New SSDs - Tweaking

N

Nismo

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 10, 2000
Messages
1,413
Ok, thre are a ton of articles out there on tweaking your SSD. However, most of those are 2 years old or longer. SSDs have changed since then.

So here is my question, and are they still beneficial to the new SSDs?
-Move pagefile to another drive
-Disable SSD File Indexing
-Move user profile to another drive
-Move IE/Firefox cashe to another drive


Specs: i7 @ 4GHz, 6GB RAM, Vertex 3.

Is there anything I am leaving off this list for Modern Trim enabled drives?
 
You don't need to tweak anything. Windows 7 will adjust itself to working on a SSD without any fuss from the user. Most of these "tweaks" only move things off the SSD so they don't write as much, but the endurance of these drives is a lot higher than people think. Moving the pagefile, cache, and indexing file(useful is you have a HDD in a secondary role, and so is Superfetch) will only slow the system down compared to one with those on the SSD.

The only thing I would suggest is making the Pagefile a static size instead of allowing Windows to resize it, but it's just a personal preference.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
You don't need to tweak anything. Windows 7 will adjust itself to working on a SSD without any fuss from the user. Most of these "tweaks" only move things off the SSD so they don't write as much, but the endurance of these drives is a lot higher than people think. Moving the pagefile, cache, and indexing file(useful is you have a HDD in a secondary role, and so is Superfetch) will only slow the system down compared to one with those on the SSD.

The only thing I would suggest is making the Pagefile a static size instead of allowing Windows to resize it, but it's just a personal preference.
Click to expand...

Thats absolutely not true.

Superfetch slows down systems with SSDs and RAID 0 with spinners because it hogs resource at boot time and holds memory always which has to be released for program usage.

Runing a swap file slows any system down if you have the memory shut it off.

And the best place for temp and internet files is a RAMDisk for optimum performance.

If your system has memory like mine 16GB use it.
 
Superfetch on Windows 7 does not slow down the system. It is not like Vista where as soon as the system booted into Windows it would cache every thing right away. I've personally tested Superfetch on and off with several different SSD set ups and there was difference in booting. As for the RAM it takes up, that's the whole point. You don't want idle RAM sitting there doing nothing. It gets released as soon as it's requested and it doesn't slow anything down.

I've also tied the whole Pagefile on vs off, and again there is no performance hit until you hit the absolute limit. Windows will only put information in the pagefile that isn't actively needed at the time so you're not running programs off of it until you're out of physical space. In that same situation with it off,your systems comes to a halt as information has to be unloaded for you to continue.

OP never mentioned a RAMdisk which is why I didn't bring it up. If you said that he was planning to sue it, then cache would be a fit. I
 
MS says to turn off superfetch with SSDs guess they don't know what they are talking about and your testing supercedes them.

MS uses the pagefile all the time turn on perfmon and watch the pagefaults. Shutoff the pagefile and see the difference.

RAMDisk rocks!
 
In any case, Superfetch is automatically turned off on SSDs.

Don't tweak anything - if you want to you can reduce the size of the pagefile to reduce the amount of space it takes on the SSD, but there is no reason to turn it off completely. Win 7 is both SSD and memory management smart, so there is little to be gained by second-guessing it.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

Nismo, just pretend it is a very fast normal drive, and enjoy it - no need for extensive "tweaking".
 
Falcon_CMH said:
MS says to turn off superfetch with SSDs guess they don't know what they are talking about and your testing supercedes them.
Click to expand...

They don't say to turn it off - they say it is turned off automatically if the SSD is fast enough - see link posted above - and note it says "will" not "should".

Will Superfetch be disabled on SSDs?

Yes, for most systems with SSDs.

If the system disk is an SSD, and the SSD performs adequately on random reads and doesn’t have glaring performance issues with random writes or flushes, then Superfetch, boot prefetching, application launch prefetching, ReadyBoost and ReadDrive will all be disabled.

Initially, we had configured all of these features to be off on all SSDs, but we encountered sizable performance regressions on some systems. In root causing those regressions, we found that some first generation SSDs had severe enough random write and flush problems that ultimately lead to disk reads being blocked for long periods of time. With Superfetch and other prefetching re-enabled, performance on key scenarios was markedly improved.
Click to expand...
 
