Can You Get More Space Or Speed From Your SSD?

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99 Comments

Benchmark Results: PCMark Vantage Storage Test

All of the tweaks, taken together, have a negative impact on both drives in the Application Loading benchmark. Intel's X25-M sees its performance cut in half, while OCZ's Vertex 2 realizes an 18 MB/s drop in performance.

OCZ suffers again in the Gaming Throughput benchmark, losing 10 MB/s.

The opposite is true of Intel's X25-M, which sees roughly a 10 MB/s throughput increase with all tweaks implemented.

The tweaks again affect both drives negatively in the Video Editing benchmark. Intel's X25-M is hit the hardest: it's performance goes from 130.54 MB/s to 48.47 MB/s.

Another sub-test, another bad outcome. The Windows Defender benchmark shows both drives suffering a performance loss.

...and again. Intel's X25-M performance is nearly cut in half, while OCZ's Vertex 2 is subjected to a 30 MB/s drop.

Surprisingly, after all of the performance disappointments, Vantage's Pictures Import benchmark gives the Intel drive a quantifiable win. The Vertex 2, on the other hand, really isn't affected. 

In the Windows Vista Startup benchmark, the tweaks have a negative impact on both drives. Intel's X25-M sees the greatest effect, going from 198.33 MB/s to 107.33 MB/s.

Previous Next
Summary
  1. Optimizing Precious Solid-State Storage
  2. Start By Enabling AHCI (With TRIM)
  3. Disable System Restore And Drive Indexing
  4. Disable The Page File And Hibernation
  5. Disable Prefetch, SuperFetch, And Windows Write-Cache Buffer Flushing
  6. Disable SuperFetch (Again), Windows Search, ClearPageFileAtShutdown, And LargeSystemCache
  7. Power Settings Adjustment
  8. Test Setup And Method
  9. Benchmark Results: CrystalDiskMark
  10. Reclaiming Storage Capacity
  11. Benchmark Results: Iometer
  12. Benchmark Results: Iometer Streaming
  13. Benchmark Results: 4 KB Random Reads And Writes
  14. Benchmark Results: PCMark Vantage Storage Test
  15. What's The Deal With Write-Cache Buffer Flushing?
  16. Conclusion
About the author
Doug Crowthers
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  • Anonymous
    Indexing is not used to access files more quickly. It's used to find files more quickly in search. Disabling indexing will result in slower searching.

    Hibernation: Amount of space saved by turning this off is equivalent to the amount of RAM in your system. Not limited to 2GB.

    Also, hibernation has benefits over standby where hibernation will allow your system to return to a fully working state after removing power whereas standby requires power to still be supplied to your system. Laptops for example you'll want to hibernate to avoid discharging the battery while in sleep mode.
    • Other Comments
  • Anonymous
    Indexing is not used to access files more quickly. It's used to find files more quickly in search. Disabling indexing will result in slower searching.

    Hibernation: Amount of space saved by turning this off is equivalent to the amount of RAM in your system. Not limited to 2GB.

    Also, hibernation has benefits over standby where hibernation will allow your system to return to a fully working state after removing power whereas standby requires power to still be supplied to your system. Laptops for example you'll want to hibernate to avoid discharging the battery while in sleep mode.
  • compton
    With system restore disabled, no swap file, and some of the additonal tweaks mentioned here, my two small capacity SSD's are running Win 7 effectively in a small footprint -- my 60GB Agility has 37GB free, while the X25-V in my laptop has over 20GB free. The best part is keeping lots of extra space help longevity, while the tweaks enhance performance while keeping my drives free of junk.

    Thanks for another excellent article -- I'm surprised I haven't seen an article on this subject that's as comprehensive. Toms to the rescue.
  • anttonij
    Thanks for another great article. I would love to see a part 2 of the article where you would explore the causes of the performance drop.
  • cangelini
    KWReidIndexing is not used to access files more quickly. It's used to find files more quickly in search. Disabling indexing will result in slower searching.Hibernation: Amount of space saved by turning this off is equivalent to the amount of RAM in your system. Not limited to 2GB.Also, hibernation has benefits over standby where hibernation will allow your system to return to a fully working state after removing power whereas standby requires power to still be supplied to your system. Laptops for example you'll want to hibernate to avoid discharging the battery while in sleep mode.


    Thanks for pointing both of these things out. You're absolutely correct about indexing.

