Speeding up Windows with a SSD

[Daniel Prince]

I am thinking of speeding up my Windows system with a SSD (Solid
State Drive). I have some questions about it.

How much would a SSD typically speed up a Windows system?

I currently use Windows XP Home. Would a SSD work better with
Windows 7?

What files are usually put on the SSD? What is the minimum size of
SSD that I would need to significantly speed up Windows?

I am concerned that Windows might write to one area of the SSD so
many times that it might wear out that part of the drive quickly. Is
that something that might happen? (I know that they have a MTBF of
1,000,000 (or more) hours which would be over 114 years but they
only have one to three year warranties. That MTBF might be how long
they last if they are written to once and then only read from.)

Thank you in advance for all replies.

 

[Rod Speed]

I am thinking of speeding up my Windows system with a SSD (Solid State Drive).

There are usually much better ways of speeding up a Win system.

I have some questions about it.

How much would a SSD typically speed up a Windows system?

That varys dramatically with the config of the Win system.

If you have enough physical ram so it never uses the swap file in
normal use, as opposed to at boot time, an SSD will have almost
no effect, particularly if you load what you normally use at boot
time and just switch between the various apps, as opposed to
loading them when you want to use them.

On the other hand, if you do the opposite, have much less physical ram
than you need, and are silly enough to keep closing apps when you stop
using them for a while, and SSD can speed things up noticeably.

It generally makes a lot more sense to spend the money on physical ram
than on an SSD tho. The main exception is when you cant run one of the
64bit versions of Win for some reason and already have as much physical
ram as the 32 bit versions can handle, and your use of Win needs more.

I currently use Windows XP Home. Would a SSD work better with Windows 7?

Not if you have enough physical ram.

What files are usually put on the SSD?

Two groups, the swap file, and the apps that are run often if you
are silly enough to keep closing them when you stop using them.

Some very badly designed databases can benefit from being on an SSD.

What is the minimum size of SSD that I would need to significantly speed up Windows?

Impossible to say, that depends on why your config is currently slow.

I am concerned that Windows might write to one area
of the SSD so many times that it might wear out that part
of the drive quickly. Is that something that might happen?

Yes, it can happen, particularly with the swap file.

(I know that they have a MTBF of 1,000,000 (or more) hours which would
be over 114 years but they only have one to three year warranties.

You get that with rotating hard drives too.

That MTBF might be how long they last if they
are written to once and then only read from.)

MTBFs are much more complicated than that.

Thank you in advance for all replies.

Even ones that tell you to shove your head up a dead bear's arse ?

 

[Rod Speed]

Smarty wrote

Rod Speed wrote

My experience has been that the SSD provides a legitimate improvement
in boot time, shut-down time, and program launch time,

Those are much better fixed by not booting, not shutting down and not launching
programs, but leaving them open and switching to another program instead.

but not really enough to make a very practical difference in my use or workflow.

Moreover, even with the latest TRIM support which Windows 7 and Intel
provide to maximize drive performance (a feature some SSDs still not
provide), I have noticed a very significant slow-down in the SSD
performance since it was installed just a couple weeks ago, I
deliberately ran HDTune when the disk was freshly installed and then again every few days thereafter.

The real issue with SSDs in my own opinion is not that they fail,
although their MTBFs suggest long life expectancies. The real issue is
that they degrade with use, and at a noticeable rate. Compared to my
Western Digital fast hard disk, the SSD now is barely offering a
really compelling advantage, and it is only a few weeks old.

 

[Daniel Prince]

If you have enough physical ram so it never uses the swap file in
normal use, as opposed to at boot time, an SSD will have almost
no effect, particularly if you load what you normally use at boot
time and just switch between the various apps, as opposed to
loading them when you want to use them.

What is the best free program I can use to see how much my system is
using the swap file?

 

[Man-wai Chang]

What is the best free program I can use to see how much my system is

using the swap file?

Crystal Disk Mark
HDTach


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http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_addressesa

 

[Rod Speed]

Daniel Prince wrote

What is the best free program I can use to see
how much my system is using the swap file?

The built in task manager.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I am thinking of speeding up my Windows system with a SSD (Solid
State Drive). I have some questions about it.

How much would a SSD typically speed up a Windows system?

Well, Windows 7 has its experience index. They are based on the
processor speed, memory speed, desktop graphics speed, gaming graphics
speed, and primary hard disk speed. My lowest rating is for desktop
graphics, followed by primary hard disk. So as far as I'm concerned my
next upgrade really should be my video card rather than my hard disk.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

[tagging on your post Smarty, Woddles is in my killfile.]

