Windows 7 and SSD

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:51 am

According to Microsoft Blog about Windows 7, Superfetch, Prefetch, and ReadyBoost are by default disabled in Windows 7 with SSD, well, most SSD drives, although apparently not Generation 1 SSD. I know with my Intel X25-M 160Gb SSD and rating of 7.8 in Windows 7 x64 those services are not disabled, they are on Automatic. I wonder if this is the norm for most people, a bug in Windows 7, etc.

Please list your Make and Model SSD and if partial applies, state which services. Also, which version of Windows 7, for example, 32 or 64 bit.

swivelguy2 · Post by **swivelguy2** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 8:22 am

Maybe I'm a little behind-the-times, but isn't Readyboost the only one of those that's supposed to be disabled?

Superfetch (isn't this just the new name for Prefetch?) loads commonly-used stuff from the disk into RAM. RAM is still a lot faster than an SSD, so Superfetch is still something you want enabled.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 8:56 am

swivelguy2 wrote:Maybe I'm a little behind-the-times, but isn't Readyboost the only one of those that's supposed to be disabled?

Superfetch (isn't this just the new name for Prefetch?) loads commonly-used stuff from the disk into RAM. RAM is still a lot faster than an SSD, so Superfetch is still something you want enabled.

"Be(sic) 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."

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/0 ... s-and.aspx

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:04 am

This may be splitting hairs, but it's possible for the services to be enabled and running but for them to decide to do nothing in reality.

I'll readily admit that my understanding of Windows services is limited. However it seems to me a much cleaner solution to have the kernel start the services regardless of device performance, then the service modules to make their own decision to be active or to idle, than it does to load up the kernel extra special-case code that implements the intelligence to choose whether to launch the services in the first place.

So my question back would be, if the services are running are you sure they're actually doing anything other than sitting in an idle-priority wait loop?

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:08 am

I have been disabling Superfetch on Vista machines for some time as it speeds up the PC in the vast majority of cases. But with an SSD, I would have thought that if anything this removes the need to disable Superfetch (which hammers your hard drive into submission), by virtue of it being considerably faster.

But then again, I have also read that what Superfetch actually does is read all of your apps into the page file after it runs out of RAM (which is usually pretty soon after starting), at which point it would still hammer your hard drive, or SSD, so in the short term its still a loss, but might make your PC faster some time after being on, if you tend to run every app on your system everytime you use it.

Superfetch is one of those technologies that is great in theory, but in practice a waste of resources. What everyone wants is a PC that loads up fast, i.e. no Superfetch, then loads up apps fast, i.e. an SSD. So my short answer is yes I expect that it would be faster to not bother with superfetch if you have an SSD......... or a conventional Hard Drive.

There are various other tweaks that can be done to any OS to disable services, apps and random junk from running at startup or at all.

Andy

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:20 am

nutball wrote:This may be splitting hairs, but it's possible for the services to be enabled and running but for them to decide to do nothing in reality.

I'll readily admit that my understanding of Windows services is limited. However it seems to me a much cleaner solution to have the kernel start the services regardless of device performance, then the service modules to make their own decision to be active or to idle, than it does to load up the kernel extra special-case code that implements the intelligence to choose whether to launch the services in the first place.

So my question back would be, if the services are running are you sure they're actually doing anything other than sitting in an idle-priority wait loop?

I did experiment by disabling Prefetch and saw warning or error (forgot which) in event log, but after enabling, the warning no longer appeared--this is during booting up. So, I would conclude they are running unless disabled.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:41 am

my understanding is that being a HD is a physical device, any access of it is stupid slow. This bogged down Vista using up more than just "resources" but the I/O pausing windows does on devices.

This is one explanation I heard.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:32 pm

So my question back would be, if the services are running are you sure they're actually doing anything other than sitting in an idle-priority wait loop?

Some services are simply on or off, others are on, but dont do anything unless they are supposed to, others are turned off until something else turns them on.

With Readyboost for example (turned on by default in Vista), its on, but doesnt actually do anything until you plug in a USB storage device, and then choose to use it as a Readyboost device. At that moment you turn a service that is running, but not actually doing anything into one that is being used all of the time.

This of course is best turned off for anyone who is not using a readyboost device (everyone), likewise the "spool service" if you dont have a printer in your house (like me), and many other services that are only turned on as a precaution that they might be used "wireless zero config", as another example.

Most services that are not being used dont suddenly speed your PC up when you disable them, but its often not the service itself that is the issue, but what the service brings into play (the print spooler uses a small amout of RAM, so you only gain a little). What Superfetch brings into play is essentially loading every program you have installed into RAM, and when it runs out of RAM it gets really messy, it starts loading programs from your hard drive back onto your hard drive via the use of the page file. This is the reason why the Average Vista PC with 2GB of RAM ends up with the number of Megs of RAM free in the sub 30 MB quantity. Disable Superfetch and reboot, you should expect to gain 400 MB.

I have literally made some PC's boot in a third of the time by disabling Superfetch, and although there have been one or two borderline PC's every other PC has been made faster in one or more ways. Even if you ignore the bootup time, disabling superfetch makes the PC "feel" more responsive, and I am quite sure its actually faster loading those apps that are supposedly already loaded.

Also I would suggest that you disable the indexing on the drives unless you do a lot of searches within your data. This is essentially there to make searches faster, didnt do a huge amount in XP, but in Vista I hear it helps a lot. But if you think about how many searches you do within your own data set, and compare that to making your PC's HDD just a little faster all of the time you can come up with your own descision.

Within XP, this can make quite a big performance boost to a slow HDD that has been installed for some time. Within Vista it can make a large difference as well, but as I also disable Superfetch, Readyboost, system restore, and automatic updates all in one go, I cant realy quantify exactly how much of a performance gain you get.

my understanding is that being a HD is a physical device, any access of it is stupid slow. This bogged down Vista using up more than just "resources" but the I/O pausing windows does on devices.

Exactly, plus what I have added above. It also wears the drive more simply because it uses it more, although I have no proof that it results in a higher failure rate.

Andy

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 4:13 pm

I think prefetching has more to do with booting up than Superfetch. The only way to disable prefetching that I know of is by editing the registry.

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