Should I turn Disk Optimizer back on? Win 8.1 SSD

Shpati · Apr 8, 2015

I have a Samsung Evo 840. Right now it has 57.6GB free of 232GB. This is the only storage I use.

I've read that defragging a SSD is bad. So I turned what I thought was disk de-fragmentation scheduler off (being so used to Windows 7), but I just found out it is actually called "disk optimizer" for Windows 8.1. Silly me....

Anyway, should I turn the schedule back on at the default weekly frequency?

It says the disk hasn't been optimized in 107 days. Is there anything I else I should do before I turn it back on? I've read Windows 8 could accidentally defrag a SSD if it hasn't been optimized in a while.

Other than that, I haven't done anything else to my SSD's schedulers/settings.

I tried to find some tutorial to answer my question, but most of the stuff was 1-3 years old.

Dark Lord of Tech · Apr 8, 2015

Shpati :

http://www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/windows-8-optimize-drives-sets-automated-trim-for-ssd-health-comfort/
Info here.

thor220 · Apr 8, 2015

To summarize what the linked article says, turning on Disk Optimizer will simply trigger a trim command on the SSD. Trim is basically garbage collection. It cleans out the SSD after things have been erased or moved. Most SSDs should automatically be doing this process.

It's fine to re-enable the windows utility but it most likely won't impact anything unless your SSD has a poor controller.

Shpati · Apr 9, 2015

Thanks guys!

What about saving space on a SSD? I didn't want to do anything too crazy, but deleting/disabling hibernate sounded like it wouldn't be a bad idea since I never actually hibernate my PC.

I showed hidden files, and couldn't find the hibernate file in my C:\. Does that mean hibernate is already disabled and not being used?

I have 8GB of RAM. and use windows 8.1.

thor220 · Apr 9, 2015

The biggest thing you can do to save space on the SSD is to move system temporary cache to a hard drive and disable system restore points.

Just moving System temp folders to HDD will save 20 GB on average. System restore will be another few gigs.

Software like TreeSize can tell you the largest files on the drive so you can decide if there's anything you need to delete.

Last but not least, Disable the page file for the SSD and enable a system managed pagefile for one of your hard drives instead. Saves space and writes.

Shpati · Apr 9, 2015

thor220 :

I turned disk optimizer back on (on a weekly frequency), and it looks like it ran a defrag.

When I went to Event Viewer and looked for the 258 ID, it says it completed a defrag on volume C this morning. And in another ID 258 record, it says it did a retrim shortly before the defrag. For my "system reserve", the Event Viewer showed a the critical sign because it said optimization in this volume could not be performed.

I lost about 5 GB of space once I turned this back on. And, tonight, my computer froze completely for the first time and gave me a buzzing noise from the speakers. I had to hold the power button to shut it down.

This is a pretty new build (December 2014). So should I be worried?

thor220 · Apr 10, 2015

There's a good chance that the two events have nothing to do with each other. Did windows log an error in the event log when your computer crashed? The buzzing noise could really happen with any type of crash and doesn't really help identify the issue.

The error for your system reserve is just a bogus one that windows should have fixed a long time ago. Basically, windows is saying that windows cannot do anything because the partition is too small in size. It's even funnier that windows creates this extra reserve partition itself. Really, microsoft forgets to fix the dumbest things. It's completely safe to ignore that error.

Shpati · Apr 10, 2015

thor220 :

Windows didn't log any error for this crash unfortunately. I tried to find something. The nearest warnings and errors I found.... One error and one warning about NVStreamsvc two hours before the crash. And one error about "cryptographic service" two hours after the crash.

Yea, I never remembered making this system reserve. Thanks for letting me know about this.

What about the defrag I saw in my event log? It says it completed a defrag to my SSD (Volume C). Could it just be that it checked for a defrag, identified it as a SSD, didn't do anything, and just said a defrag was completed?

thor220 · Apr 10, 2015

Windows 8 will never perform a defrag on an SSD, so you don't have to worry about that. What windows 8 is going is running trim and moving around frequently used files, at most. I guess you could call that an SSD defrag but it's unnerving given all the fear around defraging SSDs. In the end it's nothing to worry about as even an un-updated version of windows 8 is able to handle SSDs perfectly fine.

About the crash, don't hit the panic button just yet. If the issue happens again you can post back here. Otherwise, just a single time could have just been a fluke. It's important that you note what you were doing at the time of the crash too. It's allot easier to tell whats going if say it happened in a game or when you were doing some other intensive activity that stresses specific components.

NVStreamsvc is the service that allows users to record gameplay through their video cards. You can safely disable it without issue.

Shpati · Apr 10, 2015

Thanks for all the helpful answers!

Shpati · Apr 10, 2015

thor220 :

I got another crash unfortunately. This time it was the Windows 8 blue screen with the frowning face. It restarted automatically.

I couldn't find any more information. All I found in the event logs were error records saying that the system had to shutdown unexpectedly or improperly, which didn't tell me much.

I was playing a game, (medieval 2: total war) and the crash happened once I exited out.

EDIT: Found the information using a program called "Blue Screen View".

It says "Bad Pool Header" and the file was tcpip.sys and it was the TCP/IP driver.

EDIT2: I think it has to do with this Networx program I installed to monitor internet usages. Several people on the Networx site posted saying that they were getting BSODs regarding tcpip.sys with Networx. If it happens again, I will just uninstall and see what happens from there.

thor220 · Apr 10, 2015

Please post back when you do that.

A tip for future reference, when you have a new system, it's generally better to make sure it runs at stock before installing a bunch of software. For example, I will always test the memory, hard drive, CPU, and GPU first before I start configuring my system. This way you don't have to worry about a bunch of extra issues in addition to possible hardware issues. I didn't have any help when I first started out so I had to learn this the hard way but you don't have to.

If you are interested for reference purposes

MemTest86 (or just Memtest) - This will check for errors in your computers main memory.
Prime95 - Stresses the CPU. Will cause a crash if the CPU is faulty or overclocked too much.
FurMark - Stresses the GPU. While the utilitiy won't cause the system to crash, be on the look out for large pixel blocks or stripping. This tool brings out issues with either a GPU overclock or just a faulty GPU in general

**note that either of the 2 stress test utilities may crash the system in case of a bad PSU but typically one can tell the difference between the PSU causing the crash or the GPU/CPU causing it. ex. CPU locks up the system or causes striping while the system will just shut down if the PSU is having issues. Of course cheaply made PSUs can always fry themselves as well.

Hard Drives are easy to test, just use any smart utility to check their status. A full write and wipe of the drive can also be done. This will verify the integrity of the disk surface, something that smart cannot measure until the entire disk has been written to.

Hope this helps and remember, you only have to go through this once so it's well worth it to avoid issues later.

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Should I turn Disk Optimizer back on? Win 8.1 SSD

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