How much free space does an SSD need to run good?

[stanw]

I calculated that the amount of space I need for my drive with the OS and applications is about 121GB. I use external drives for all of my data and am thinking of getting the 256GB SSD. How much free space will I need for it to run smoothly?

Thanks.

 

[rkaufmann87]

I calculated that the amount of space I need for my drive with the OS and applications is about 121GB. I use external drives for all of my data and am thinking of getting the 256GB SSD. How much free space will I need for it to run smoothly?

Thanks.

I have 240GB SSD in my iMac with 65GB free, it runs perfectly but I like to keep an eye on the amount of available space.

 

[xgman]

I've read 20-30% surprisingly.

 

[rkaufmann87]

I have 68GB available on my 256GB SSD, it's working perfectly.

 

[Gav2k]

Samsung recommends 10% for optimal performance.

 

[im2slick4u]

I have a solid state hard drive on my pc and if i put more than 50% of data on it it gets really slow. I would not recommend increwsing data over 50% so if you want to add 500 gigs of files get a one tetrabyte ssd hard drive and if you want a full tetrabyte which is more than 95% of users use i would recommend a 2 tetrabyte ssd hard drive.

 

[HalfOnWhole]

I routinely have less than 10% free space on my rMBP SSD and it only really slows down when that number goes below about 5%.

 

[dsc888]

My 2012 512Gb SSD in my rMBP still runs at full speed with 66% full. I think you are good to at least 90% capacity before you would notice any speed difference.

 

[Sirmausalot]

I calculated that the amount of space I need for my drive with the OS and applications is about 121GB. I use external drives for all of my data and am thinking of getting the 256GB SSD. How much free space will I need for it to run smoothly?

Thanks.

Either get the 512 or the 2TB fusion. 256GB is too small!

 

[Jimmdean]

Unless you dive pretty deep in the white papers you never really know how much an SSD is over-provisioned to begin with. It is not uncommon for SSDs marketed as "240GB" to actually be 256GB, with 24GB already set aside for over-provisioning. You'd really just have to Black Magic your drive at different capacities to figure it out...

 

[Cape Dave]

I shoot for 50% free. That gives me PLENTY of wiggle room

 

[mikzn]

Just upgraded 2 lap tops with EVO 850 500's - it's worth the extra $100 to double the storage, even with external drives. Super Fast!

El Cap boots in 15 seconds!

 

[jordanz]

Got a crucial m4 256gb in Mac mini 2011. If free space drops below ~35gb (about 15% of the drive) the write speed goes from 260mb/s to 50mb/s. Read from 400+mb/s to 70mb/s. I aim for at least 20% free to be safe at all times, you can definitely notice when the speed drops!

 

[qualo]

Either get the 512 or the 2TB fusion. 256GB is too small!

I agree. I know very little about drive costs but the upgrade to 512gb SSD actually seems to be reasonably priced to me.