SSD Tweaks

SSDs are the new standard in storage technology and are the single most effective upgrade you can do to your computer. The difference between the speed of an SSD and an HDD is like the difference between night and day!

Unfortunately, SSDs need to be handled differently than the usual ways we are used to with HDDs.

For example, SSDs DO NOT need any defragmentation to keep them in their optimum performance rate since SSDs store and access data in a different way than traditional hard drives (I will not go into detail here as it is beyond the scope of this guide!

On to the tweaks

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BIOS:

MUST be set in AHCI mode before installing Windows, not ATA or RAID in order to get the maximum performance.

If you have Windows already installed in ATA or RAID mode then you cannot simply change this setting because then you wouldn't be able to boot into Windows so formatting your computer and doing a clean install is recommended if you aren't in AHCI mode already

There is a registry trick to turn on AHCI mode manually without changing it first in the BIOS but that just lies to Windows that AHCI mode is on when it really isn't so don't bother with that.

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OS Installation:

1) DO NOT clone your previous OS installation! As easy as that may sound, cloning your old OS to your new SSD will never give you the 100% performance out of your SSD! So stop being lazy and start with a fresh clean installation of Windows.

2) When installing Windows, if you had more than one drive in your computer and only create ONE PARTITON for now, you MUST disconnect the other drive before installing Windows. The Windows setup has a nasty habit of copying the boot files onto the 2nd drive if it finds one for some odd reason. That will slow down your boot process and cause headaches if you ever want to restore a corrupted boot loader since the boot files are not on your main drive. Only re-connect your second drive after you are on your Windows desktop. Don't forget to change the drive letter of your DVD/CD/BD Drive in Computer management as it probably has taken the Drive letter D: which you will need for a 2nd partition or drive.
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Over-provisioning:

Over-provisioning is very important if you want to ensure you have consistent performance. For more details on what Over-Provisioning is, feel free to read this great article: Understanding SSD Over-Provisioning

Most drive are usually over-provisioned at the factory by 7% so make sure you research your SSD model to see if it already has factory over-provisioning or not.

For best performance, I recommend you to over-provision your SSD by 20%. Off-course, if your SSD has factory OP (over-provisioning) then you subtract that from 20 so: 20-7% = 13% OP

The way to do this is very simple:

When you are installing Windows and are about to create a partition, instead of allocating the entire available space to that partition, deduct 13%

Example: you have a 120GB SSD (so that means it already has a 7% OP from the factory since the actual size is 128GB)

What you need to do is multiply 120x0.87 = 104.4GB

So that means that if we create a partition of 104.4GB, the remaining 13% will be left as un-partitioned space (ie. over-provisioning)

So to create that 104.4 GB partition, multiply 104.4 x 1024 = 106905 MB

That means you need to specify a 106905 MB as your partition and leave the rest un-partitioned

If you already had installed Windows then you can simply shrink your partition in Disk Management with the desired space to get the end result of 20% partitioned space (the un-partitioned space must be at the end of all other partitions, so if you have C: and D:, then the un-partitioned space needs to be after D

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Windows and Registry Tweaks:

1) Turn off Indexing Service

To do this press the Windows + R key on your keyboard then type services.msc in the Run Dialogue Box

In the Services Manager Window, scroll down to Windows Search, double click on it, then set it to disabled and hit Apply



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2) Turn Off Drive Indexing

Open Computer

Right click on any partition that is for the SSD, in this example my partition is C:

Uncheck the "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties" box then hit Apply and wait for the changes to be applied.



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3) Disable Automatic Disk Defragmentation

Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

Once the Disk Defragmenter launches, click on the top button which says Turn Off Schedule

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4) Disable NTFS Compression, NTFS Encryption, and NTFS Last Access Update:

Note: If you have a SandForce based SSD, then do not disable NTFS Compression as the SandForce controller heavily relies on compression to give you optimal performance but for any other controller this will help to prevent data from ever being compressed then decompressed when needed.

Press the Windows + R Key on your keyboard to bring up the Run Dialogue box then type regedit

Navigate to:

Code:

[B]HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem[/B]

Double click on NtfsDisableCompression and set the value to 1

Double click on NtfsDisableEncryption and set the value to 1

Double click on NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate and set the value to 1




Exit the registry editor then reboot

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5) Fixed Page File Size:

If you have 8 GB or more RAM in your system, then you can safely decrease the size of your page file. Do not disable the page file completely as some programs such as Windows Media Player will always look for it and if you don't have it you will either get low memory errors or the program won't run properly.

So the best thing to do is set it to a Minimum size of 200 MB and a Maximum size of 1024 MB


Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings > Performance (Settings) > Advanced > Virtual Memory (Change)

Un-check the box which says "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives"

Click on the Custom radio button

Set the initial size to 200 MB and the maximum size to 1024 MB

Reboot when prompted



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Disable Hibernation:

Hibernation was great for HDDs allowing you to completely shutdown your computer but before it does that, it saves your OS state to a temporary file called pagefile.sys

Now that means the next time you start your computer, rather than loading everything from a fresh start, it will use the pagefile.sys to load the previous OS state so any open documents, browser, programs, etc. will appear instantly as if you never shutdown.

