tvrdi diskovi" dok se nisu pojavili SSD^(SSDs) -ovi , pohranjuju podatke na staklenim ili aluminijskim pločama obloženim magnetskim materijalom. Ploče se vrte tisućama okretaja u minuti, a osjetljive glave za čitanje/pisanje skaču iznad svoje površine informacija za čitanje i pisanje.

Podaci su raspoređeni u staze i, ako su vaši podaci uredno, to znači da glava može jednostavno ostati na jednom mjestu i pokupiti sve te dijelove. Ako je disk fragmentiran, to znači da se glave moraju pomicati posvuda kako bi dobili podatke koje ste tražili. Budući da su to fizički objekti s priličnom masom, postoji ograničenje koliko brzo se to može učiniti.

Kada defragmentirate pogon, računalo preslaguje sve njegove podatke, koristeći slobodni prostor na disku kao prostor za sortiranje. To je masivan, dugotrajan proces. Međutim, na jako fragmentiranim diskovima to bi moglo napraviti zamjetnu razliku u odzivu sustava. Barem na starijem hardveru.

Vidite, mehanički pogoni su s godinama postali znatno brži i učinkovitiji. Mnogo veća gustoća podataka, više glava, više ploča, veći broj okretaja^(RPMs) i bolja elektronika pogona učinili su nove tvrde diskove mnogo bržima. Toliko da efekti fragmentacije u većini slučajeva zaista nisu vrijedni truda.

Računala također imaju toliko RAM-a^(RAM) ovih dana da operativni sustavi mogu keširati informacije s pogona. Moderni^(Modern) mehanički tvrdi diskovi sami po sebi imaju velike međuspremnike koji mogu izgladiti mehanička ograničenja njihova dizajna. Dakle, na kraju, čak i defragmentiranje modernog pogona vjerojatno neće rezultirati bilo kakvim primjetnim povećanjem performansi.

Trebate li defragmentirati SSD?^{(Do You Need To Defrag An SSD?)}

Uz svu tu preambulu s puta, dolazimo do glavnog pitanja – trebate li defragmentirati SSD ? Kratak odgovor je ne.

Dva su glavna razloga. Prvi se odnosi na nedostatak prednosti performansi, što je, uostalom, i cijela točka defragmentacije. Drugi razlog ima veze sa zdravljem vašeg SSD -a . Ispada da defragmentiranje SSD -a može skratiti njegov vijek trajanja

SSD performanse i defragmentacija^{(SSD Performance and Defragmentation)}

Kao što smo upravo vidjeli, cijeli razlog zašto fragmentacija utječe na performanse mehaničkog tvrdog diska je taj što dodaje sve više i više mehaničke latencije u proces, dok glave ludo skaču okolo tražeći različite dijelove vaših datoteka.

Po svojoj prirodi, SSD^(SSDs) -ovi nemaju ovaj problem. Uopće nemaju mehaničke dijelove. Oni pohranjuju informacije unutar memorijskih čipova, koji se čitaju elektronički.

Dok SSD^(SSDs) -ovi postaju fragmentirani isto kao i mehanički pogon, za SSD nema nikakve razlike jesu li svi podaci na jednom mjestu ili su razbacani po raznim mjestima na disku. To praktički ne utječe na "vrijeme traženja". Dakle, defragmentiranje SSD - a ne bi napravilo nikakvu razliku u performansama vašeg SSD - a.

Istrošenost SSD-a^{(SSD Wear and Tear)}

Čak i ako defragmentiranje mehaničkog pogona zapravo ne može učiniti da radi bolje, barem ne šteti osim što oduzima vrijeme na računalu. S druge strane, kod SSD -a, defragmentiranje ga zapravo može pomoći ubiti.^(SSD)

Ako želite točno razumjeti zašto je to tako, svakako pogledajte naš detaljni članak o trošenju ^{(wear & tear)}SSD -a . Kratko objašnjenje je da SSD memorijske ćelije degradiraju svaki put kada izbrišete podatke i u njih upišete nove informacije. Moderni SSD^(SSDs) -ovi mogu podnijeti veliku kaznu kada je u pitanju ponovljeno upisivanje na disk. Koriste sofisticiranu tehnologiju "izravnavanja trošenja" kako bi produžili životni vijek svake memorijske ćelije što je više moguće.

Međutim, budući da defragmentacija ne ostavlja niti jedan dio podataka netaknutim, brzo ćete pretvoriti svoj SSD u uteg za papir ako redovito defragirate pogon.

TRIM i optimizacija: slanje defragmentacije u kantu za smeće^{(TRIM and Optimization: Sending Defrag To The Dustbin)}

Defragmentacija je vjerojatno proces koji je najbolje ostaviti na smetlištu povijesti računala. Barem u smislu kućnih računala za općenite svakodnevne svrhe. Izmišljen je za borbu protiv problema koji je u moderno doba uvelike postao ne-problem.

Dakle, ne samo da preporučamo da ne koristite defragmentaciju na SSD - u, već i da se vjerojatno ne morate zamarati time da to radite na modernom mehaničkom pogonu.

Uz to, alat za defragmentaciju sustava Windows 10^{(Windows 10 defragmentation tool)} zna razliku između SSD i mehaničkih pogona. Umjesto automatskog defragmentiranja SSD - a, on umjesto toga koristi naredbu “TRIM”, koja je specijalizirana naredba za optimizaciju SSD -a, kao i neka mjera upravljanja fragmentacijom, ali ništa slično defragmentaciji grube sile koja se koristi na tradicionalnim tvrdim diskovima.

