SSD Speed after updates......

Just curious about the following........

I have a 240GB Vertex 2 SSD, using the SandForce controller, and Ive noticed something interesting.

Now there is some secrecy as to how the Sandforce controller actually works. Its stated that it doesnt need TRIM as it does the operation on-the-fly.

I installed the SSD and put my SuperDuper image onto it, as shown here..... YouTube - MacBook Pro 240GB Vertex 2 SSD Unbox, Upgrade & Testing - Part 1

After a while the drive seemed to suddenly increase in speed, as shown here..... YouTube - MacBook Pro 240GB Vertex 2 SSD - Part 2 - Performance Increase!

Didnt know why this was, and I didnt care!

Anyway, I updated to 10.6.4 when it was released. Reboot my MBP and the drive seemed slower on boot again. Application launch times and general usage was still fast - it was just the boot.

After a few hours, I noticed the boot was much faster again!

Co-incidence again?????

I have now just updated my iTunes.
Again the drive performed as normal etc, but was slower on boot.
Again, after a few hours, I reboot again, and now my MAC is booted very fast again, 1-2 rotations of the loading circle.


Surely this cant be co-incidence any longer.
I have a feeling that after each update etc, the SSD, or Sandforce controller, either cleans itself up, or optimises itself as the MAC is idle, or if Im just casually browsing the Internet. It may even do it when the MAC is in sleep state?? Im not sure. All I know is that after a large update, the SSD seems to take a few hours to 'cleanup' and then its back to its usual speedy state.

 

After my update (I have the new Vertex 2 SSD and am running raid on a new 13" MBP) my CPU seemed quite busy for about 5 minutes or so and CPU usage was very high but then it just went being dead quiet again with CPU usage. First restart was a bit slower but after 2-3 restarts it was very fast again.

 

Spotlight loves going crazy... you can always look for mdsworker using up a lot of CPU time... shouldn't really affect boot time, but updates themselves can affect boot times for a boot or two... SSD or not.

 

Does spotlight need to remain on??
What happens if you switch it off completely?

 

it doesn't do it all the time.. sometimes a bit after updates, or cloning drives and such. Without spotlight you lose almost all search functionality... but people have found ways to disable it. I don't recall how, but there is information on some websites about disabling it.

 

Turn off Spotlight by editing its line in /private/etc/hostconfig to read:

SPOTLIGHT=-NO-


or, Use "Spotless", which is a simple utility designed to enable and disable Spotlight content indexing.

Spotless 3 information page