Computer Memory

Conventional wisdom states that running a defragmentation program on a Solid State Drive (SSD) can cause serious damage. However, this is not very likely to happen to a modern SSD. It was good advice back in the day when SSDs had more limited endurance for being written on than that of modern evolutions of the same hardware, but not so now in the modern era of computing. Current SSDs on the market will typically be IOPs (Input/output Operations Per Second) Limited, which makes them far less prone to this kind of damage.

Why Would you Defrag’ an SSD anyway?
You don’t necessarily have to be the one instigating a defragmentation of your SSD, as it could be part of your system’s own scheduled maintenance. It’s a particularly helpful process for Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), as over time, data becomes fragmented and worsens the performance of your CPU. This doesn’t apply to SSDs however, as they don’t work in the same way as HDDs, but it is nice to know that should it happen automatically or by accident, that no lasting damage will occur as a result.

Potential Damage from a Defrag’
The newly found robustness of modern SSDs means that a huge amount of writes and deletes are required to even come close to causing damage to the hardware. Your SSD would have to be processing a colossal amount of data for the unlikely occurrence of a catastrophic failure due to defragmentation to become a reality. Even if you run defrags in the normal way, your SSD hardware is still likely to outlast every other component of your laptop or desktop PC.

Maintaining Your SSD
Whilst defragging isn’t an appropriate method of maintenance for an SSD, there are steps you can take to ensure good performance. A good start would be to disable indexing, which is used by Windows Search to keep track of all of your files stored on your laptop or desktop PC. The write operations involved will slowly degrade the performance of your SSD and Windows Search will work just fine without it, so it’s best to turn it off. You could also enable your Trim report to further enhance its operation.

The Future
Solid State Drives truly do represent the future when it comes to how a computer uses non-volatile storage and there may come a point when they will replace them entirely. This is because of a number factors, not least of which is the fact that whilst RAM and CPUs are getting faster and better performing, the magnetic spinning disk method of data storage is beginning to fall behind, technologically speaking.

The company known as Ultra Products was formed back in 1991 and it traded under the name ‘Midwest Micro’, a PC building company from Ohio in the United States. Ultra Products was a successful line of PCs and laptops created by Midwest Micro and distributed via their logistical division, Infotel. Both Midwest Micro and Infotel were bought by Global Distribution, who were themselves bought out by an even bigger fish, Systemax Corporation.

The Ultra Product brand still exists now as a part of the Systemax group and continues to manufacture and distribute computer components from its US base of operations.

Today, the main thrust of the company resides in a wide portfolio of products that include computer cases, power supplies, and computer memory, as well as uninterruptible power units and customised cooling products. Ultra Products thrust itself into the limelight when it created the Ultra X Connect, the very first power supply built on a modular design.

In the intervening years, the brand grew to include a line of LCD monitors at the premium end of the market. By the year 2002, Systemax had become the principal importer of Chieftec (A computer hardware company from Taiwan) computer cases which it used for its own branded builds and to the Do It Yourself market via its retail presence, Tiger Direct Retail.

Diversifying
A short time later in 2003, the Tiger Direct Retail arm was using the Ultra name to sell economy graphics cards and computer memory, before also moving into hard drives, CPU coolers, light kits and volatile computer memory. Later that same year Ultra Products merged with Chieftec’s US presence, which then resulted in their combined hardware offerings becoming available at outlets such as Micro Center and Fry’s Electronics, as well as still being available at Tiger Direct.

Patented Design
In 2006, Ultra Products was awarded a US Patent for the modular interface featured in its X Connect branded power supplies granting them exclusive rights for manufacturing and distribution in the US.

As far as technical support goes, some technical support queries are dealt with by the support centre in Ohio, with the rest being handled via the call centre at Tiger Direct, based in Miami.

The Brand and the company carrying the name Ultra Products have certainly enjoyed a long and winding road to arrive where they are today. They may have gone through a number of corporate morphs over the last 20 years, but they continue to do what they set out to do, that being to supply a significant amount of computer hardware to the US market and beyond.