• Is it better to have only 1 partition on a 1TB SSD drive?

    Home » Forums » AskWoody support » PC hardware » PC hardware-General Questions » Is it better to have only 1 partition on a 1TB SSD drive?

    Author
    Topic
    #2612860

    Thinking of installing a 1TB Samsung SSD.

    Current 1TB HDD is divided equally into 2 partitions “just because” and could be easily be put back into 1 partition (C:) before imaging with Macrium Reflect onto the new SSD.

    From what I read, SSD’s like a lot of space to even out the wear and increase longevity.

    So would it be best to give the SSD access to the whole drive?

    What about the “Over Provisioning” topic?

    Windows 11 Pro v24H2 and Windows 10 Pro x64 v22H2
    Viewing 8 reply threads
    Author
    Replies
    • #2612913

      Current 1TB HDD is divided equally into 2 partitions “just because” and could be easily be put back into 1 partition (C:) before imaging with Macrium Reflect onto the new SSD.

      It has at least 4, most likely 5.  The 2 that you mention as well as a hidden EFI partition, likely a hidden MSR partition, and a hidden Recovery partition.

      So would it be best to give the SSD access to the whole drive?

      That’s an individual decision.  For me, no.  I have 6 SSD’s on my dual boot daily driver, with a total of 17 visible partitions and 2 hidden partitions.  I have a 2TB SATA SSD that is a single partition and is the target for my drive images.  All the rest of my SSD’s have at least 3 partitions.

      What about the “Over Provisioning” topic?

      Over Provisioning takes part of your free space and turns it into invisible provisioning space.  There is already hidden provisioning space used for wear leveling (to promote SSD longevity).  Over Provisioning just adds to that hidden provisioning space by reducing the indicated free space.  Again, that’s an individual choice.  I don’t use it.

      Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!
      We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.
      We were all once "Average Users".

      2 users thanked author for this post.
      • #2612965

        It has at least 4, most likely 5. The 2 that you mention as well as a hidden EFI partition, likely a hidden MSR partition, and a hidden Recovery partition.

        Yes, you are correct.  I have 5 all together.

        I should have been more clear, but I was mostly concerned regarding the majority of the disk space taken up by my partitions C: and D:.

        Thanks

        Windows 11 Pro v24H2 and Windows 10 Pro x64 v22H2
    • #2613006

      So would it be best to give the SSD access to the whole drive?

      It has access to the whole of itself regardless of the partition structure.

      Because of sector translation, a feature of all SSDs, there is no relation between the locations in the partition(s) and the NAND blocks on the SSD. Each partition has a set starting sector and a set ending sector, but where they are mapped in terms of NAND is something else completely (and is changing constantly). The drive will move things around on its end in terms of the NAND cells it uses, but from the perspective of the PC, or its user, everything will still be in the same place as before. This moving around of stuff for the purpose of wear leveling happens at a layer below the logical sector addresses that define the beginning and end of each partition.

      In plain language, empty space is empty space, and it shouldn’t matter to the drive where the space is, as long as it really is empty and not just marked unused.

      A normal file delete or overwrite operation will simply mark the deleted sectors as unused but leave the data present, a practice that started back in the hard disk days, but that still makes sense now in the SSD era. Marking sectors as empty is nearly instantaneous, while erasing them is slow by contrast, so it makes sense to do the fast bit now and to do the actual erase asynchronously, meaning that the user will not have to wait for it to happen before the operation he has requested of the drive can be completed. This reclaiming of the used NAND is done with a trim operation (in SATA) or its NVMe equivalent, deallocate. This is normally done automatically in a SSD-aware OS, which by now they all are unless someone is using a really old version of one.

      I don’t overprovision my drives. Just leaving blank space (by being aware and not filling them up) accomplishes the same thing in terms of letting the SSD do its wear leveling, and provides a little more leeway if it ever gets close to being full. By that, I mean that I would rather have a given operation succeed now (using up some of the extra space) and then be able to free up some space later, when I have time, rather than have it fail now (because the extra space is not visible or usable to me) and have to free up some space now before I can do what I need to do.

      But if you would rather overprovision, there is no problem with doing it that way either. You should also be able to accomplish the same thing by leaving unallocated space within the partition structure.

      Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
      XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
      Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

    • #2613030

      Current 1TB HDD is divided equally into 2 partitions “just because” and could be easily be put back into 1 partition (C:)

      I have a C: SSD and D: HDD.
      I don’t mix data with OS on the same drive. That way I can restore just the OS or data.

