SSD Thread (Benchmarks, Brands, News, and Advice)

Came across these usful speed tweaks so thought i would share...

Default Windows 7 - Ultimate SSD Speed Tweaks.

Increase System Speed
Disable indexing
Description: Indexing creates and maintains a database of file attributes. This can lead to multiple small writes when creating/deleting/modifying files. Searching for files will still work.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Services and Applications -> Services - > Right-Click Windows Search -> Startup type: Disabled -> OK

Disable defragmentation
Description: Defragmenting a hard disk's used space is only useful on mechanical disks with multi-millisecond latencies. Free-space defragmentation may be useful to SSDs, but this feature is not available in the default Windows Defragmenter.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Services and Applications -> Services - > Right-Click Disk Defragmenter -> Startup type: Disabled -> OK

Disable Write Caching
Description: There is no cache on the SSD, so there are no benefits to write caching. There are conflicting reports on whether this gains speed or not.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Device Manager -> Disk drives -> Right-Click STEC PATA -> Properties -> Policies Tab -> Uncheck Enable write caching -> OK

Configure Superfetch
Description: Frees up RAM by not preloading program files.
Instructions: On second glance, I would recommend leaving this one alone. However, there are some customizations that you can follow in the post below.

Firefox - Use memory cache instead of disk cache
Description: If you use Firefox, there's a way to write cached files to RAM instead of the hard disk. This is not only faster, but will significantly reduce writes to the SSD while using the browser.
Instructions: Open Firefox -> Type about:config into the address bar -> Enter -> double-click browser.cache.disk.enable to set the value to False -> Right-Click anywhere -> New -> Integer -> Preference Name "disk.cache.memory.capacity" -> value memory size in KB. Enter 32768 for 32MB, 65536 for 64MB, 131072 for 128MB, etc. -> restart Firefox

Free up extra drive space
Disable the Page File
Description: Eliminate writing memory to the SSD, free over 2GB of disk space. Warning - If you run out of memory the program you're using will crash.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Properties -> Advanced System Settings -> Settings (Performance) -> Advanced Tab -> Change -> Uncheck Automatically manage -> No paging file -> Set -> OK -> Restart your computer
Alternatively, if you want to play it safer, you can set a custom size of 200MB min and max.

Disable System Restore
Description: Don't write backup copies of files when installing new programs or making system changes. Can free up between a few hundred MB to a couple GB. Warning - Although unlikely, if a driver installation corrupts your system, there won't be an automatic way to recover.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Properties -> Advanced system Settings -> System Protection Tab -> Configure -> Turn off system protection -> Delete -> OK

Disable Hibernate
Description: You may free up 1GB of space on the SSD if you have 1GB of memory, 2GB of space if you have 2GB memory. You will lose the hibernation feature which allows the equivalent of quick boots and shutdowns.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Type cmd -> Right-Click the cmd Icon -> Run as Administrator -> Type powercfg -h off -> Type exit

 

IIRC, TRIM runs literally on the drive. Windows and your controller only pass off the information to drive, which then using its own hardware executes TRIM.

So, you can check if it is enabled in Windows. Make sure the AHCI driver you're on passes TRIM commands (default Microsoft or the Rapid Storage Technology one form Intel; the latter only applies to people with Intel chipsets, obviously).

 

I think some of those tweaks are meant for slow SSDs like the ones in early Asus Eee PC.

Indexing and Firefox run great on my Intel X-25v, without any tweaks.

 

This is not good for my x25m 160gb gen2.

4K writes dropped from 40MB to 4MB.

 

They're still useful on x25ms too, but not for speed. Indexing and browser caches needlessly write to your ssd a lot. Then again it shouldn matter because your computer will fail before the ssd, but some say every little bit counts.

 

I don't see it as needlessly. Indexing and browser caching speeds up my computer experience. Turning them off decreases the benefits of an SSD in my opinion.

