You really don’t need to do anything to optimize your SSD for Windows 11. To be 100% honest, if you’re searching for “SSD Optimization for Windows 11 tips and tricks” 100% of the time, the top results are most likely recycled from older articles and have no basis in actual use. Heck, even Phison falls for this SEO crap (you really believe in the God Mode BS?) and they make SSD controllers that a big portion of the world runs on right now.
So, we’ve reached that point in time where Windows itself is very aware of how to properly use fast storage and it is also very aware of how to care for it. But outside of the OS, we also have reached the point where taking care of your SSD and getting the most out of it is now down to how the user uses their system and what they put into it.
Unlike our previous SSD optimization guides for Windows 7, 8 and 10, in this article I’ll be sharing with you my notes from my personal experience in using a purely SSD system. With most of my storage now stashed via NAS and accessed directly via 10GbE network, I have been very reliant in strictly using SSD only in my system.
That said, here’s some thing to keep in mind to best care and optimize your Windows 11 for SSD use:
Know Your SSD Technology
Understanding the technology behind your SSD is crucial for optimal performance. SSDs have evolved significantly from the older SATA drives. Modern SSDs leverage the PCIe interface, which offers substantially higher read/write speeds. For instance, PCIe Gen3 NVMe SSDs can reach up to 3400MB/s in sequential throughput. Meanwhile, PCIe Gen4 SSDs push this further to 7500MB/s.
The latest PCIe Gen5 SSDs are even more impressive, boasting speeds up to 14,000MB/s. These advancements mean that data transfer and access are faster than ever, but they also require the rest of your system, like the motherboard and processor, to be compatible and capable of handling these speeds.
Keep in mind that there exists SSDs referred to as DRAM-less and while they used to be bargain bin options, most of the DRAM-less options nowadays perform excellently. Just so you have more confidence, both Intel and AMD test benches we use here in Back2Gaming as late as 2024 uses 4TB DRAM-less SSDs for games testing and benchmarking.
The issue you need to be aware of with DRAM-less drives is that they will drop their speeds once their internal buffer gets exhausted meaning some drives will go from 7000MB/s to 500MB/s when writing a single 300GB file.
This also affects small file writes so if you’re moving a folder with thousands of 1KBs or smaller files, understand that your SSD will not perform as fast as what the label says.
Manage Your Disk Space
SSD performance can be significantly impacted by how much of its capacity is used. It’s a common misconception that SSDs don’t suffer from the same performance degradation as HDDs when filled up. While it’s true that SSDs handle full capacities better than HDDs, they still perform best when they’re not completely saturated.
This is due to the way SSDs handle write operations; when an SSD has more free space, it has more empty blocks for writing, which speeds up these operations. It’s generally recommended to keep at least 20-30% of your SSD free. This not only maintains optimal performance but also prolongs the lifespan of the drive, as SSDs have a limited number of write cycles.
Understand What Runs in the Background
Background processes can have a significant impact on SSD performance. This includes routine tasks such as automatic downloads, software updates, system indexing, and other storage-intensive operations. These processes can consume valuable read/write cycles and slow down your SSD’s performance.
To optimize your SSD, it’s important to manage these background tasks effectively. This can involve scheduling updates and downloads for times when the system is not in heavy use, or disabling certain auto-updates and indexing services that aren’t necessary.
Additionally, regularly checking for and closing unnecessary background applications can free up SSD resources for more critical tasks.
SSDs Slow Down When they Heat Up
As SSDs get faster, they get hotter and higher performance models do require cooling. With the advent of Gen4 and Gen5 M.2 SSDs, we’ve seen the rise in bigger heatsink shrouds on these SSDs. Some of these SSDs will consider a removal of the heatsink as voidance of your warranty so take note of that.
Naked SSDs are still being sold but it is best used on motherboards with built-in M.2 heatsinks.
The performance drop from overheating SSDs can be significant and in worst cases, an SSD can shutdown when too much heat is detected. If you’re using this as a Windows 11 OS drive then you will most likely see a BSOD or blue screen of death crash screen when your SSD is shutting down due to excessive heat.
Laptops and mini-PCs are best served by SSDs that don’t require such extravagant coolers but a slim graphene heatspreader or a thin metal shroud can fit in some laptop or mini PC housing.
The PlayStation 5 is a known offender for bad SSD thermals and you will need an SSD with a cooler that confirms to the dimensions set by Sony. This is why regardless if the drive is meant for PC, some of these drives will not break out of Sony’s limitations. If they do become taller or bigger then they are meant for PC.
Be Aware of your SSD’s Total Bytes Written
Many folks seem to confuse Mean-Time-Before-Failure (MTBF) and Total Bytes Written (TBW) as a guidance on when an SSD will fail. While TBW needs the SSD flash to be written to to incur degradation, MTBF is just the number of hours an SSD can run to potentially have problems and let’s face it, if you’ve used a PC for years now you know if something can go wrong, it’s going to go wrong eventually.
Regardless, Total Bytes Written is the amount of data that can be written to an SSD before its flash wear out. Think of it as the SSDs health points. Each 1TB worth of data your write, it depletes that TBW counter.
Be sure to check your SSD’s spec page on what its TBW rating is. Most modern drives will have anywhere from 200TBW to +2000TBW. This is affected by the capacity of your SSD, and you will notice that smaller capacity SSDs will have smaller TBW, this is due to them having less NAND cells to be written at.
If you mostly write to your SSD (SSD used as storage cache, scratch disk, etc.) then these will eat up TBW really quickly. If you’re SSD has a lower TBW but your work requires you to constantly write and delete files, you can still compute how long will last by using the formula Drive TBW / (estimated data written daily)(365). For example, the Kingston NV2 250GB has an 80TB TBW. If we download 100GB a day, it will take around 2 1/2 years of constantly downloading and deleting 100GB of data every single day to wear the Kingston NV2 down.
Fake SSDs Exist
Another important point to keep in mind is the existence of fake SSDs. Samsung is the most frequent target for bootleggers but no brand is safe and Kingston, WD and many others will show up as very cheap options from unknown sellers at online stores.
Fake drives will have various traits like:
- don’t work at all
- work but capacity is wrong
- speed is super slow
- will stop working after writing certain amount
- … and many more!
Most of the times, fake SSDs are sold in very obviously bootleg packaging but some online sellers mix them in with legitimate stocks or selling them as no-warranty items.
Be on the look out for these especially when the price is good to be true.
You can use the SSD makers software utility to sometimes detect if a drive is legitimate or not.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
WHAT!? Done already? Where’s my SSD Optimization for Windows 11? What registry values do I need to tweak? What hidden Windows 11 option do I need to disable?
Much like Youtube, Google and Reddit has become muddied by these optimization guides and in the age of generative AI, many of these articles telling you to do this and that are just lying to you. Current Windows 11 and heck even most mainstream Linux distros already know how to properly handle SSD storage.
If you’re PC or laptop is already on an SSD but things are still looking slow then there’s probably another problem in your system. If you’ve just built your new PC but want to make sure your SSD lasts, many of the facts we stated here will help you understand your SSDs behavior better.