I keep reading that SSDs need regular maintenance run on them to keep the data "good" and the "drive" working. Something that does "trims" and such...

I haven't looked into it, but need to myself. If I come up with something, I will share it.


**EDIT: So it basically sounds like you should make sure that TRIM is enabled or seen in your O/S, and turn off anything just reads/writes odd amounts of data to the SSD to enhance the longevity.

For example, here are some "speed tweaks" which are oddly named since they are more about keeping the SSD alive as long as possible... These are for Windows:
Windows Ultimate SSD Tweaks

Here is some info about TRIM:
TRIM - What is it.

And how to check if it is enabled:
The easiest way to learn if your SSD supports TRIM is to run an application like CrystalDiskInfo (Windows). It will tell you if your SSD supports TRIM, as shown in the screenshot.

The next step is to check if Windows is using the TRIM feature. For Windows 7, open the Command Prompt (Ed. note: I had to Run cmd.exe as an administrator for this command), then type fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify. If this results in "DisableDeleteNotify = 0", that means that the OS is using TRIM and thus is treated as an SSD.

If Windows isn't treating your drive as an SSD—and as such, isn't using TRIM—you should take a look at the properties of the SSD in the Device Manager. You may need to update the drivers of your disk controller in order for the OS to become aware of your SSD. To do so, right-click your hard drive in Device Manager and select Update Drive Software.


Farewell - June 4, 2020