Question about SSDs

I have a SSD (Samsung 840 series 250 GB) and I decided to shrink the
partition containing my C drive (with Win 7 and installed programs) to
make a bit more room in the second partition for data. It seems to
"work" using Win 7 Computer Management, but it takes a long time, much
longer than it does to shrink a partition on a rotating drive. I'm
just curious as to why this is the case?

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
I have a SSD (Samsung 840 series 250 GB) and I decided to shrink the
partition containing my C drive (with Win 7 and installed programs) to
make a bit more room in the second partition for data. It seems to
"work" using Win 7 Computer Management, but it takes a long time, much
longer than it does to shrink a partition on a rotating drive. I'm
just curious as to why this is the case?

To shrink a partition, all the filled clusters
have to be below the end of the new partition mark.

And to move the clusters, the OS has that API it
uses for defragmentation.

*******

Is this, by any chance, a drive based on TLC flash ?
Maybe the drive was having problems reading some of the
data. And the error correction took extra time. Other
than that, there isn't a good excuse for it to be a slow
process. A modern SSD should beat a regular hard drive,
at just about any operation, due to the close-to-zero
seek time.

Paul

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:59:17 -0500, Paul wrote:

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
I have a SSD (Samsung 840 series 250 GB) and I decided to shrink the
partition containing my C drive (with Win 7 and installed programs) to
make a bit more room in the second partition for data. It seems to
"work" using Win 7 Computer Management, but it takes a long time, much
longer than it does to shrink a partition on a rotating drive. I'm
just curious as to why this is the case?

To shrink a partition, all the filled clusters
have to be below the end of the new partition mark.

And to move the clusters, the OS has that API it
uses for defragmentation.

*******

Is this, by any chance, a drive based on TLC flash ?
Maybe the drive was having problems reading some of the
data. And the error correction took extra time. Other
than that, there isn't a good excuse for it to be a slow
process. A modern SSD should beat a regular hard drive,
at just about any operation, due to the close-to-zero
seek time.

Paul
Well, when I opened up the box, I found it wasn't the Samsung after
all, it's an Intel, 730 series. I have no idea if it's TLC flash or
not. Anyway, the deeds finally completed, and all seems OK.

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 14:49:35 -0600, Charlie Hoffpauir
wrote:

Well, when I opened up the box, I found it wasn't the Samsung after
all, it's an Intel, 730 series. I have no idea if it's TLC flash or
not. Anyway, the deeds finally completed, and all seems OK.


Used this info/tool to "try" and align up the SSD partitions
correctly. More, actually, an attempt at W7's persistent habit for
shutting down while flagging all my drives with a "dirty-bit," XP
subsequently would pickup and churn over with its scandisk routine;-
Microsoft's attempt at screwing in a lightbulb with five Poles, I
guess, so I gave up on W7's mannerism and had to hide any drives it
didn't need.

The MT PW software does do its thing (alignment), although (something
I remember) didn't convince me of any lasting or contradictory effects
I may have run into (hmm...possibly w/ another partitioner, maybe even
W7's disk management). I left them (the partitions) largely for a
result MiniTool derived, anyway, as well checked the math for
establishing they were correctly aligned.

No problems other than a little getting used to a Samsung, unlike the
Crucial I later bought, which was a bear to first get an
active/primary assignment bootable. Ran thru a ton of bull**** with a
lot of different partitioning tools, before an old Partition Magic 8
fixed it. Old enough to be remainder not readily to throw away any
working program because of its age;- alternatives being, having to
jump through the "corporate hoops," such as Crucial has affiliated
itself with, for outsourcing responsibility of the enduser setting up
a drive with a commercial partitioning product (they give a serial key
and such - except I'm just not really interested in that sort of
dependency crap).

