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Back in the days when mechanical hard drives with spinning platters were the norm, you could simply hand your old hard drive to a deserving relative or friend as an upgrade, get a thank you, and call it a day. It’s not so simple with today’s solid-state drives.
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In many cases, used SSDs simply aren’t as fast as newer ones, though they're all faster than the latest hard drives. The biggest issue in retasking or reselling an SSD for a prolonged period stems from an inconvenient characteristic of NAND flash memory: Previously written cells must be erased before they can be rewritten with new data. If the SSD is forced to reuse cells rather than use new ones while storing data, performance will plummet.
To avoid this problem with NAND flash memory, modern SSD controllers use a number of tricks, including building in extra capacity that users can’t touch—a technique known as over-provisioning. There’s also a command called TRIM that tells an SSD when blocks of memory are no longer needed and can be consolidated and erased.
Sounds good, right? But there’s a catch.
Better in theory than in practice
Not all garbage collection (as the erasing used cells and consolidating data in an SSD’s NAND is known) is created equal. It may not run constantly, and some older operating systems—notably Windows XP—don’t even support the TRIM command. As such, more “used” NAND cells may be left hanging around on your SSD than you’d suspect, according to nearly every vendor and or when the computer seems to halt for short periods of time when you save a file.
Got all that? Good. Here’s how to restore your SSD to top performance, step by step.
How to restore your SSD to peak performance
First things first: If you have data on the SSD you’d like to retain, back it up. If you’re worried only about backing up files, simply drag and drop them onto a flash drive or external hard drive, or use your favorite backup program.
If you have a working operating system that you’d like to keep, however, use an imaging program such as Acronis True Image or R-Drive Image that copies everything. Do not use Windows System Recovery unless you’re restoring the data to the same drive. It won’t restore to a smaller drive and it sometimes hiccups even with a similar-size drive that has plenty of room.
Next, download the drive utility provided by your SSD vendor, or snag Parted Magic.
Before you get down to brass tacks, disconnect all other drives and boot from a flash drive to perform the erase procedure, to avoid accidentally overwriting the wrong drive. Parted Magic is a great option for this, since it works as a bootable flash drive. If disconnecting your other hard drives is too much hassle, make darn sure you’ve selected the correct drive to erase throughout this procedure. Secure erase is irrevocable.
Now run the secure-erase function. The exact method varies by program. PCWorld’s guide to securely erasing your hard drive explains how to activate secure erase in Parted Magic, which runs on a bootable flash drive. Some SSDs implement the enhanced version of secure erase by default—which also deletes the drive’s housekeeping data—but if an enhanced erase option is available, you might want to use it. Definitely use it if you’ve been doing work for the CIA.
The secure-erase process should take just a few minutes on a modern SSD. (Traditional hard drives can take hours, by comparison.)
Once the process is done, repartition and format the drive if you intend to copy data back to it. Parted Magic handily provides a full partition editor for this purpose, but you can use Windows’ own Drive Management utility (Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools > Create and format hard disk partitions) to do the same task. Most commonly, you’ll want to use the full capacity of the SSD in a single partition and format it as NTFS.
Once that’s done, you’re good to go. Dump any data you may have saved back onto the drive and bask in the super-speeds of your good-as-new SSD. Check out PCWorld’s guide to prolonging the life of your SSD to keep your drive humming along for years to come.
Update: The original version of the article implied that performing the secure erase function regularly could increase the performance of modern SSDs. The article has been updated to clarify the specific situations in which performing the secure erase function is beneficial.
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What is the deepest crater on the Moon called?
'Lol' is the name of the deepest crater. It's about 2 feet from base to peak. Read More
Where does a crater form?
a crater forms by the pressure of the magma Read More
What is the difference between volcano and mountain?
A MOUNTAIN has no LAVA,MAGMA, and CRATER. A VOLCANO has CRATER, LAVA and MAGMA. Volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. Mountain is a large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area usually in the form of a peak. Read More
Why does Crater Lake have an island in it?
The volcano is still active, and a new volcanic peak has formed. Read More
What happens to creat a caldera?
An explosion of the peak of a volcano resulting into the formation of a crater, which is later filled by water. Read More
What land form claims much of the land in the centeral portion of the US and Canada?
What make a crater form volcano?
Probably from the earthquake that happened when the crater hit the earth. The lava rushes to the surface, melting the crater, and it forms a volcano. Read More
What does a crater form?
When a meteor hits the earth what does it form?
What causes an impact crater to form on a planets surface?
When asteriods and meteroids hit into the planets. They will impact and maek a crater. Read More
When a meteor hits the Earth it may form this?
A large basin that can form at the top of a volcano?
What did crater lake form?
What is at the top of a volcano?
A volcano may have a vent, crater (caldera), peak, or lava dome (plug), depending on the volcano's state of activity. Read More
What is the name of the large volcanic mountain found in centeral Africa?
You are referring to Mt Kilimanjaro. The peak of the mountain is 19,341 feet above sea level. It is located near the northern border of Tanzania. Read More
What is the form of the peak tram?
it is fun to ride the peak tram and it is red Read More
Who were the Centeral Powers?
