Whoever has a new computer, most likely has the operating system installed on the solid state drive. SSD disks are different from traditional hard disks because they have no moving parts and are like the memory of USB sticks or SD cards.
This type of drive is significantly lighter and faster than traditional hard drives, only that they cost much more.
On new computers are often mounted both an SSD drive, with a size of 16GB or 32Gb, in which Windows is installed, and a classic hard disk maybe even 1TB to save all the data.
On older computers you can install an SSD and move Windows to the solid state drive without reinstalling everything
In any case, if you have a computer with an SSD it is important to know that there are some things and operations that were previously normal to never do .
1) Never Defragment
Solid state disks should not be defragmented.
The storage sectors on an SSD drive have a limited number of writes so defragmentation, which moves data from one part of the disk to the other, will result in ruining the SSD memory.
It also serves no purpose because and there will be no speed improvements.
Defragmenting on a mechanical hard disk is useful because the head has to move over the magnetic plate to read the data.
If the data is scattered on the disk, the head has to move more to read the fragments of the file and takes longer.
Defragmentation brings the fragments of the same file closer together so that they are close together.
On an SSD instead there is no mechanical movement and the reading of the data takes place on the whole disk in a uniform way so there is no need for the fragments of a file to be close together.
2) Deleted files are truly deleted so you don't have to use recovery programs or programs that erase free space .
Assuming you are using an operating system that supports TRIM such as Windows 7 or Windows 8, Mac OS X or a Linux distribution released in the past three or four years, you will never have to clean the free sectors of the SSD disk.
We have already explained how in normal hard disks the data deleted from the recycle bin are not really deleted, only marked as free, waiting to be overwritten.
You can then recover the deleted data from the hard disk or delete files and data permanently.
On the other hand, in operating systems that support TRIM the files are immediately deleted.
When you delete a file, the operating system informs the solid state drive that the file has been deleted with the TRIM command, and its sectors are immediately deleted and can no longer be recovered.
3) Do not use SSD drives on a computer with Windows XP or Windows Vista
A computer with a solid state drive should have a modern operating system because versions prior to Windows 7 do not support TRIM.
When you delete a file on the disk, in these cases, the operating system is unable to send the TRIM command, therefore the files will remain in those sectors of the disk and the writing operations will be slower (because it becomes an overwrite).
This is also the reason why you should never disable TRIM on Windows 7 where it is enabled by default.
4) Never fill the SSD to the maximum
It is important, to keep your computer running fast, to always leave some free space on the solid state drive.
The problem is that when an SSD disk has a lot of free space, there are many empty blocks so when you go to write a file, it immediately finds where to put them.
When an SSD has little free space, the blocks are all partially filled.
When going to write a file, the computer will have to read a non-empty block in its cache, modify it with the new data and then write it to disk.
This is also a problem for tablets and smartphones which, if too loaded with data, slow down performance.
It is therefore recommended not to fill the SSD over 75% of its capacity.
5) Don't overwrite it
To increase the life of the SSD disk, you must try to minimize the writing of files and data as much as possible.
Without going into detail, in another article there are some tools to optimize and manage the SSD.
6) Do not store too large files
The main problem with SSDs is their high cost.
While a 500GB hard drive costs 70 Euros, a 100GB SSD costs a minimum of 250 Euros if not more.
The solid state drives are therefore smaller, lighter, not at all noisy and fast but, generally, in computers they have reduced capacities of 32GB or less.
The SSD is ideal for keeping the operating system on it, but not for copying films and video games that would occupy the entire memory until it slows down performance (see point 4).
If you use a laptop without a normal hard drive, it is better to buy an external hard drive or use an SD memory card to save the files on it.
7) Disable indexing of disk files to keep the SSD fast and make it last longer, as already written in a previous guide.
