Your SSD isn't old, it's slowing down for 3 reasons you rarely think about

After a 7-year corporate stint, Tanveer found his love for writing and tech too much to resist. An MBA in Marketing and the owner of a PC building business, he writes on PC hardware, technology, and Windows. When not scouring the web for ideas, he can be found building PCs, watching anime, or playing Smash Karts on his RTX 3080 (sigh).

So, you're one of the lucky ones who built a PC or upgraded your SSD way before the DRAM crisis exploded prices across the industry. Your NVMe SSD may have been blazing-fast when new, but you might feel that it has lost some of that speed over the years. It's not your imagination; SSDs can slow down over time if you aren't careful about upkeep and updates.

SSDs, just like other components of your PC, don't like heat. You may have a fancy heatsink installed on it, but that doesn't guarantee your drive will never throttle. SSDs don't need frequent firmware updates, but you may have missed out on a crucial one if you never checked for updates. Lastly, your drive needs to have enough free space to run background maintenance that keeps it performing at its best. Thankfully, each of these mistakes is easy to rectify.

Your drive is overheating inside a dirty case

You may not even realize it

I understand it isn't convenient to have to clean your case every few months. In dusty areas, your PC can accumulate dust deposits in a matter of months. At this point, the dust ruins the aesthetics of your build, but if ignored for too long, it can start to hamper the airflow inside your case. When your case fans get clogged with thick dust, they struggle to provide the passive cooling your SSD needs to avoid thermal throttling.

To be fair, NVMe SSDs don't throttle easily. Gen4 drives run fine till 70℃, and Gen5 drives are okay below 75–80℃. However, in the worst cases where you procrastinate deep cleaning for too long, your SSD can breach these safe limits under heavy load. When this happens, the same tasks that used to fly on your new drive will run relatively slower. You may not be monitoring your SSD temperature, so the root cause can go unnoticed.

Overheating isn't ideal for your SSD's lifespan either. NAND flash wear isn't the only thing that can kill your SSD; you also need to protect it from sustained overheating. If you keep ignoring your dusty PC for months on end, it won't be long before you start slashing your SSD's lifespan.

You haven't updated its firmware in ages

It's possible you never even thought about it

Your PC's BIOS needs to be up-to-date for optimum performance, stability, and security. Similarly, your SSD's firmware also needs to be updated to ensure you aren't missing out on performance improvements or critical security patches. Manufacturers don't push too many firmware updates for SSDs, especially not once the drive is a bit far into its lifecycle. That said, during the first few years, it's worth checking your SSD software for new firmware.

SSD firmware directly impacts the drive controller's performance. It sits below the OS and helps the controller and NAND flash execute important operations like garbage collection, wear leveling, and error correction. The overall result of these operations is a drive that maintains its peak performance for years. If you've never updated your SSD's firmware, you may be missing out on a performance-linked update.

A new firmware version isn't just linked to performance; it can also prevent early degradation. This was exactly what happened with early batches of Samsung's 980 Pro SSDs, where a firmware update prevented drive failures across the customer base. Hence, ignoring your SSD's firmware isn't advisable if you wish to enjoy your drive's maximum performance for years.

It's running out of free space

Give your SSD some breathing room

You paid for every last GB of your SSD, so you may want to use it to the brim. That approach, however, isn't healthy for its performance. When your SSD is new, it has an abundance of free cells. Whenever you write new data to the drive, the controller doesn't need to hunt for an empty cell. As it gets filled up, however, this process can get slower, since the drive needs to erase existing cells by relocating data and then write new data to empty cells.

This process of cleaning up invalid or deleted data from cells and readying them for incoming data is known as garbage collection. An SSD that's running out of free space struggles to perform this process efficiently, which slows down write operations. It can also cause write amplification since the SSD has to perform extra write operations, reducing the lifespan of the drive.

The other problem with an SSD that's "too full" is that the pseudo SLC (pSLC) cache gets smaller. Without a sufficiently large pSLC cache, your SSD is forced to write natively to the TLC or QLC NAND, which is relatively slower. The small area reserved as the SLC-imitating cache uses spare space on the drive to dynamically adjust its size. With too few empty cells on the drive, your SSD struggles to find spare storage for the cache, making your SSD slower over time.

This is why it's advised to keep around 10–15% of your SSD capacity unused. This allows the drive enough free space to manage garbage collection and maintain a healthy pSLC cache for write operations. Ensure that the TRIM command is also enabled on Windows, so that the SSD is always up-to-date on which cells contain invalid data. This aids the garbage collection process, minimizing unnecessary writes.

Your SSD's slowdown is probably not linked to its age

Fortunately, it's easy to regain the performance your SSD has lost over the years. Its age doesn't determine its speed; its cooling, firmware, and free space do. Once you've ensured your drive isn't throttling, is using the latest firmware, and has enough spare storage to manage background operations, you'll find it returning to its former glory.