 

Indexing is for searching iirc, which many people never do. Caching is moved to ram or a ramdisk, which provides security . The internet is a scary place.

 

Yes indexing is for searching.. I doubt there are many people who never search there computer.

So turning it off decreases the number of writes to your SSD true, but it also slows down your searches.

 

Intel SSD Toolbox should help.

 

Indexing... there is no loss in leaving it on, more a gain - yes, actually searching through an SSD is faster than searching through a harddrive, but still.
Indexing will NOT affect performance at all - it will index everything once (just leave your laptop idling an hour or two) and that's it.

This should be done automatically on Win7 - but it is actually sound advice.

Bad advice - it just means your internet pages will load slower as most people don't have a fast enough internet connection so that the actual cache is very useful.

LEAVE THE PAGEFILE ALONE - simply because you will need it for memory dumps and also just in case you run out of RAM - this has been debated on NBR before - but leave the pagefile on - because you do not want an application you crash because you ran out of RAM.

I'd recommend everybody to leave this on - just in case.
Because if something does happen, it might be that one restore point that helps you recover files without a second computer.

(Because remove SSD and place in a dock will always work except if you use TPM or encrypt the drive)

Not really advisable - because you can use hybrid sleep in which case the laptop will hibernate once the battery has run too low on standby.
This is useful as it prevents data loss.

 

DetlevCM, indexing does affect performance.

 

Yepp - at the very beginning when there isn't an index yet.
Not after its created.

 

Even after, every time a file is modified, created or deleted, except from the MFT that has to be modified, the indexing service which is running has to make changes too. Every extra service that is running does affect the system performance and also consider the extra space and the added I/O. For users like me that don't utilize the windows search feature, disabling indexing and the related services makes a difference.

 

But, obviously, you keep creating new files and downloading new stuff. Won't it index those, too?

Or is the performance impact of indexing 10 files a day not really much?

~Ibrahim~

 

Indexing one or two files - or even ten across a day won't be a noticeable impact.

(Unless all of them are 10.000 page documents)

 

Sounds good.

@stamatisx

Not true. You can tell Windows to index which folders you want. I could tell it only to index the "My Documents" folder or the entire drive.

~Ibrahim~

 

I agree. Only for people that never/rarely search on their computer it makes sense to turn off indexing imo.

Otherwise you're gaining milliseconds to lose seconds.

 

Something else - that I'd need to read up on how Microsoft actually solved it, but:

Imagine a video file, a text file, and a audioic file.

The indexing service will search through the text file - as you can search through documents.
The video file and audio file as far as I am aware are only indexed with reference to metadata (if at all) and the filename - I'd highly doubt the indexing service goes through an actual video file - but I would have to read up on that as I am not aware as to how Microsoft solved this exactly.

 

Ibrahim, every extra process adds to the overall load of the system (even by 0.1%) and every extra bit written or read from the disk adds to the I/O
I am actually referring to the "at all"

It will affect it but in a very small percent

 

You can chose for specific extensions whether you want to 1) Index Properties Only or 2) Index Properties and File Contents. On default, most document-type extensions have the latter, while most media-type extensions have the former.



@stamatisx

Ah, there's the confusion. Right, any indexing will have some impact on performance (however small or large). I was addressing your claim that "every file" changed/edited, etc. will cause a new index. You can specify which locations are indexed and which file extensions are indexed.

~Ibrahim~

 

Well, a process that does nothing only takes up a bit of space in your RAM and nothing more.
And if that 1 or 2MB are crucial to your computer then you should consider a new computer - or a RAM upgrade, because in that case something isn't right.

And the disk activity - on a SSD you couldn't care less, and on a HDD I doubt you'd notice it.

 

Thought this would be the best thread to post this in.
Letting everyone know that new Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers are out and about.

9.6.2.1001 and 9.6.3.1001

here here here here here etc tec, jus google it

 

Link please?

