[Curious]

Increase System Speed
Disable indexing
Description: Indexing creates and maintains a database of file attributes. This can lead to multiple small writes when creating/deleting/modifying files. Searching for files will still work.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Services and Applications -> Services - > Right-Click Windows Search -> Startup type: Disabled -> OK

Disable defragmentation
Description: Defragmenting a hard disk's used space is only useful on mechanical disks with multi-millisecond latencies. Free-space defragmentation may be useful to SSDs, but this feature is not available in the default Windows Defragmenter.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Services and Applications -> Services - > Right-Click Disk Defragmenter -> Startup type: Disabled -> OK

Disable Write Caching
Description: There is no cache on the SSD, so there are no benefits to write caching. There are conflicting reports on whether this gains speed or not.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Device Manager -> Disk drives -> Right-Click STEC PATA -> Properties -> Policies Tab -> Uncheck Enable write caching -> OK

Configure Superfetch
Description: Frees up RAM by not preloading program files.
Instructions: On second glance, I would recommend leaving this one alone. However, there are some customizations that you can follow in the post below.

Firefox - Use memory cache instead of disk cache
Description: If you use Firefox, there's a way to write cached files to RAM instead of the hard disk. This is not only faster, but will significantly reduce writes to the SSD while using the browser.
Instructions: Open Firefox -> Type about:config into the address bar -> Enter -> double-click browser.cache.disk.enable to set the value to False -> Right-Click anywhere -> New -> Integer -> Preference Name "disk.cache.memory.capacity" -> value memory size in KB. Enter 32768 for 32MB, 65536 for 64MB, 131072 for 128MB, etc. -> restart Firefox

Free up extra drive space
Disable the Page File
Description: Eliminate writing memory to the SSD, free over 2GB of disk space. Warning - If you run out of memory the program you're using will crash.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Properties -> Advanced System Settings -> Settings (Performance) -> Advanced Tab -> Change -> Uncheck Automatically manage -> No paging file -> Set -> OK -> Restart your computer
Alternatively, if you want to play it safer, you can set a custom size of 200MB min and max.

Disable System Restore
Description: Don't write backup copies of files when installing new programs or making system changes. Can free up between a few hundred MB to a couple GB. Warning - Although unlikely, if a driver installation corrupts your system, there won't be an automatic way to recover.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Properties -> Advanced System Settings -> System Protection Tab -> Configure -> Turn off system protection -> Delete -> OK

Disable Hibernate
Description: You may free up 1GB of space on the SSD if you have 1GB of memory, 2GB of space if you have 2GB memory. You will lose the hibernation feature which allows the equivalent of quick boots and shutdowns.
Instructions: Start Menu -> Type cmd -> Right-Click the cmd Icon -> Run as Administrator -> Type powercfg -h off -> Type exit

[cmarcho]

Rather than disable SuperFetch altogether, a better way would be to set it to cache boot files only. SuperFetch does have a purpose and just turning it completely off will only gain you some disk space, and that is only if you remember to delete the cached files after disabling it. Disabling SuperFetch will cause a busy machine to slow down as it swaps applications from disk to ram. Just because it's an SSD doesn't mean swapping won't occur or won't be noticeable.

Open regedit.exe and browse down to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

Find the EnablePrefetcher key on the right-hand pane, and change the value to one of these:

Disable Caching: 0
Cache Applications Only: 1
Cache Boot Files Only: 2
Cache Everything (default): 3

A restart is required before this takes any effect.
Also you can clear out the \Windows\Prefetch folder after making this change to
start with a fresh prefetcher cache, the next boot will probably be slower since
Windows will have to cache everything again.


http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window ... fetch.aspx

[cmarcho]

One of the features that I hear Windows 7 will have is better support for SSD's. One thing it will do is detect an SSD and disable defrag. On my beta build 7000 install on my mini, it's set to manual still, so I'm not sure if the feature is in this build or not.

