>>You should not ever use defrag type tools on a SSD as that will "wear" the SSD quicker than normal. It has something to do with the way they work. In fact, built-in Windows defrag will actually not run when it sees an SSD anyway. You should not full-format an SSD drive for the same reason. Juts use quick format.
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>>Over time of heavy use the SSD will go slower and slower especially as you near capacity.
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>>1) Make sure TRIM is ON in your system: "To confirm that TRIM'S enabled on your WIndows 7 or 8 PC's SSD, open the command prompt and type fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify (without any end punctuation). If you get 'DisableDeleteNotify = 0' as a response, you're set. If you don't, confirm that your SSD drivers are up-to-date. "
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>>2) You can get Samsung SSD Magician software for free to analyze the drive.
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>>3) See these articles for more:
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>>https://www.howtogeek.com/165542/why-solid-state-drives-slow-down-as-you-fill-them-up/
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>>http://innov8tiv.com/how-to-optimize-and-speed-up-ssd-performance-in-windows-10/
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>>4) Eventually you can "reset" your SSD by doing a secure-erase which marks all its cells as empty and will restore the drive to, essentially, "new" condition. See here:
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>>http://www.ryli.net/ssd-secure-erase-eliminates-the-slowness-of-your-drive/
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>>https://www.pcworld.com/article/2088341/how-to-restore-your-ssd-to-peak-performance.html
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>>https://www.pcworld.com/article/2110095/the-ultimate-guide-to-proper-ssd-management.html
>
>This is great information. Trim is ok. I will have to check on the other points.

Michel

I had 2 x 500Gb Samsung SSD that I took out of an old server and wanted to sell. The potential buyer tested them and said they were no good with read speeds of only 3Mb/sec !! So I researched the problem and found that first I made the mistake of trying to full-format them and secondly they had been in use a long time even with TRIM on. I purchase a program called Parted Magic https://partedmagic.com which is a disk management tool with many features. It comes as an iso which you have to burn onto a DVD and then boot off that DVD. Then I plugged in the 2 SSD into a USB drive enclosure and plugged them into the computer. Then did a secure erase on them which took just 1 minute. The drives went back to having access speeds of > 30Mb/sec as per spec.