--

freeware
MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition is a free partition manager
software designed by MiniTool Solution Ltd. Our partition manager
supports 32/64 bit Windows Operating System including Windows XP,
Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Home users can perform complicated
partition operations by using this powerful yet free partition manager
to manage their hard disk. Functions include: Resizing partitions,
Copying partitions, Create partition, Extend Partition, Split
Partition, Delete partition, Format partition, Convert partition,
Explore partition, Hide partition, Change drive letter, Set active
partition, Partition Recovery.
MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition is designated for home user
only, to use MiniTool Partition Wizard in a business environment,
MiniTool Partition Wizard Professional Edition is required.

--

Speed Up Your SSD By Correctly Aligning Your Partitions

We've covered proper solid state drive maintenance before, but one of
the most overlooked factors in proper SSD care is partition alignment.
Here's how to make sure your partitions are aligned correctly and that
you're getting the most out of your SSD.
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SSDHow to Maximize the Life of Your SSD

An SSD drive is a worthwhile investment, but like any storage device,
it can fail. In fact, failing …Read moreRead on

We talked about partition alignment in our SSD migrating tutorial, but
if you've already migrated to an SSD, you might not have realized that
you're sacrificing performance with misaligned partitions. A regular
hard drive usually starts its first partition after 63 empty blocks,
while SSDs require 64 blocks of data for optimal performance. This
means that sometimes, if your SSD was formatted by something other
than Windows' installer, it can be aligned incorrectly and will
transfer data much slower than intended.
How to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Reinstalling WindowsHow
to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Reinstalling WindowsHow to
Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Rein

Installing a solid-state drive is one of the best upgrades you can
make to your computer, but…Read moreRead on

To see if your partitions are aligned correctly, hit the Start menu
and type in msinfo32. Enter Msinfo32 and go to Components Storage
Disks. Look for your SSD on the list and find the "Partition Starting
Offset" item. If this number is divisible by 4096 (that is, if
dividing it by 4096 equals a whole number and not a decimal), your
partition is correctly aligned. If not, you need to realign it.
Luckily, this is pretty easy to do with the Gparted live CD. If you
have an Ubuntu live CD lying around, that will work too, since it has
Gparted available under System Administration.

Start up Gparted and find your SSD in the upper-right dropdown menu.
Select it, and click on your first partition in the menu. Hit the
Resize/Move button in the toolbar. Change the "Free Space Preceding"
box to 2MB, uncheck "Round to Cylinders", and hit "Resize/Move". (If
you're using a newer live CD, check the "MiB" box). Hit Apply once and
let it do its thing.

Now hit Resize/Move again, and change the "Free Space Preceding" box
to 1MB. Uncheck "Round to Cylinders" again, hit Resize/Move, then
click Apply. Now your drive will be aligned to exactly 2048 blocks
after the beginning of the disk, which allows for optimal SSD
performance. Note that if you have multiple partitions on your SSD,
you'll need to repeat this process for each partition, not just the
first one on the disk.

Yes, moving it 2MB away then moving it back 1MB seems like a long,
roundabout method, but Gparted measures space in a weird way. When you
first start up Gparted, your partition will have less than 1MB of
space preceding it, but Gparted will only measure it as 0-meaning if
you align it to 1MB right off the bat, it'll keep the drive annoyingly
misaligned at 1.03MB. If you set it to 2MB, hit Apply, and then move
it back to 1MB, it works fine.

Boot back into Windows, open Msinfo32 back up, and run the above check
again. If you get a whole number this time, your partition is
correctly aligned. If you get an error when you try to boot back into
Windows, that doesn't mean you did anything wrong—sometimes Windows
gets a little confused and can't find a partition if you move it (even
if you only move it 0.7MB away). Grab your Windows installation disc,
boot into it, and hit Repair Your Computer on the main menu. It should
automatically detect the issue and fix your boot menu for you.

That's it. It seems a little complicated and roundabout, but it's
something not a lot of people know to do, so you may have been sitting
with a non-optimized SSD for all this time (I know I have been for a
few months). This should fix the problem, and if you've had your SSD
for awhile, you might even notice a speed boost.