    I've updated the story for the author to reflect hibernation as well. I added clarification re: desktops and notebooks, though I'd suggest powering down a notebook with an SSD is comparable to putting it into hibernation. I don't think anyone would recommend putting it into standby; as you mention, that continues to drain power.

    All the best!
    Chris
  • damric
    Why are they testing last generation Sandforce and Intel SSD's?

    SSD's are changing faster than any other computer technology. The current generation SSD's are already twice as fast as the SSD's tested in this article. Tom's Hardware is being left behind in the dust with reviews like this.
  • HalfHuman
    the article is very useful.
    disabling system rstore is usually a good idea, sometimes it's better to just limit it's size form the 10% default value.
    swap disabling is not a good idea, as you said. i'd rather have the swap on a secondary, mechanical drive.
    indexing is very useful. you can relocate the address to where indexing data is stored. i put it on a mechanical drive.
    disabling superfetch and turbo cache are really useful. ssd may be faster than hdd, but they are weak compared to ram speed. read caching really makes a difference.
    hibernation file is not really useful on a desktop but it's a matter of taste. better have it on a mechanical drive if possible
    another thing that really helps is putting firefox profiles on a ram drive. i develop on visual studio and there is a directory where lots of small files are written on build. having this temp folder on a ramdrive helps a lot regarding speed and writes as well.
  • HalfHuman
    oops... i meant having windows superfect and turbo cache (not sure about actual names) active is really useful. the memory that is occupied by caching gets liberated quickly if it's needed by apps. in the mean time it can really help on read caching.
  • ravewulf
    None of my controllers mention AHCI, but my motherboard is set to use AHCI. I do see "AMD SATA Controller," is that it? I also don't see any ATA Channels as in the screen shot, just two IDE channels with no devices on them. I don't have an SSD, so no need for TRIM, but I would like to verify that I'm using AHCI.
  • nyrychvantel
    This article is excellent for those SSD users who have just installed/reinstalled their OS. I will also forward this article to all my friends using SSD.
  • haplo602
    who came up with that idiot description of hibernation ? it was invented to:

    1. save power
    2. restore the previous work withou having to start everything

    I use hibernation a lot on my desktop just because I can leave all the network independent applications running and just power down. after power up, I am in the previous environment state and can immediately continue whatever I was doing before. No need to start applications and reopen saved files.
  • jaquith
    Excellent article and I agree with most of Doug's solid advice. However, as a compromise I would recommend that users reduce the System Restore SIZE versus turning it off all together. System Restore would not be needed in a 'perfect' world, but reformatting or reinstalling windows is a tough trade-off.
  • jaquith
    ...Also, if you are using a monitored UPS {Uninterrupted Power Supply} you must leave Hibernation turned-on. Once the battery hits its' minimum, typically 10% it triggers Windows to go into Hibernation mode to prevent data loss.
  • JackNaylorPE
    No mention of relocating User File locations ? ..... this, by far, exceeds all of the above "space savers" combined. Checked the size of your e-mail inbox / sent box lately ?

    http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/124198-user-profiles-create-move-during-windows-7-installation.html
  • chesteracorgi
    Nice review, but a little late to the game:

    http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide-2/
  • tecmo34
    @jaquith... You bring up good and valid points on System Restore and hibernation with a UPS in play.

    @JackNaylorPE... This another very good point on moving USER folder to another drive. It does free up additional space and keep down on writes.

    @Chesteracorgi... There are many threads on tweaking, as the The SSD Optimization Guide is a very good one. The purpose of my article was not necessarily on what tweaks needed to perform but what actual benefits do you receive from performing them.
  • Duskfall
    If i do the ahci setting in my controller or the registry setting which as I see is a universal setting in windows,wont it affect my other HDD's performance which aren't SSD's??
  • cknobman
    This is one of the most useful articles I have ever read here on Toms. Thanks for doing this and I look forward to seeing many more useful articles like this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • wolfram23
    Awesome SSD article. Goes over some points I already knew, but it's now in one easy to find place!

    Also I have a suggestion. For example with System Restore and File Paging, you should make mention that you can simply apply them to your storage HDD instead of the SSD.

    Oh and what's the point of telling us to disable Prefetch, which has no effect on the SSD and can certainly help the system stay faster by preloading onto RAM? Plenty of enthusiasts have 6, 8, or 12 gigs of RAM so it's not like space is a premium...
  • scook9
    Disable disk defragmenter.....
  • ravewulf
    scook9Disable disk defragmenter.....

    Windows 7 does that by default for SSD's
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