Overprovisioning - what the hell is it exactly

[~El~Jefe~]

I am about to buy a 1 TB samsung EVO 850. It will be my only drive. I am wondering if there is anything I need to do to ensure durability in a regular home use setting.

beavis?

[washu]

Over-provisioning is allocating less than 100% of the space on a device. For example, only using 900 GB of your 1 TB drive. On mechanical drives this can provide a speed boost as the outside and first used part of the disk is the fastest and it keeps the heads from needing to travel the entire span of the platters. On SSDs the theory is that it gives the controller more spare blocks for wear leveling. Any SSD that isn't a complete piece of crap already has spare blocks for wear leveling.

Do you need to over-provision your SSD? Probably not. Unless you are running a very write heavy DB or a heavy duty log server then the chances of you hitting the write limits are very small. Full disclosure: As part of my professional life I run heavy write DBs and log servers. I don't over-provision my SSDs and I have yet to have a failure due to write endurance. As always, make sure you have good backups.

TL-DR: Don't bother with over-provisioning unless you are really sure you need it. Have good backups regardless.

[~El~Jefe~]

Ah nice to know. So just throw the 1 TB 850 EVO in the computer and forget it then. I was wonder if the durability ratings were due to people having to set up their ssd's a certain way. I would hate to lose 100 GB of drive space for nothing. I would probably need a second drive much faster if i had to do that.

[Fei]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8747/sams ... o-review/4

[CA_Steve]

If you want to save $50 and don't mind having two 500GB drives...

[Abula]

The big principle of overprovisiong is to have some portion of the nad unassigned and available for the ssd to manage to sustain performance and swap failing nad, that said it really depends on each, i personally no longer overprovision.

Back in the day when SSDs were first released, this was a big deal, specially because of we didnt have trim and/or garbage collection, ssd performance degraded on the daily basis and the only way to get it back was to secure erase the ssd.

Some people that have heavy writing workloads do recommend to overprovision between 10-30% of the ssd, weather its worth it or not it really depends on your use.

But if you are worried about durability of the ssd, you should avoid TLC nad like 850Evo and go into MLC with the 850Pro.

[~El~Jefe~]

I have read that 850 EVO over 500 gigs has a longer MTBF and write life than a 2015 nicer end spinning hardrive. I think the pro is overkill and only for professional environments or some strange home use.

I wouldnt consider the pro anymore as a sensible option

[~El~Jefe~]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8747/sams ... o-review/4

yes that is a good article. Just about the only article to read on the subject. The 850 EVO 500 is a sweet spot for storage. The 1 TB though seems a bit more sensible as I dont like to have to balance data out on small drives. I will probably get a 1TB and a 500 gb later on. That would certainly be enough for my needs. Great thing is that I could add a third drive down the road, like when a 1 TB becomes cheap, and no change in noticable wattage and 0 change in sound levels.

I am sick of spinning drives.