How often should you run Spinrite for SSD performance maintenance?

[wasserja]

I feel this may be a FAQ and the answer is "it depends", but I'd like to get a feel for how often people run Spinrite for SSD peformance maintenance. Once every six months, once a year, etc.

 

[DanR]

I feel this may be a FAQ and the answer is "it depends", but I'd like to get a feel for how often people run Spinrite for SSD peformance maintenance. Once every six months, once a year, etc.

A fair question, and welcome to the forum wasserja!

I use a free tool, GRC's ReadSpeed, https://www.grc.com/readspeed.htm, to periodically (every 3-6 months) and safely monitor my SSD's performance.

Then, when ReadSpeed indicates the performance is slowing down, I do a SpinRite Level 3 - or 4 - (But NEVER Level 5!!!) on the slow area(s) of the SSD drive as indicated by ReadSpeed. Works well for me.

 

[Bplayer]

In addition to what Dan reported, I do three methods of checking SSD performence; ReadSpeed, SpinRite's benchmark, and HDTune. They usually all agree on the areas of the SSD that are below normal performance, Typically the first 25-30% part of the drive. Then I run SR on that section only, on Level 3, rather than the whole drive. This saves some time and reduces the number of write required.

 

[wasserja]

Thank you for the feedback. I like the idea of occasionally evaluating the performance for my many SSDs for my lab, but my hardware is too new to boot Spinrite (and thus ReadSpeed too). It will be an investment of time to shut down the lab and move the SSDs to hardware that can perform the maintenance. I'd prefer to have a way to evaluate the performance in Windows. I think I'll look into HDTune to see if that could be a good solution.

 

[DanR]

the areas of the SSD that are below normal performance, Typically the first 25-30% part of the drive. Then I run SR on that section only, on Level 3, rather than the whole drive. This saves some time and reduces the number of write required.

Precisely!

 

[Bplayer]

Thank you for the feedback. I like the idea of occasionally evaluating the performance for my many SSDs for my lab, but my hardware is too new to boot Spinrite (and thus ReadSpeed too). It will be an investment of time to shut down the lab and move the SSDs to hardware that can perform the maintenance. I'd prefer to have a way to evaluate the performance in Windows. I think I'll look into HDTune to see if that could be a good solution.

HDTune only performs a benchmark of the SSD like the other two. I have new equipment as well and run SR from an external drive in a VM. The details for this process are well documented here.

 

[wasserja]

Understood. I just want to evaluate if I should take the time to run Spinrite. So, if HDTune can perform the benchmark and tell me it needs help, then I can schedule the downtime to boot to Spinrite on supported hardware. Your VM idea sounds intriguing, but the link isn't working for me.

 

[DanR]

Understood. I just want to evaluate if I should take the time to run Spinrite. So, if HDTune can perform the benchmark and tell me it needs help, then I can schedule the downtime to boot to Spinrite on supported hardware. Your VM idea sounds intriguing, but the link isn't working for me.

Try this: https://forums.grc.com/threads/how-to-run-spinrite-on-a-uefi-only-machine-part-1-of-5.1613

Bplayer accidentally double typed the link.

 

[peterblaise]

This used to be sticky:

https://forums.grc.com/threads/how-to-run-spinrite-on-a-uefi-only-machine-part-1-of-5.1613/