Woddles is talking bollocks again.

You would have to be mad to waste SSD space on the swapfile. Use a
separate spinning disk for that as Smarty suggested. It's also what I
do.

Which is why it's crazy to put swap on the SSD.

To the OP: the controllers in SSDs don't store data in a linear
fashion. They deliberately distribute data around the available space
to minimise the likelihood of one location or area being repetitively
written to. This is transparent to the OS.

Think Woddles has been doing that again.

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

How much would a SSD typically speed up a Windows system?

Like others have said, it depends on your usage. I cloned an XP
installation from a 70Gb 10k WD Raptor to a Crucial 128GB SSD. Windows
used to take 40s to boot to a usable desktop; with the SSD it is less
than 10s.

Apps launch near as dammit instantaneously.

I currently use Windows XP Home. Would a SSD work better with
Windows 7?

Yes. W7 supports a feature called TRIM and also aligns partitions
correctly. Google is your friend.

What files are usually put on the SSD?

The OS and apps. Put the swapfile and your data on a spinning drive.

IMO. YMMV, etc.

What is the minimum size of
SSD that I would need to significantly speed up Windows?

I have a 128GB SSD. There's 75GB free and I have a lot of apps
installed. Could have got by with a 64GB SSD but am thinking ahead to
the bloat that is W7.

 

[TE Cheah]

used to take 40s to boot to a usable desktop
Depends on how fast cpu / ram / mboard chipset / hdd ( RAID is
faster but costlier, bulkier, heavier, use more electricity & produce
more heat ) / controller are, & how small registry is. Cheapest
way to start fast is to wake from hibernation.

 

[Rod Speed]

SSD's arent really very much faster then convienctional drives, seek
times are quick but transfer rate is still the same. A truely faster type
is ram based harddrives. Hyperdrive 5 is a ram based "not ram like"
such as SSD. It was pricey but worth it, my other system components
are up to par so after removing the harddrive limitations my system
from hitting the power button for full system ready is about 5 seconds.

You can get that with hibernate for no cost.

And suspend to ram is instant.

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

SSD's arent really very much faster then convienctional drives, seek
times are quick but transfer rate is still the same.

Bullshit.

Real-world example, measured using HDTune:

Avg xfer rate Access time Boot time

SSD: 125MB/s 0.1ms 10s
2TB HD: 98MB/s 11.6ms 40s

And this is for SATA2 devices on a SATA1 interface. If the SSD above
were attached to a SATA2 interface, the average transfer rate would
nearly double. The SSD is maxing out the SATA1 interface in this case,
the hard drive is nowhere near.

 

[Arno]

Real-world example, measured using HDTune:

Avg xfer rate Access time Boot time

SSD: 125MB/s 0.1ms 10s
2TB HD: 98MB/s 11.6ms 40s

And this is for SATA2 devices on a SATA1 interface. If the SSD above
were attached to a SATA2 interface, the average transfer rate would
nearly double. The SSD is maxing out the SATA1 interface in this case,
the hard drive is nowhere near.

Actually not BS, but not true either. The answer, like so often,
it that it depends on the SSD in question. There are SSDs in
the market that have lower linear transfer rates than some HDDs,
especially on writes. Also with economy in mind, RAID 0
for HDDs may be quite feasible with SSD RAID 0 prohibitively
expensive at the same time.

But the real advantage of SSDs (besides better robustness,
and hopefully a data life expectency that is not too much
worse than HDDs), is the access time. That one is vastly
better in all SSDs you can buy.

In effect, everything relies on your usage mix. For example,
boot times are often mostly hardware-detection times and
disk speed does only play a minor role (anybody remeber
ReadyBoost and its non-effect?) Waking up from hibernation
_should_ be mostly linear read. Swapping can be a large number
of small accesses, so access time can dominate.

My personel experience is that for booting, an SSD is pretty
much a waste of money, unless you have specific requirements
that make boot times important in the first place and prevent
you from using sleep or hibernation. On the other hand, for
applications it can make a lot of difference. I have one app
that used to be about twice as fast when run from SSD for
operations that break the workflow (you have to wait) and happen
relatively often. Lately, the designers made an update that
moved quite a bit of data to the server-side and now my
SSD does nothing anymore for that operation, as even a
HDD finished significantly before the online-exchange
is done.

Bottom-line: There are no simple answers. There are no
silver bullets. Look at the new technology, understand
its characteristics and, most importantly, understand what
your own requirements and performance needs are. In many
cases that will require experimentation and careful,
honest evaluation of the observations made.