MS also says a SSD is the perfect place to put a pagefile.
 
Hmm I have installed many high end RAID 0 SSDs and never has it turned off superfetch. I disagree Win 7 or Server 2008 R2 does that. Maybe SP1 does that but the original ones do not.

Swapfiles are for people with no memory if you got memory shut it off.
 
Forceman said:
In any case, Superfetch is automatically turned off on SSDs.

Don't tweak anything - if you want to you can reduce the size of the pagefile to reduce the amount of space it takes on the SSD, but there is no reason to turn it off completely. Win 7 is both SSD and memory management smart, so there is little to be gained by second-guessing it.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

Nismo, just pretend it is a very fast normal drive, and enjoy it - no need for extensive "tweaking".
Click to expand...

First someone claims they tested it with it on now you say Windows turns it off which is it?
 
You were saying that MS tells you to disable Superfetch when they actually said it'll automatically disable it if the drive is detected as being acceptable. Btw, cached memory that's being held by superfetch causes no performance decrease, it's released as soon as the memory is required by an active application. If you have proof that it causes reduced performance that'd be great if you linked it.

You say that people should disable the pagefile while MS points out that a SSD is the best place to place it.

Personally speaking I have experienced no performance degradation from leaving Superfetch and the Pagefile on.


OP:

-Move pagefile to another drive
leave the pagefile on the drive, or minimize the size to something your comfortable with; if you really want to disable it then go ahead, but there's nothing really lost by keeping it enabled.

-Disable SSD File Indexing
Personal preference on this one

-Move user profile to another drive
Leave the profile on your SSD, you want to keep it on a fast drive.

-Move IE/Firefox cashe to another drive
Same for this, you want your cache on a fast drive to speed up the application. Why would you buy a SSD then "save" the writes only to keep your apps from benefiting from the SDD?
 
Dude common sense tells you if a program is holding memory and has to release it for another program to use that is slower than the memory being available free to begin with. Also it takes CPU to load memory common sense again, wasted cycles. Superfetch is super junk.

Second Windows uses the pagefile if you have one whether you have free memory or not. Once again common sense tells you using any hard drive as memory SSD or not is slower than memory.

Your supposed testing is BS IMO.

Next thing you'll say is ReadyBoost is good too, part of the same crappy Superfetch program..

I am done I stated my case the OP can make his own decision.
 
Last edited:
Falcon_CMH said:
Dude common sense tells you if a program is holding memory and has to release it for another program to use that is slower than the memory being available free to begin with. Also it takes CPU to load memory common sense again, wasted cycles. Superfetch is super junk.

Second Windows uses the pagefile if you have one whether you have free memory or not. Once again common sense tells you using any hard drive as memory SSD or not is slower than memory.

Your supposed testing is BS IMO.

Next thing you'll say is ReadyBoost is good too, part of the same crappy Superfetch program..

I am done I stated my case the OP can make his own decision.
Click to expand...

It isn't like Windows writes zeroes to the RAM stack when it releases it back to the system. It just marks that RAM as available, and data is loaded into it the same as it would be loaded into any other unused RAM page. It isn't water you have to pour out of a bucket before you can refill it, for God's sake.

And Windows uses the page file to page static or stale data out of RAM to make that same RAM available for more useful data. Do you just want unused RAM to be sitting idle, or have it doing something for you? Free RAM = wasted RAM.
 
You obviously have no knowledge/experience of programming and how the OS manages memory. And yes it is like you have to pour out a bucket before you can use it again memory allocation/deallocation is one of the most expensive OS operations there are. Superfetch cannot just let the program use it's memory that's not how the OS works. Superfetch is a dog. Enjoy using it.
 
A program isn't holding memory, the OS is, it's also "holding" the free memory too. Worst case scenario SF adds microseconds to any memory request by applications, likely more in the nanosecond realm. Superfetch actually works pretty well, even with SSDs.

Second windows in high memory systems tends to only page stuff out when it sees that it is extremely rarely used. Do you REALLY need that web browser option menu constantly loaded into RAM when you haven't even looked at it since you installed it? Wouldn't it be better to just have more free RAM for stuff you do use more frequently?

Your FUD is FUD IMO.