There are a few articles that talke about more SSD info:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/15206-Wind ... -HDDs.html

http://www.computerworld.com/action/art ... geNumber=1

[cmarcho]

Also, I would only suggest disabling Hibernation for systems that don't have the drive space available. Hibernation is a great feature. Booting the OS every time is just a big waste of time. You should be sleeping or hibernating rather than doing a complete shut down every time you are done with the computer.

I use hibernation on my mini and it's nice when it comes on so quick!

Also, disabling the pagefile altogether is drastic. I usually set mine to 200mb or so. Again, this is something only if you don't have disk space. Same with System Restore, only disable for disk space reasons.

Maybe you should have changed the title of this thread to "Tweaks for SSD's that are not big enough to support all features of an OS" because some of these have nothing to do with 'speed' but rather saving disk space on a small drive.

I disabled System Restore on my mini when I put the first build of Windows 7 a few months back. My video driver was updated and the system was hosed. I had no restore point to go back to. The system was very unstable and I couldn't get an older version put back on. I just formatted and started over. System Restore would have been helpful then.

Disabling indexing is a GREAT idea on an SSD though. Good point there.

I don't use firefox so I can't speak on that one, but sounds like a good idea.

[Alpha0ero]

Originally Posted by cmarcho

One of the features that I hear Windows 7 will have is better support for SSD's. One thing it will do is detect an SSD and disable defrag. On my beta build 7000 install on my mini, it's set to manual still, so I'm not sure if the feature is in this build or not.

There are a few articles that talke about more SSD info:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/15206-Wind ... -HDDs.html

http://www.computerworld.com/action/art ... geNumber=1

It was set to manual on my Mini 9 Windows 7/Build 7000 system too.

[Curious]

Originally Posted by Alpha0ero

It was set to manual on my Mini 9 Windows 7/Build 7000 system too.

Manually loaded services can still by called by the Windows Task Scheduler or any other service or program, it just won't load as soon as you log on. I will be comfortable letting Windows 7 recognize the STEC drive as an SSD once both Windows is out of beta and the STEC gets a "made for Windows 7" certification.

If you look at the Powerpoint presentation that Microsoft has available, drive manufacturers must have their drives report an RPM of 1 in order to be recognized as an SSD. Mechanical hard drives usually report 5400, 7200, etc, but if the SSD reports 0 RPM (Which seems logical, given SSDs don't spin), then the drive is considered "not reporting" and it will also be treated as mechanical hard drive. Who knows whether the STEC reports a 0 or 1.

[cghebert]

I tried the firefox tweak but when I restarted it booted into safe more for firefox. I initially tried setting the cache to 128mb. Any suggestions? I have 2gb of ram.

Edit-figured it out myself. It didn't have anything to do with the tweak. rather, it was because of the way i was pinning firefox to the taskbar. it kept pinning itself in safe mode. once i got that figured out, the tweak worked fine. Thanks for writing it up!

[jdizzle]

Don't forget, you can exercise some of that empty usb space with Windows Ready Boost

[Curious]

Originally Posted by jdizzle

Don't forget, you can exercise some of that empty usb space with Windows Ready Boost

I tried Readyboost on a usb stick, and on the SDHC card and didn't notice any difference. The reason is that Readyboost is supposed to take advantage of the low random seek times of flash instead of the slower mechanical hard drive. Thing is, the drives in our Minis are already flash-based.

Readyboost, in our case, will only take up space without increasing speed.

[jdizzle]

Originally Posted by Curious

I tried Readyboost on a usb stick, and on the SDHC card and didn't notice any difference. The reason is that Readyboost is supposed to take advantage of the low random seek times of flash instead of the slower mechanical hard drive. Thing is, the drives in our Minis are already flash-based.

Readyboost, in our case, will only take up space without increasing speed.

Don't know if its even related, but I got the BSOD twice after enabling WRB on a usb. problem is that the screen went all twacky and it was just a bunch of random blue and white pixels. I don't know where to look for a report if there is one.
And the WRB only seems to actually be active less than 1% of the time when I have craploads of stuff open.(probably the reason for BSOD)