If I understand correctly, NTFS describes a file as a sequence of cluster ranges, e.g. [7,12), [0,4), [20,25). So the more fragments a file or folder has, the m

If I understand correctly, NTFS describes a file as a sequence of cluster ranges, e.g. [7,12), [0,4), [20,25). So the more fragments a file or folder has, the more space is required to describe how it's stored. This applies to the file system and is independent of HDD/SSD technology. As for SSDs, they need some degree of garbage collection - it's considered bad for an erasable block (e.g. 1 MiB) to contain a mix of live pages and deleted pages (4 KiB each).