Build. Mode. Music.
Definitely don’t defrag regularly because, yes, it will wear out the SSD. However, defragging once will move the files into a contiguous chunk of the partition and allow you greater success at shrinking it.
I seem to remember disabling hibernation and swapfile, then defragging, seemed to significantly increase the chances of success shrinking an active partition.
(Re-enable hibernation/swap after the shrink operation is finished.)
Now that I’ve discovered emulators are now allowed on iOS, I’m playing through the original PS version of Chrono Cross.
The ability to use save states and jump back into a session within seconds is HUGE for me. No vendor logos, no waiting for save points. Just instant save and recall.