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    Eliminating stuttering in mlc/ jmicron SSDs

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by jisaac, Nov 22, 2008.

  1. jisaac

    jisaac Notebook Deity

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    There has been a big stuttering issue with mlc ssds lately, particularly the ones with jmicron controllers. There is a way to get around this using, an embedded component called EWF. EWF however can only be implemented in XP (not vista).
    Wikipedia's EWF description:
    So basically when EWF is implemented all writes that would be written to the SSD, would instead be written to an overlay (which can be another harddisk if you have 2 hdd bays or your laptop's ram itself). The only thing with EWF is that to install programs/ make changes to what's in your SSD you have to disable EWF with a command first and then restart your computer. It is therefore recommended to save any (non-program) data to another medium if you constantly edit documents etc. Setting up EWF with ram overlay is far easier than using another hd as an overlay, and i have personally done this without any problems. The only downside with a ram overlay is that every once and a while you have to restart your computer to clean your ram.

    I'm just wondering if there's any interest in this feature, because if enough people are willing to try it, i'll make a guide.
     
  2. Spare Tire

    Spare Tire Notebook Evangelist

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    I'm doing this already, even on an HDD right now. Reduces drive usage so good to save battery on top of it. Got the habit, it's nice to know your OS is fully sandboxed with the EWF, if something goes wrong, just flush the ram with a restart.
    I don't make a lot of changes to OS partition so it's perfectly fine for me, and if ever, you can always make NTFS junctions that tunnels the writes you want to keep back to the unprotected data partition. Things like game saves.

    What i've never tried is to put EWF on vista x64. I know SFiorito, the author of the guide of how to put EWF on winXP, tried it on vista 32 and it worked but there was still 3.5K written to the drive at every bootup. That's not an issue for me, all i want is my 4gig of ram recognized.