      1 user thanked author for this post.
      • #2678671

        Slight change of subject.

        I want to leave the Windows system stuff on my SSD which is currently C, and have all the users’ stuff on an HDD which is currently D.  I’ve thought about just pinning a bunch of shortcuts, but Windows will still want to use C instead of D by default. I recently installed Office 2021 but there was no way that I could find to put it anywhere except the C drive.

        Is there a best way to get Windows to live on its C drive but use drive D for programs and users’ stuff by default?

        Curious DaveH52

        • #2678745

          You would have been better off starting a new topic, but as you are here now…

          Do not split across disks. Keep everything on your SSD and take advantage of its speed and simple backup.
          The only exception to this is if you have loads of static data (pictures, MP3 etc) and don’t have the space on the SSD. Data is the only thing you would consider having on another disk.

          Make an image backup every few months and a data backup at least weekly.

          cheers, Paul

    • #2613035

      Bear in mind, with SSD’s, once they pop, that’s it, you’ve lost the subsequent partition(s) also (expensive data recovery aside) so, backup, backup and backup regularly if you chose to partition any storage media.

      Windows - commercial by definition and now function...
    • #2613227

      You have been thinking about doing this for 6 weeks. Time to do it and tidy up later.  🙂

      When you have done it, post a screenshot of the partition data so we can see whether merging C and D is worthwhile.

      There is no need to over provision. The SSD will use the current free space for wear levelling, you don’t need to do anything extra – SSDs are pretty clever at this sort of thing, manufacturers don’t want early failure.

      cheers, Paul

      2 users thanked author for this post.
    • #2613263

      Keep your OS and Data on separate drives and not partitions on the same drive for these reasons.
      1) “Everything in the same basket” is bad no matter what the topic. When the drive dies you lose both OS and Data (everything).
      2) Two different kinds of backups – Image backup for the OS because when the OS becomes corrupt you most likely won’t be able to tell which part is corrupt to fix and will restore the entire OS from an image. Incremental backup (copying only new and changed files) for Data files because when a Data file goes corrupt you will know which file and only need that file restored (retrieved) and not the entire Data drive restored. OS and Data on separate drives allows two different kinds of backup at the same time.

      HTH, Dana:))

      1 user thanked author for this post.
    • #2613272

      Dana,

      I agree with #1.

      However, #2 ignores the fact that most imaging programs allow you to mount an image and restore selected files w/o restoring the entire image. Plus in most cases Imaging is faster than file by file backup (if not doing incrementals). I’m not a fan of incremental backups as the chains can get corrupted. Granted they can save some space though.

      May the Forces of good computing be with you!

      RG

      PowerShell & VBA Rule!
      Computer Specs

      2 users thanked author for this post.
    • #2613308

      However, #2 ignores the fact that most imaging programs allow you to mount an image and restore selected files w/o restoring the entire image. Plus in most cases Imaging is faster than file by file backup (if not doing incrementals). I’m not a fan of incremental backups as the chains can get corrupted. Granted they can save some space though.

      I don’t use an imaging program.  My entire automatic backup system is using software that comes with Windows.  For my Data backups I use a bat file that contains a Robocopy command to copy files that are new or have been changed to a separate backup drive.   Robocopy also has a multi-thread option that copies way faster than normal copy functions.  I have Task Scheduler set to run this backup and produce a report which has the details of the last backup.  After a initial backup of 109 GBs of data most backups of changed or new data take about < 2 minutes and sometimes in seconds.  I like this method better than imaging because deleted files will not be in the next backup image, but the backup of the deleted file remains where Robocopy copied to.   To retrieve a file I simply access that folder on the backup drive, and I don’t have to mount an image to get it.  I use Windows  to create images of the OS and ever so often I will save an image to prevent Windows from deleting it when it makes the next image just in case.   On a regular basis I copy (I use Robocopy commands) the backup drive to a different drive which is stored in a fire/water proof safe, although I have never had a need for the backup of the backups.

      HTH, Dana:))

      1 user thanked author for this post.
    • #2678749

      I have 2 drives. SSD for C drive and HDD for D(ata) drive.
      I don’t mix OS, software and data on the same drive (or partition).
      C has OS and small number of installed software.
      D has hundreds of portable apps and my documents, photos, videos, books…

      Both drives are backed up daily with incremental backup (after a full image backup)

    Viewing 8 reply threads
    Reply To: Is it better to have only 1 partition on a 1TB SSD drive?

    You can use BBCodes to format your content.
    Your account can't use all available BBCodes, they will be stripped before saving.

    Your information: