Protect Your External SSD: Five Habits to Stop Doing
To extend the life and performance of an external SSD, avoid abrupt unplugging and always eject properly, keep at least 10% of the drive unused (ideally stay below 85% full), skip defragmentation in favor of TRIM-based optimization, ensure good cooling/ventilation to prevent thermal throttling, and don’t treat an SSD as a cold archive—use a 3-2-1 backup strategy and refresh offline backups periodically.