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey were the three of the centeral powers Read More
Does a crater form when a volcanic moutain collapses?
What landform is there if the contour lines form a circle?
Does the Cascade range have a volcano?
It has several volcanoes that form the Cascade Volcanic Arc. Volcanoes in the range include Lassen Peak, Mount Shasta, Mount Mazama (Crater Lake), Mount Hood, Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier, and others Read More
When did Crater Lake form?
Crater Lake formed 7700 years ago when Mount Mazama collapsed following a large eruption. Read More
What does a volcanic crater form?
It forms by volcanic activity in the vent of a volcano. Read More
What is the religion of most people in centeral America?
Almost everybody in centeral America are roman catholic Read More
How is a caldera different form a crater?
A caldera is a large crater, up to 50 kilometers, that can form when the summit or side of a volcano collapses into the magma chamber during of after an explosion. A crater is an indentation, only up to 1 kilometer in diameter, that forms around the central vent at the summit of a volcano. The main difference is size. Read More
What is the volcano that lies in the Cascade Mountains?
There are several volcanoes in the cascade range. Some of them are: Mt. Baker, Wa., Mt. Ranier, Wa., Mt. St. Helens, Wa., Mt. Hood, Oregon, Mt. Adams, Wa., Glacier Peak, Wa., Mt. Jefferson, Oregon, Three Sisters, Oregon, Newberry Crater, Oregon, Crater Lake, Oregon, Mt. Shasta, Ca., Lassen Peak, Ca. Read More
Material thrown out from an impact crater settles to form which of the following structures?
What do you call a land form that is hollow and can be found at the top of a volcano?
How does rioulu evolve in Pokemon crater?
Which form inside the crater of a large volcano?
![Peak Can Formt Peak Can Formt](https://www.peak-system.com/fileadmin/images/products/software/PCAN-View/PCAN-View_Bus-load.png)
What does a meteor form when it hits the earth?
When a meteor hits the Earth it forms a crater. Read More
Crater lake in Oregon was produced when?
Crater lake formed when Mount Mazama produced an extremely large eruption and collapsed to form a caldera. The caldera then filled with water. Read More
What famous mountains are in New Zealand?
Mt Cook/Aoraki is the tallest, Mitre Peak at Milford Sound (Piopiotahi) is often photographed. Mt Ruapehu in the Central Volcanic group, is notable as the highest peak in the North Island, and as well as being volcanic, has a lake in its crater. Read More
How did Crater Lake in Oregon form?
Crater Lake lies in a caldera formed 7700 years ago when Mount Mazama collapsed following a large eruption. Read More
How do crater form?
Craters form normally during impacts from meteorites, but can also have been formed by early volcanic activity. Most early planetoids and moons had Volcanic activity, when a volcano explodes or collapses is leave a caldera, which is a crater looking formation. Read More
The base form of a word is called?
How do you Write it past passive form-set the amplitude of the input signal 10 volt peak to peak and the frequency at 1khz?
the amlitude of the input signal 10 volt peak to peak was set at 10 khz Read More
Is the Copernicus Crater a Volcanic crater?
No. Copernicus crater is an impact crater. Read More
What kind of feature might be formed on Earth if a large meteorite reached its surface?
Depending on the size of the meteor, a meteorite impact might form an impact crater, similar to the 'Meteor Crater' in Arizona. Read More
How did earth form Crater of Diamonds?
Like all sources of earthly diamonds, Crater of Diamonds was formed by a volcanic pipe that erupted diamonds and other minerals from deep within its mantle to the surface. Read More
Where does crater form?
it is from a piece of rock or space junk hits a plantet so it creats a hole Read More
When did the Chicxulub crater form?
Are there craters on the sun?
No. The sun is a ball of gas and plasma. There is nothing solid in which a crater might form. Read More
Where can you buy peak milk talent show form?
What are the primary characteristics of an impact crater?
That depends on the size of the object making the impact. If it's large enough, it can break up a planet, or in case of the moon, create a new one. The best place to study impact craters is on the moon. If you look at the moon, you can see a large crater near the southern edge with rays emanating over almost the entire face of the moon. That's crater Tycho. It was formed… Read More
How did Ngorongoro crater form?
If you're talking about the Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania, Africa, according to Wikipedia it was formed when a giant volcano exploded and collapsed upon itself. Search for Ngorongoro conservation area on wikipedia. Read More
What is mount Etna's crater dimensions?
At the summit there are four craters: the Northeast Crater, Bucca Nuova Crater, Southeast Crater and Varagine Crater. Read More
What causes a crater to form?
Basically two things: either something volcanic erupting or a meteorite impacting. Read More
Does a gas giant planet have craters?
No. Gas giants do not have solid surfaces, so there is nothing for a crater to form on. Read More
Why did the comet impacts of 1994 not create craters on Jupiter?
Jupiter does not have a solid surface on which a crater could form. Read More
What is the Moon's largest crater?
The cheese crater. The cheese crater is the cheeseiest crater in all of cheese land. Read More