Prefetch and SSDs

GeneO said:

You are right. Micro$oft must have realised that there is not much reason to have specialized code and that there is not any reason to disable suprferch anyhow. So I say follow ms lead.

I really don't know which is best, but Microsoft's reasoning was on 1st GEN SSDs, we are now in the 3rd GEN. I would think that the SSD manufacturers would want their SSDs to run as well as possible and they all recommend disabling it. What I would really like to know is why SSD manufacturers recommend that. They must have some reason. They just won't tell what it is.

Given it's not for performance (pro or detriment), I'd wager a guess it's for extending the life of the drives. Given a desktop/laptop or even workstation with a 2nd or 3rd gen SSD moves the resource bottleneck to the CPU, it's not really necessary to have any of that hitting the "disk" anymore. Most of the superfetch and prefetching is meant to alleviate the performance hit to a mechanical disk by Windows, and given an SSD does not have those limitations those technologies really aren't useful anymore.

The paging file is mostly read and rare writes (unless under incredible load that passes RAM capacity), an SSD (even Gen1) is a very good place for a paging file (given the nature of how the paging file is used).

In an interview Microsoft said that pagefile reads outnumber writes 40-1, and that the majority of writes were something like 60kb or less. Considering the write tests they are doing at xtremesystems, I don't think a few writes will hurt. These are the latest numbers released

xtremesystems write endurance test

Post #1228, #1230

Kingston SSDNow 40GB- Intel 25 rebrand
220.19 TiB writes
MWI- 1 July 25th
RaS-6

Intel 320 40GB No update since 8/4/11
271.0 TiB writes.
MWI- 1 - Since July 9th. @ 190.5 TB
RaS-39

Samsung 470
368.289 TiB writes
MWI-1 (approx. 5 weeks ago)

They also have a C300 , an M4 and a couple of others that have just started.

GeneO said:

essenbe said:

In an interview Microsoft said that pagefile reads outnumber writes 40-1, and that the majority of writes were something like 60kb or less. Considering the write tests they are doing at xtremesystems, I don't think a few writes will hurt. These are the latest numbers released

xtremesystems write endurance test

Post #1228, #1230

Kingston SSDNow 40GB- Intel 25 rebrand
220.19 TiB writes
MWI- 1 July 25th
RaS-6

Intel 320 40GB No update since 8/4/11
271.0 TiB writes.
MWI- 1 - Since July 9th. @ 190.5 TB
RaS-39

Samsung 470
368.289 TiB writes
MWI-1 (approx. 5 weeks ago)

They also have a C300 , an M4 and a couple of others that have just started.

I have been following that forum for a while. Their m4 is still running strong at > 150% of its rated life with no errors or reallocated sectors. Looking at the number of erase cycles on my m4 and the number of power on hours, if mine does as well as theirs up to now, then my m4 SSD should last over 17 power on years, which is more than 25 of my years

Just be careful, don't do too many writes to it.

carwiz said:

It won't matter by then. We'll all have computers in our brain and SSDs will be the size of a postage stamp.

Right, I have 2 M4's, an X25 and a Vertex2. I started to say that my 9 year old Granddaughter will be able to use them. But, by then they will be too large and too slow.