Should I do these SSD tweaks?

[Cuzzin Chizzy]

Ok, so I did these SSD tweaks cuz I have a 64GB SSD/ 12 GB RAM and wanted to save space.

Disable System Restore
Disable drive indexing
Disable the page file
Disable Hibernation



But I'm not sure about these other tweaks. I have heard both good and bad things about them. That doing them will save writes to the SSD, but that they will also slow performance.


Disable prefetching in the registry
Disable Windows' write caching
Disable the SuperFetch and Windows Search services
Disable ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache

The last four necessary? Any thoughts or insights are appreciated.

 

[inzone]

You do have to be careful and not overtweek in an attempt to get the most out of what you have. For example the first four are ok to do but the disabling of system restore is risky because it is a very handy feature and will save the day in a lot of situations. But I can understand your delema with having a 64gb SSD.
Instaed of trying to diable everything have you tried to install everything to a secondary drive and just keep the OS on the SSD. You will still get the fast performance of the applications and games even with them being on the second drive. You have 12 gb of ram which allows the OS to have a great deal of data on hand for processing by the cpu.

 

[Cuzzin Chizzy]

Yeah the reason that I'm not using system restore is because I just make images of the C drive. I'm not too worried about that and I have enough storage as it is. Was just wondering if the last four tweaks were worth doing.

 

[geofelt]

I would not bother with most "tweaks"
You will not notice any benefits, and it adds complexity.

System restore and page file provide valuable functions.
I would not disable them.

I do like disabling hibernation, but not necessarily because you save space on the ssd.
When you sleep to the S3 state, you will recover faster without hibernation.
If you only sleep when the contents of ram are unimportant on a restart, then sleep without hibernation si good. It can be difficult to get rid of hibernation file once it has been established.
It is better to never create it by disabling hibernation before you ever invoke it.

A ssd is fast, so indexing does not help much, but it does not hurt either.

If you are concerned about precious SSD space, buy a larger ssd. As a ssd fills up to near capacity, it will slow down. Better to be premptive with a larger ssd in the first place and don't worry about it.

If you are concerned about ssd longevity endurance, don't. Your SSD will be long obsolete before you run out of update capability.

 

[Cuzzin Chizzy]

I understand that other people have different ways of doing things and that is completely fine and to be expected. I myself will never use system restore, thus disabling it is not an issue for me. The added saved space is a bonus.

Likewise with the pagefile, I actually have a page file still, it is just really small and split between the C drive and my D drive. With 12 GB of RAM this shouldn't be an issue.

My concern is strictly with the following.

Disable prefetching in the registry
Disable Windows' write caching
Disable the SuperFetch and Windows Search services
Disable ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache

Would these four tweaks help/hinder drive performance or longevity?

 

[pjmelect]

The only tweak that I bother about and one you must do is to disable automatic defragmentation if it has not already been disabled. In your case because you have such a small SSD I would also consider disabling system restore as it uses a lot of disk space and it would also speed up your system. All of the other tweaks I don't think will do anything as regards SSD life or performance.

 

[Cuzzin Chizzy]

Ok nevermind,

Disable prefetching in the registry

I did it.

Disable Windows' write caching

sounded like it could cause problems messing with this so I didn't.

Disable the SuperFetch and Windows Search services

disabled superfectch but left windows search alone. just disabled drive indexing on my SSD but left it on for my HDDs.

Disable ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache

Apparently this was already done by default as is usually the case when you install Windows 7 to a SSD.

 

[inzone]

Besides trying to decide about what tweeks you should do or not do you have to pay very close attention to what you download and making sure that it goes on the second drive. My first SSD drive was a 64gb and it was full in no time so I had to move a lot over to the secondary drive and pay close attention to every download to change the destination drive because everything wants to go to the C drive.
With 12gb of ram you don't need a page file and you can either set it to 0 or move it to the secondary drive. The problem with moving it is that it's on a slower drive so I suggest setting it to 0. I have 16gb of ram and my page file is set to 0 , don't forget that whatever the page file is set to that's the amount of space that Windows confiactes from the drive for virtual memory and with a 64gb SSD every gb and mb is gold.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

I just want to comment about one of the tweaks - Disable System Restore. If you have a hard disk drive for data files and folders, then you can go into Microsoft Windows 7 and change the settings so that the Backup and Restore data is saved to the hard disk drive. You can also change the settings so that Backup and Restore data is performed automatically. I have mine set for every Sunday morning. It is done in the backround while I do other stuff. No muss! No fuss! No bother!

Here is what Samsung officially recommends for their ssd's

Disable SuperFetch
Disable Defragmentation
Disable Indexing
Samsung also recommends using their own power management configuration but doesn't provide an adequate explanation. I believe it involves turning off hibernation, sleep, and wake up features. It is done to avoid writing extra data to the ssd. I've always had mine disabled long before the advent of modern ssd's.

If you had been following ssd's three years ago you would have read about all sort of tweaks. Some of them were quite exotic. Some of the tweaks were of questionable value, some involved risks, and some caused additonal problems. There was a lot of concern about the longevity of ssd's. Some concerns still exist but modern SATA 3 6Gb/s ssd's are the equivalent of an evolutionary leap forward.

 

[mad-max79]

JohnnyLucky is right! I only wanted to add that turning off indexing also turns off search for Outlook mail. If you don't use it then you can turn it off.

 

[niceget]

The only tweak that I bother about and one you must do is to disable automatic defragmentation if it has not already been disabled. In your case because you have such a small SSD I would also consider disabling system restore as it uses a lot of disk space and it would also speed up your system. All of the other tweaks I don't think will do anything as regards SSD life or performance.

To anyone buying a new SSD that was manufactured by any company between 2012 and into the future, P's advise is absolutely 100% correct.

The only two considerations when disabling SSD configurations is #1. Disable Disk Defragmentation. #2. Disable System Restore*.

*Only disable System Restore if you are in habit of regularly making a system Backup Image onto another internal HDD/SSD or an external HDD/SSD.

These SSD's will out live your entire custom build or retail purchased machine. Defects? Of course! Any device can have a defect and the most likely one to die first is your Power Supply.

Enjoy those SSD's fellow PC Lovers!!