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    Turn off file indexing for ssd?

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by tabrisfreewill, May 14, 2011.

  1. tabrisfreewill

    tabrisfreewill Notebook Consultant

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    Hi all! Just got a simple question: I have just bought the thinkpad x220 and am planning to upgrade the hard drive to a ssd. Since we all know that ssd's (being nand flash drives) suffer from degradation the more often it performs writing operations, should I consider turning off the file indexing for the drive? I just dont see the point of enabling drive indexing when you have near instant access time for every files on the drive. Additionally, turning it off can prevent windows from doing most of its "nifty" writing operations whenever your computer is idle.
     
    tabrisfreewill, May 14, 2011
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  2. chaose

    chaose Notebook Consultant

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    Unless you do work involving lots of writes to the disk, the degradation won't be an issue for a long time. I'm not 100% sure about which drive indexing operation you're talking about, but I'm assuming you're talking about the index that windows search creates (and needs) to function. Indexing doesn't really use up a lot of writes simply due to its nature.
    It's your personal choice though. I've never had a problem with it. I highly doubt the SSD will degrade due to indexing.
     
    chaose, May 14, 2011
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  3. pcunite

    pcunite Notebook Enthusiast

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    I turned it off, but it was because I don't like Windows 7 search but rather prefer using FileSearchEX for that classic XP style search look. Intel drives (don't know about others) are rated for 20GB a day for 5 years. I can't see how that is not good enough.
    http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/322296.pdf
     
    pcunite, May 14, 2011
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  4. BrendaEM

    BrendaEM Notebook Consultant

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    Indexing is pointless on a computer with a SSD; it's a feature that was invented right before it became obsolete. Learn how to organize your stuff.
     
    BrendaEM, May 14, 2011
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  5. hp79

    hp79 Notebook Evangelist

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    Not really, RAM is much faster than SSD. Indexed information can be cached in RAM, this will be much faster than searching through ssd. Compared to hdd, ssd is incredibly fast, the way ram is even faster than ssd.

    I think indexing records your last access time too, so it'll keep track of frequent used programs. If you use Superfetch, you should keep it enabled. Otherwise, I don't think keeping it enabled or disabling would really matter.
    I'm a long time intel ssd user, I keep everything on default except defrag.
     
    hp79, May 14, 2011
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  6. gmoneyphatstyle

    gmoneyphatstyle Notebook Deity

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    gmoneyphatstyle, May 15, 2011
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