It seems like a practical joke, but not two days pass without us having a *Microsoft Windows 10 * botch alert. This time we have discovered that the system disk optimization tool inoperativo from Microsoft – Optimize Drives – could be drastically shortening the life of your SSD. And the settlement won’t arrive for a few months.
The Redmond company is supposed to fix it in an upcoming WIndows 10 patch, but we still don’t know when and we’ve been dealing with this issue for months. Since May 2020, in fact, when it first appeared in Windows 10 version 2004.
After this update, Windows 10 users began to notice that the optimization tool was not recording the last time the disk had been optimized – a process called defragging in English and defragmentation in Spanish. The result is that Windows 10 does more automatic optimizations than it should, something that affects the life of SSDs.
The problem with defragmentation in Windows 10
When you defragment a disk in Windows 10, its contents are reorganized in a way that allows access to them more quickly. The process can achieve drastic optimization on disks that have a high level of fragmentation. But the process itself – which requires moving blocks of data from one physical location to another – makes the hard drive or SSD work hard.
Windows 10 should record the latest optimization date and time so as not to put more stress and wear on the disk that can shorten its lifespan.
But in the case of SSDs things get even more complicated. Some experts believe that there is no point in defragmenting a flash memory, while others say that at most, it should be done once a month.
Be that as it may, the fact is that the Windows 10 2004 bug and its Optimize Drives tool cause disks to be defragmented. every time you start your PC or disk. The result is that most SSDs are suffering thirty times more than they should, something that will have a real effect on their longevity.
How to avoid it
According Bleeping Computer, Microsoft has acknowledged the problem – which was first identified in June – but has yet to release a patch for the general public. Only members of the Windows Insider program have access to the solution, which is included in Windows 10 Build 19042.487 (20H2).
Mortals like us will have to wait for Microsoft to release this version to a general beta or for the final update to come out.
Until then, if you have an SSD, the best thing is that you totally deactivate the optimization in the system settings by following these instructions:
- Press on the Start Menu.
- Start typing “Defrag” in the search and you will see the option for “Defragment and Optimize Drives”. Click on that line.
- Select the disc you want and click on “Change Settings”.
- Deactivate the “Run on a schedule” option.
- Press OK and you’re done.
Leave it that way until Windows 20H2 update. Or maybe forever, because with an SSD you really don’t have to.
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