Windows 10 2004: Bug defragments SSDs too often

[German]A bug in the defragmentation of the Windows 10 May 2020 Update (Version 2004) causes SSDs to defragment much more often than expected. The bug was reported in January 2020 and should have been eliminated long ago.

Bleeping Computer has already prepared the whole thing a few days ago in this post. It is about the automatic maintenance of Windows, which also performs a defragmentation of the drives as a task. The Windows 10 function "Automatic Maintenance" can be viewed in the task planning under System Control -> System and Security -> Security and Maintenance, and is performed cyclically. This maintenance includes checking drives for optimization needs (defragmentation/trimming), searching for new updates, security scans and other diagnostics.

However, in the Windows 10 May 2020 Update (Version 2004), the Windows Defragmenter has a bug that defragments SSDs too frequently, trims non-SSD drives, and forgets when it last optimized a drive each time it restarts. The latter is a problem, because Windows 10 should actually remember when a maintenance/optimization was last performed on a drive. This is to prevent drives from being defragmented too often or SSDs from being trimmed.

This has been noticed in the wildersecuritys forum, where there is this entry in the thread that points out a problem:

Today I noticed error in my event viewer happening with Windows Defragger. Error 264 is logged when defragger tries to perform TRIM on non-SSD drives:

The storage optimiser couldn't complete re-trim on [DriveName] because: The operation requested is not supported by the hardware backing the volume. (0x8900002A)

After some googling I found another report with more serious bug (defragger trying to defrag SSD). I could reproduce an issue so I disabled scheduled maintenance also.

EDIT: here is a link that describes how to disable it.

Bleeping Computer was able to reproduce this bug, the Windows Defragmentation sees optimization needs for an SSD that was just optimized early in the morning. As a general rule, you should avoid defragmenting solid state drives (SSDs) to prevent unnecessary wear and tear. However, Microsoft developer Scott Hanselmann has explained here that there is some benefit to defragmenting a highly fragmented solid state drive (SSD), and will therefore defragment an SSD drive once a month.

"Actually Scott and Vadim are both wrong. Storage Optimizer will defrag an SSD once a month if volume snapshots are enabled. This is by design and necessary due to slow volsnap copy on write performance on fragmented SSD volumes."

However, because Windows 10 version 2004 forgets when the last optimization was performed, SSDs are optimized after every Windows 10 restart – which is certainly not good. And there's one more thing on top – the bug should have been eliminated long ago. On January 23, 2020 Microsoft announced the Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 19551. At this tim Microsoft wrote:

Thank you for reporting that the Optimize Drives Control Panel was incorrectly showing that optimization hadn't run on some devices. We've fixed it in this build.

Obviously they didn't really test – or the bug eventually migrated back into later builds. Golem writes here that in January 2020 there were also entries in the feedback hub. To cut a long story short: Windows 10 Version 2004 is quite buggy. More details can be found at Bleeping Computer in this post, and in this Microsoft Answers forum post.

6 Responses to Windows 10 2004: Bug defragments SSDs too often

nonW00t says:

2020-06-21 at 0:34

So now this will go unfixed since ms stopped the extra winupdates every month? :O

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Derek M says:

2020-09-08 at 23:12

This has finally been fixed for Windows 10 2004 in the September Cumulative update! Confirmed on 2 different computers! It now remembers the last time you defragged/optimized your drives after a restart!
Reply Edit

- guenni says:
  
  2020-09-08 at 23:18
  
  I've noticed it from the colleagues at Bleeping Computer – thx for confirming, that the fix works.
  
Sh says:

2020-09-09 at 20:08

… but still this error logged in Windows Application Log if a Non-SSD drive defragged.

The storage optimizer couldn't complete retrim on (D:) because: The operation requested is not supported by the hardware backing the volume. (0x8900002A)

- EP says:
  
  2020-11-13 at 16:05
  
  that other defrag bug may be possibly fixed with upcoming KB4586853 update which update the MS defrag DLL files to 19041.661 or higher:
  
  https://www.deskmodder.de/blog/2020/11/12/kb4586853-manueller-download-windows-10-20h2-2004-19042-661-19041-661-korrigiert-das-inplace-problem/#comment-153600

6 Responses to Windows 10 2004: Bug defragments SSDs too often

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