SSDs and Superfetch

[fuzzybabybunny]

It seems like a ton of people are disabling SF when using SSDs. Is there a reason for this, and should SF really be disabled? I personally love SF on a rotary drive.

I've read some reasons to disable SF with an SSD, but this one is the only one that's struck me:

I've read that part of superfetch's (and prefetch's) function is to optimise boot times, it attempts to do this by arranging files used at bootup into a defragmented sequential read (fastest for HDD) which conflicts with the random scattering used on SSD's.

Obviously defragging of any sort doesn't jive well with SSDs, so this is reasonable.

 

[taltamir]

AFAIK superfetch has no defragging capabilities, it simply copies stuff from the hard drive to the ram.

 

[aka1nas]

I've had better results overall with Superfetch on. The caveat would be that with my Titan I get a small amount of stutter for the first few minutes after boot-up while my RAM gets populated. After that, the system seems much less stutter-prone than with Superfetch disabled(which seems reasonable as any reads from cache are freeing up the SSD to service writes).

I would recommend keeping it enabled if:
- You also have mechanical drives in the system still.
- You don't reboot your PC all that often.

The suggestion to disable it makes the most sense for laptops, as they will likely get rebooted more often and will usually only have the SSD as the sole storage volume.

 

[garikfox]

I agree Superfetch on.

 

[imported_TimBob]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
It seems like a ton of people are disabling SF when using SSDs. Is there a reason for this, and should SF really be disabled? I personally love SF on a rotary drive.

I've read some reasons to disable SF with an SSD, but this one is the only one that's struck me:

I've read that part of superfetch's (and prefetch's) function is to optimise boot times, it attempts to do this by arranging files used at bootup into a defragmented sequential read (fastest for HDD) which conflicts with the random scattering used on SSD's.

Obviously defragging of any sort doesn't jive well with SSDs, so this is reasonable.

I think that explanation you quoted applies only to prefetch.

With my Intel I originally had superfetch turned on. I just recently turned it off and notice no difference at all. I've kept prefetch off the whole time.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: TimBob

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
It seems like a ton of people are disabling SF when using SSDs. Is there a reason for this, and should SF really be disabled? I personally love SF on a rotary drive.

I've read some reasons to disable SF with an SSD, but this one is the only one that's struck me:

I've read that part of superfetch's (and prefetch's) function is to optimise boot times, it attempts to do this by arranging files used at bootup into a defragmented sequential read (fastest for HDD) which conflicts with the random scattering used on SSD's.

Obviously defragging of any sort doesn't jive well with SSDs, so this is reasonable.

I think that explanation you quoted applies only to prefetch.

With my Intel I originally had superfetch turned on. I just recently turned it off and notice no difference at all. I've kept prefetch off the whole time.

So Superfetch is in Vista while Prefetch is only in XP, correct?

 

[imported_TimBob]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

Originally posted by: TimBob

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
It seems like a ton of people are disabling SF when using SSDs. Is there a reason for this, and should SF really be disabled? I personally love SF on a rotary drive.

I've read some reasons to disable SF with an SSD, but this one is the only one that's struck me:

I've read that part of superfetch's (and prefetch's) function is to optimise boot times, it attempts to do this by arranging files used at bootup into a defragmented sequential read (fastest for HDD) which conflicts with the random scattering used on SSD's.

Obviously defragging of any sort doesn't jive well with SSDs, so this is reasonable.

I think that explanation you quoted applies only to prefetch.

With my Intel I originally had superfetch turned on. I just recently turned it off and notice no difference at all. I've kept prefetch off the whole time.

So Superfetch is in Vista while Prefetch is only in XP, correct?

They are both in Vista. I'm not 100% sure, but here's what I think they do:
Prefetch - optomize boot times in the manner from your quote.
Superfetch - basically, loads frequenetly used apps in memory so they start up faster.

With the read speed and access time of SSDs, there really is no benefit of using either. Although, memory is still faster so Superfetch can't hurt. But, I don't notice a difference.

 

[nerp]

Leave it on. Memory is faster than SSD. End of discussion.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: TimBob

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

Originally posted by: TimBob

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
It seems like a ton of people are disabling SF when using SSDs. Is there a reason for this, and should SF really be disabled? I personally love SF on a rotary drive.

I've read some reasons to disable SF with an SSD, but this one is the only one that's struck me:

I've read that part of superfetch's (and prefetch's) function is to optimise boot times, it attempts to do this by arranging files used at bootup into a defragmented sequential read (fastest for HDD) which conflicts with the random scattering used on SSD's.

Obviously defragging of any sort doesn't jive well with SSDs, so this is reasonable.

I think that explanation you quoted applies only to prefetch.

With my Intel I originally had superfetch turned on. I just recently turned it off and notice no difference at all. I've kept prefetch off the whole time.

So Superfetch is in Vista while Prefetch is only in XP, correct?

They are both in Vista. I'm not 100% sure, but here's what I think they do:
Prefetch - optomize boot times in the manner from your quote.
Superfetch - basically, loads frequenetly used apps in memory so they start up faster.

With the read speed and access time of SSDs, there really is no benefit of using either. Although, memory is still faster so Superfetch can't hurt. But, I don't notice a difference.

Ahhhhhh.... so when running an SSD in Vista, basically:

1. disable defragging
2. disable prefetch (because it defrags)
3. enable superfetch

 

[taltamir]

yes that is about right fuzzy.

 

[SickBeast]

It seems like with the intel SSD you can leave superfetch on, but with any other brand you should turn it off due to stuttering.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
It seems like with the intel SSD you can leave superfetch on, but with any other brand you should turn it off due to stuttering.

Ugggg.... if I have to do that with these Runcore drives I'm getting I'm going to be returning them. Right now Superfetch works amazingly well for me in Windows 7. I'm on a crappy 1.8" rotary drive doing around 20MB/s (less than external USB!) and Superfetch means Photoshop CS4 loads up in less than 6 seconds! Lightroom 2 in 8 seconds. Dammit dammit dammit dammit.

 

[imported_TimBob]

G.Skill Titan tech support told me to disable Superfetch. Try it both ways and see how they work.

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

Prefetch - optomize boot times in the manner from your quote.

In Vista this function is a subcomponent of ReadyBoost, called ReadyBoot. Windows Vista's ReadyBoost services (emdmgmt, I think) seems to be absent in Windows 7 so it might be stuffed into Superfetch but I've never seen word of that.