 

The confusion lays in another reason as well.
Here is an abstract from Windows Internals, Fifth Edition, page 960

This indexing is confused with the Window Search Indexing
Windows Search: Search Indexing

I have to disagree with this one as well
Process (computing) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The fact that it's part of the scheduler's queue, means that it does something more than only occupying memory.

Concerning the Windows Search indexing

I believe that my signature is more than self-explanatory (the system is far more than adequate)
I simply deactivate all the services that I don't use and reduce the I/O disk activity to the minimum possible.

 

Thanks for the info. +1

I usually get quick searches with it enabled. I usually leave my system idling plenty, so it can do the indexing then and chill out "mostly". I have over 70 processes running on boot up. I didn't buy a quad-core, 6GB, SSD system for nothing.

~Ibrahim~

 

Thanks Ibrahim, indeed new systems can handle the load without problem. Everything depends on the tasks and the features we want to run and have on the system.

 

Intel 80 GB G2 - 215 $

 

Intel G2 80GB - $200

 

buy it under the Adata name, $194 at newegg.
use the bing cashback and get 2% off.

 

That's a G1 though.

 

That looks like a G1 to me

 

And an engineering sample...?

 

The G1 + engineering sample combination sounds really bad to me too

 

Besides that - do Intel manufactured SSDs sold by other resellers get the same service - a la Intel Toolbox?

 

And do they get the same firmware?

 

I wish G3 would just get here already, so I can raid a couple.

 

Didn't Kingston whined a few weeks back that their 40gb-Intel-manufactured-SSDs don't get the same TRIM features?

 

hi guys, using intel x25m 160gb and been happy with its performance, thinking to upgrade to c300 256gb, is it recommended?

im interested with c300 due that it has bigger gb and faster read and write.

 

Both Techreport and Hardware heaven have published good reviews of Crucial C300.

Although I think you could better wait for Intel G3.

 

I am actually thinking of moving to a Corsair Force from my Corsair Nova. Maybe I should wait for G3 also

 

I just sold my G2 while I could still get a premium for it. I'll wait for G3 or C300.

For now I'm using a 7K500 Hitachi, and it's not as slow as I expected.

 

German version of a 3820TG coming this week (to the US and no, I don't read, write or speak German ). I'm keeping the original HD stock with German Windows in case I need to return it for warranty. I need to do a clean install of an English Version of W7. I'm thinking about putting in an 80GB SSD to hold me over until the next gen SSD's come out. Inte X25M for $199 sounds fine to me. Any other suggestions? Any 120's worth putting in there for now without paying another $100? Thanks.

Bronsky

 

cool!!! there is g3 coming soon? any idea about the specs of this g3? if it is just 2-3 months the road, i dont mind waiting

 

I heard people mention Q42010 for G3. So the earliest is October then.

 

Dude, there are only four quarters in a year.

Sorry, couldn't help it.

 

And the x40 cpu's were due in Q3 and got here in June So G3's in Sept?

 

So no one got the Crucial C300 64GB yet?

I think it's the best price/performance at the moment. 64GB for $149.
CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1 - 64GB, 2.5-inch Solid State Drive , from Crucial.comUS

 

Blazing read speeds, but on the 64GB model, the write speeds seem a bit lame. Plus, on a SATA2 interface, wouldn't just two drives saturate the bus during reads, meaning 3 x 64GB (192GB) cheap RAID 0 would gain you no speed increase? The 128GB version goes up in price quite a bit ($399 ea).

Seems like a nice drive, though. But, Marvell controller???? Isn't Sandforce the controller de jeur?

 

Actually the Intel G2 80GB has only 70MB/sec write speed. It's absolutely fast enough in my opinion.

Marvell controller gets better performance than Sandforce.
Crucial's RealSSD C300 solid-state drive - The Tech Report - Page 5

 

And the other thing is sequential write vs. random write.

Sequential scales linearly - but is near useless for real life application - while random writes which are key do not scale well.