Knew it all along, but there was sooooo much conviction and conventional wisdom about this.... http://www.ghacks.net/2015/01/20/windows-ssds-and-defragmentation-the-definitive-answer/
It is not wrong. Defrag prematurely wears out an SSD. This is especially true for the cheaper consumer class SSD where the P/E cycles are low. Some sites found the Kingston V300 had only about 500 Program/Erase cycles. Unless someone actually experiences exhaustions of file fragments, they needn't defrag.
I see. Your opinion contradicts the expert opinion of the article. W8 apparently defrags... HAS TO DO IT for the SSD to continue to function, and you cry "BS". Should make you feel really special.
Yes, I am very special. I am also master brain when it comes to computers. For windows 7, using this hot fix is probably better than to defrag. Although I am assuming the fix is not just to turn on defrag: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967351
Never seen it. But the hot fix link gives you all the details. Something along the lines of can't writing file. For a typical home PC, you are unlikely to ever come across it.
Take some preventive actions and you will never get in trouble. Copy your disc on a regular base. Replace your SSD every year. Prices of SSD's or cheap compared to the damage that you can have when your disc is out of business and you cannot recover the data. You can check if your startup time becomes longer, but you should check it by opening exactly the same programs or the result is not correct. With fragmentation startup can become slower. Depends of where the fragmentation is situated.
Been SSD for a year, no slow down, I download TV / Films to it and OS and everything else is on it pretty much, not noticing any slow down. No point defraging it, there is no seek time so no advantage to it being in order. You can get 10,000 is it rewrites on newer ones, I likely fill and delete the TV every 3 days, so 3000days think 10years before it becomes an issue at all. Defrag just uses up 1 of your wipes, over the entire disk pretty much, not an issue when you have 10,000 or 100,000 these days
Is replacing SSD's every year a best practice at corporations or other institutions, or just a very conservative approach?
Unless it's a server that's being absolutely hammered with wipes all day long I'd say a SSD should be good for 5+ years easy!! Mates on 3 years with his first 1's, no issues at all, and they weren't as good back then.