Should You Defrag an SSD?

“Defrag your hard drive” has been the cure-all advice for PC performanсe woes since thе command line was thе standard interface for home computers. It’s a technique meant to improve the performance of traditional mechanicаl hard drives, but do you need to defrag an SSD?

These newer solid-state disks operate on completely different principles than mechanical drives, so is there any reason to still do it? More importantly, could it actually be bad for your SSD?

To understand the answers to these questions, we have to dig a little under the surface of what it means to “defrag” an SSD drive.

What’s The Point Of Defragmentation?

“Fragmentation” is something that happens to every drive as a natural result of data being written to the device. When you format a drive, you’re dividing its storage space into a neatly organized system. A map of the drive which allows the computer to know exactly where every (literal) bit of information is to be found.

On a freshly formatted drive, new data is written in an unbroken sequence. However, when you delete a file, it leaves a gap in that sequence. The computer marks that space as available to be overwritten. So far, so good.

The problem is that your new data probably won’t fit neatly into that gap. So the operating system will fill up the gap with the first part of the file it’s writing and then look for the next open space – leading to fragments of data spread across the drive.

As you can imagine, this makes reading a complete file or set of related files trickier, since you need to hop from one location to the next. It can also be a recipe for performance problems. At least, it has been for mechanical drives. Why?

Why Mechanical Drives (Theoretically) Need a Good Defrag

Mechanical hard drives, which were just called “hard drives” until SSDs came along, store data on glass or aluminum platters coated with magnetic material. The platters spin at thousands of revolutions per minute and delicate read/write heads skit about above their surface reading and writing information.

The data is laid out in tracks and, if your data is all in a neat line, it means the head can just stay in one place and hoover up all those bits. If the drive is fragmented, it means that the heads have to move all over the place to get the data you asked for. Since they are physical objects with a fair amount of mass, there’s a limit to how quickly this can be done.

When you defragment a drive, the computer reshuffles all its data, using the free space on the drive as sorting space. It’s a massive, time-consuming process. However, on heavily fragmented drives it could make a noticeable difference to system responsiveness. At least on older hardware.

You see, mechanical drives have become significantly faster and more efficient over the years. Much higher data density, more heads, more platters, higher RPMs and better drive electronics have all made new hard drives much faster. So much so, that the effects of fragmentation really aren’t worth the bother in most cases.

Computers also have so much RAM these days, that operating systems can cache information from the drive. Modern mechanical hard drives themselves have large buffers, that can smooth out the mechanical limitations of their design. So in the end, even defragging a modern drive probably won’t result in any noticeable performance gains.

Do You Need To Defrag An SSD?

With all of that preamble out of the way, we get to the main question – do you need to defrag an SSD? The short answer is no.

There are two main reasons. The first relates to the lack of performance benefits, which is, after all, the entire point of defragmentation. The second reason has to do with the health of your SSD. It turns out that defragging an SSD can shorten its life

SSD Performance and Defragmentation

As we’ve just seen, the whole reason fragmentation affects mechanical hard drive performance is because it adds more and more mechanical latency to the process, as the heads madly jump around to find the different parts of your files.

By their very nature, SSDs don’t have this problem. They have no mechanical parts at all. They store information inside memory chips, which are read electronically.

While SSDs become fragmented just the same as a mechanical drive, it makes no difference to the SSD if the data is all in one place or scattered around various locations on the drive. The “seek time” is virtually unaffected by this. So defragmenting an SSD would make just about zero difference to your SSD performance.

SSD Wear and Tear

Even if defragging a mechanical drive may not actually make it perform any better, at least it does no harm other than taking up computer time. With an SSD on the other hand, defragging can actually help kill it.

If you want to understand exactly why that is, be sure to check out our in-depth article on SSD wear & tear. The short explanation is that SSD memory cells degrade every time you erase data and write new information to them. Modern SSDs can take a lot of punishment when it comes to repeated disk writes. They use sophisticated “wear levelling” technology to extend the lifespan of each memory cell as much as possible.

However, since defragmentation leaves no bit of data untouched you’ll quickly turn your SSD into a paperweight if you regularly defrag the drive.

TRIM and Optimization: Sending Defrag To The Dustbin

Defragmentation is probably a process best left to the dustbin of computer history. At least in terms of home computers for general day-to-day performance purposes. It was invented to combat a problem that has become largely a non-issue in modern times.

So it’s not just that we strongly recommend against using defragmentation on an SSD, but also that you probably don’t have to bother with doing it on a modern mechanical drive either.

That being said, the Windows 10 defragmentation tool knows the difference between solid state drives and mechanical drives. Instead of automatically defragmenting an SSD, it instead uses the “TRIM” command, which is a specialized SSD optimization command, as well as some measure of fragmentation management, but nothing like the brute force defragmentation used on traditional hard drives.

David Bogdanović

About the author

Ja sam računalni profesionalac s više od 10 godina iskustva. U slobodno vrijeme volim pomagati za uredskim stolom i učiti djecu kako se koristiti internetom. Moje vještine uključuju mnoge stvari, ali najvažnije je da znam kako pomoći ljudima u rješavanju problema. Ako trebate nekoga tko vam može pomoći s nečim hitnim ili samo želite neke osnovne savjete, obratite mi se!

Trebate li defragmentirati SSD?

Koja je poanta defragmentacije?^{(What’s The Point Of Defragmentation?)}

Zašto je mehaničkim pogonima (teoretski) potrebna dobra defragmentacija^{(Why Mechanical Drives (Theoretically) Need a Good Defrag)}