Arno

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

Actually not BS, but not true either. The answer, like so often,
it that it depends on the SSD in question.

As with anything else.

In effect, everything relies on your usage mix. For example,
boot times are often mostly hardware-detection times and
disk speed does only play a minor role

Up to a point, Lord Copper.

In the timings above I define 'boot time' as the period in between
hearing the 'successful POST' bleep and getting a desktop mouse cursor
that can be used. A reduction from 40s to 10s is impressive in my book.

My personel experience is that for booting, an SSD is pretty
much a waste of money, unless you have specific requirements
that make boot times important in the first place and prevent
you from using sleep or hibernation. On the other hand, for
applications it can make a lot of difference.

Absolutely agreed. I bought an SSD to launch apps quickly. The reduced
boot time is a bonus (not that I reboot often anyway).

Look at the new technology, understand
its characteristics and, most importantly, understand what
your own requirements and performance needs are.

Indeed. Wanting fast boot and app launch times, I chose the SSD with
the fastest read speed I could obtain at the time (230MB/s). Write
speeds are more pedestrian, but that wasn't a factor for me.
Application data is stored on a spinning disk, as is the swapfile.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Mike Tomlinson

Bullshit.

Real-world example, measured using HDTune:

Avg xfer rate Access time Boot time

SSD: 125MB/s 0.1ms 10s
2TB HD: 98MB/s 11.6ms 40s

And this is for SATA2 devices on a SATA1 interface. If the SSD above
were attached to a SATA2 interface, the average transfer rate would
nearly double. The SSD is maxing out the SATA1 interface in this case,
the hard drive is nowhere near.

Not only that, but seek times are typically more important than raw
transfer rates anyway, unless you happen to be reading/writing large
contiguous files.

 

[Arno]

As with anything else.

Up to a point, Lord Copper.

In the timings above I define 'boot time' as the period in between
hearing the 'successful POST' bleep and getting a desktop mouse cursor
that can be used. A reduction from 40s to 10s is impressive in my book.

That were real numbers, not some prediction by the benchmark
tool? Ok, this is impressive.

Absolutely agreed. I bought an SSD to launch apps quickly. The reduced
boot time is a bonus (not that I reboot often anyway).

Well, if you can just fit the OS on the SSD without having
to move often-used apps to HDD, then it is indeed a nice bonus.
It does help with one thing in addition, namely doing
backups.

On the other hand, I do not trust SSDs enough at this time
to put the OS on them. I do have my mailbox and some
other critical stuff on an SSD, but that is in a 3-way
RAID 1 with two normal HDDs, i.e. SSD read speed and
HDD write speed. This does speed up opening my maildir-format
inbox from half a minute to single seconds. (Side-note:
maildir is a bad, bad idea if you start to have > 500
or so mails in there. I did this to test, now I know.)

Indeed. Wanting fast boot and app launch times, I chose the SSD with
the fastest read speed I could obtain at the time (230MB/s). Write
speeds are more pedestrian, but that wasn't a factor for me.
Application data is stored on a spinning disk, as is the swapfile.

Entirely reasonable.

Arno

 

[Arno]

In message <[email protected]> Mike Tomlinson

Not only that, but seek times are typically more important than raw
transfer rates anyway, unless you happen to be reading/writing large
contiguous files.

As both cases happen in practice, the current best bet is to
have a mix of SSD and HDD, even if that is mildly inelegant.

Arno

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

That were real numbers, not some prediction by the benchmark
tool?

Yes, sorry, could have made that clearer.

Well, if you can just fit the OS on the SSD without having
to move often-used apps to HDD, then it is indeed a nice bonus.
It does help with one thing in addition, namely doing
backups.

XP will fit on a 64GB SSD with a mix of apps with room to spare.
Looking ahead to W7, I flashed the cash for a 128GB.

of course, most Linuxes (Linuces?) are unlikely to be a problem.

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

Nope, because it's limited by what the device can do.

You're a twat, Rod. I said in another post that the SSD is capable of
230MB/s, the precise reason I bought it.

Usenet's a write-only medium for you, isn't it?

 

[Jim Brown]

Mike Tomlinson wrote

You're a twat, Rod.

Wota stunning line in rational argument you have there, ****wit child.

I said in another post that the SSD is capable of 230MB/s, the precise reason I bought it.

Pity that aint true of SSDs in general, ****wit child.

Usenet's a write-only medium for you, isn't it?

Unlikely given that I keep exposing the utterly mindless silly shit in your steaming turds of posts.