To the OP: re-install Win7 on the SSD, probably set the page file size manually to something like 1GB min 6GB max so it doesn't take up too much space unless you suddenly need it, and just leave everything else alone. Most of these so called tweaks were developed for the original JMicron chip drives which were horrible for anything other than sequential reads, and Vista which had much poorer SSD support than win7, and aren't really pertinent with a intel/sandforce/marvell controller on win7.
 
Actually your wrong the program requests the memory from the OS then has direct access to the memory outside the OS. So yes the application holds the memory and no other application can touch it including the OS until it is freed back to the OS by the application or the OS takes it back forcefully during application failure. Superfetch is junk even MS says to turn it off with SSDs period no matter what you think. Yet another person w/o knowledge on how memory works in applications and the OS. Its called protected mode and how the CPU insures rogue applications can't crash the OS or other applications when they try to overwrite their own memory space into others.

And your wrong Windows uses the swap file all the time when its on even if it doesn't need it. Turn on perfmon you will see.
 
Last edited:
Actually superfetch doesn't store memory in protected mode. It's stored in the standby page list which is always available for initialization and allocation. It's not as taxing on the system as you make it out to be.

Performance Testing Guide for Windows, page 6, line 17
All pages on the Standby list are available for memory allocation requests. If a process requests memory, the memory manager can take a page from the Standby list, initialize it, and allocate it to the calling process. This is called repurposing a page.
Click to expand...

With Superfetch, there's no request to access the memory, it's already available to the OS to allocate. Additionally, Superfetch has multiple priority levels, with the lowest levels not even in memory anymore.

Memory Sizing Guidance for Windows 7, page 8, line 20
Both Windows 7 and Windows Vista set priorities for pages on the standby list so that historically important pages remain in memory and less frequently used pages do not.
Click to expand...

Sources:
Performance Testing Guide for Windows
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463399

Memory Sizing Guidance for Windows 7
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463425
 
Last edited:
That puts the pages that are not in memory in the swap file. No matter the standby list or not it's extra overhead. Maybe not as much as I implied but its unecessary overhead. And superfetch and this standby memory list sound good on paper but what they add up to is a CLR like runtime implementation that has overhead itself. You'll never convice me that Superfetch is any good or any of its x number of other features like ready boost. IMO the whole program has been trash since its inception even though they improve it its just less cluttered but still clutter with crappy fussy logic etc. And all memory is in some protected mode period and belong to a single process thats controlled thru the CPU.
 
But I have enjoyed our banter back and forth you seem to do research to get knoewledge and I admire that in you.
 
Falcon_CMH said:
You'll never convice me that Superfetch is any good or any of its x number of other features like ready boost. IMO the whole program has been trash since its inception even though they improve it its just less cluttered but still clutter with crappy fussy logic etc. And all memory is in some protected mode period and belong to a single process thats controlled thru the CPU.
Click to expand...

That's fine and all, but why are you trying to convince others that it is trash as well? You may believe it is costing you performance (never shown by any benchmarks I've ever seen) but there is no reason to go around trying to confuse others who are trying to get unbiased information.
 
Last edited:
Actually you are confusing others tellling them to leave it on when MS says shut it off not me. And I backup my beliefs with facts. You are the one with a bias that contradicts MS not me, and you have no facts. So don't try to paint that BIAS crap on me buddy.
 
Last edited:
Falcon_CMH said:
Actually you are confusing others tellling them to leave it on when MS says shut it off not me. And I backup my beliefs with facts. You are the one with a bias that contradicts MS not me, and you have no facts. So don't try to paint that BIAS crap on me buddy.
Click to expand...

All I said was leave it alone and let Windows do what it thinks is best (which is off for SSDs). You are the one pushing the "turn it off" agenda, and the "it wastes resources" angle.

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1037122695&postcount=2
 
OK so here is proof Win 7 doesn't turn off superfetch or prefetch with a new install on 2x Crucial C300 256GBs RAID 0. Now hopefully the mis-information out here on the forums will stop once and for all. Here are the screen shots my registry and my drive speeds (these were the fastest drives at the time, I can provide the same proof with Intel X-25M 160GBs RAID 0 too):
Drive Speed
diskuu.png

Registry 3 is enabled 0 is off
supeerfetch.png
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top