X25-m getting faster after usage?

J

Jeremy C

Gawd
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
819
Can't find anything on this topic, but found this really odd.

I went from a 150GB Velociraptor as my OS drive to an 80GB G2 SSD. After installed Windows, updating the firmware on the SSD to the latest version and downloading/using the Intel toolbox, the SSD really didn't feel all that much faster. Load times stayed relatively the same for most programs and I didn't have that "Wow" effect everyone talks about on the forum here.

Fast forward 2 weeks. 109GB written to the drive, nothing has changed since the install, Win 7 loads quick enough now that the load animation only gets about 1/2 completed before I'm at the sign in screen, Outlook and the other Office programs (Office 2010 for reference) load instantly, and the overall system is much, much faster than it used to be.

I thought that SSD's had the best performance out of the box? Never read anywhere about the drives getting faster after getting used. Is this normal? Should I expect the general performance to gradual get quicker as the drive learns what is used the most (if it even does that)?

I apologize if this has been answered before, but I'm having no luck finding anyone who has experienced this.
 
SSD's with garbage collection or TRIM should n not be noticably slower, but should definitely not speed up.

What you are seeing could be Windows SuperFetch. It tracks which programs you use the most frequently and loads them into RAM so they load faster.
 
I think part of what you're seeing is superfetch's learning algorithm coming into effect, as well as a slight increase in performance from the drive's gc/trim recovering after lots of writes during the OS install.
 
I was under the impression a fresh install of W7 on an SSD would disable Superfetch for all but the slowest SSDs.

Maybe it's changed?
 
Windows never disables the SuperFetch service...

1. RAM is still faster than any SSD, and all your free RAM would be wasted (left empty) if SuperFetch were disabled.
2. SuperFetch helps alleviate the Disk I/O bottleneck, allowing higher net throughput by splitting reads between cached data (in RAM) and un-cached data (on the drive).
3. Any hard disks installed in your system will still need SuperFetch to perform optimally.
 
and prefetch wouldn't explain why Windows itself loads so much faster (as I said, the "starting windows" animation screen only gets about 1/2 completed before I'm at the login where after initial install it too about 3-5 seconds after the animation completed to get to login.

I guess I had a sluggish SSD that finally decided to behave like it was meant to. :D
 
I read that superfetch dereases boot time by working on the timing that files are needed and storing the access patterns in a trace file.
 
Old Hippie said:
By default, Windows 7 will disable Superfetch, ReadyBoost, as well as boot and application launch prefetching on SSDs with good random read, random write and flush performance. These technologies were all designed to improve performance on traditional HDDs, where random read performance could easily be a major bottleneck
Click to expand...

Windows never disables the SuperFetch service...
Click to expand...

OK..........:confused:
Click to expand...
What are you confused about, exactly?

I said Windows never disables the SuperFetch service, which is true; the service always stays enabled as it is needed for mechanical drives.

Just because the service is running does not mean it's operating on every drive. The service can decide for itself what storage media do and do not require its assistance, meaning there's no need to disable it.
 
I said Windows never disables the SuperFetch service, which is true; the service always stays enabled as it is needed for mechanical drives.
Click to expand...
I think that clarification was needed but the point is/was it shouldn't be a factor with his SSD.

I just disabled mine completely.
 
Wait, you don't have any mechanical drives at all?
Click to expand...
None on my main computer.

I have various externals that are used for back-ups and a 6TB WHS machine.

The bazooka got all the rest. :D
 
Don't think I could live like that. The only SSD's large enough to hold my Steam folder are in the $4,000 range...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top