This is bad for an SSD though because it creates a lot of writes to the SSD while it is saving your current OS state and secondly, SSDs are fast enough that you don't need this features since loading back any programs should be almost instantaneous.

Additionally, the hibernation file AKA pagefile.sys takes up a lot of space on your SSD which is equal to the amount of RAM you have. So let's say you had 16GB of RAM, the pagefile.sys would be a whooping 16GB of space on your SSD. By disabling hibernation you would also claim back that space reserved by the hibernation file.


A) Type cmd in the windows start menu search box, then right click on cmd.exe and choose Run as Administrator.
B) In the command prompt type in powercfg –h off and hit enter.

You must reboot for this to take effect.

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Disable Superfetch:

SSDs are fast enough as they are and they do not need to cache your frequently used programs into the RAM upon every reboot. This creates unnecessary writes to your SSD and it wouldn't really make any difference.

Disable Superfetch (SSDs are Fast enough to disable Superfetch to free up RAM)
a. Press the Window + R button on your keyboard to bring up the Run Dialogue Box
b. Type service.msc then hit enter
c. Look for the service named Superfetch then double click on it and change the Startup Type to Disabled
d. In the Windows start menu search box, type regedit and hit enter
e.vNavigate to:

Code:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

and look for a Binary Value called EnablePrefetcher
f. Double click on EnablePrefetcher and change the value from 3 to 0.
g. You must reboot for this to take effect.

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Enable Write Caching on your SSD:

A) Open up your Computer then right click on the drive that is your SSD and click Properties.

B) Click on the Hardware tab at the top.

C) Double click on the Disk Drive that is your SSD. Now in the new window click the Policies tab.

D) Under the Write-caching policy box, make sure Enable write caching on this device and Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device are both checked. Now click OK and exit.

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Disable Reliability Monitor

A) Type cmd in the windows start menu search box, then right click on cmd.exe and choose Run as administrator.

B) In the command prompt type in (or copy/paste):

Code:

schtasks.exe /change /disable /tn \Microsoft\Windows\RAC\RacTask

and hit enter.

C) If you want to enable reliability monitor run the command:

and hit enter.

D) If a SUCCESS message comes up after the command is entered then it worked.

 

A nice guide you've made​​.
Can you make such a guide for Windows 8.1 as well?
Ps: Have you used this software to easily turn off unnecessary Windows startup processes? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
Thanks

 

Thank you.....a few things....

I am an anti-Windows 8 person so I can't do that unfortunately although I have used Windows 8.1 extensively and know it inside and out when it comes to tweaking, but the issue is I don't have it installed anymore so I can't really remember what I did unless I see it first hand and be able to make such professional screenshots like the ones above


Secondly, I have been using Autoruns for many years and it's simply the best startup item manager out there.

Now, I stick to Autoruns v12 because....

12.01, 12.03, 12.03 and so forth, they have done a drastic change to Autoruns that now it displays legit stuff that is confusing and it shows "item not found" next to it when it's really there but it shows not found because it's a 64-bit process so Autoruns cannot understand that...... it actually caused me to do a full format the other day thinking I had a virus.....

I saw this.....



I researched all over the web as to what it is and couldn't find a definitive answer......that's just one of the extra things that the latest Autoruns started to show.....

so I formatted my system right away...thinking I had a virus that I caught early during my initial setup phase when I didn't have an AV installed yet......guess what? the moment I booted into the desktop after the format and launched Autoruns that entry was there so it's a legit entry and not as scary and fishy as it looks.... it just never showed up before with the older Autoruns and from the name of it doesn't sound very good which caused me 2 days worth of work formatting, tweaking, reinstalling my large library of software......

If you wanna stick to the latest PROPER version, then I've uploaded it for you.....

Autoruns v12 Download

 

Had a cursory glance at this page, and BVTConsumer seems to have something to do with Windows Management Instrumentation. It appears that when any program pushes CPU to over 99% utilization, it tries to trigger a script which resides in a non-existent directory, and BVTConsumer makes up part of that script or something?

Yeah like I said cursory glance. In any case it appears to be either legacy code or stuff that you don't really need anyway, but does appear to be completely legit.

 

I thought you might be used Autoruns.exe
But what is your opinion about the whole package that icludes Autoruns?
'If you wanna stick to the latest PROPER version, then I've uploaded it for you..... Isit for Win 8.1 ?
Thanks

 

The whole package of Systinternals has a lot of stuff I don't need. And that Autoruns I uploaded is for any OS not only for 7 or 8

 

Just for the sake of trial, I decided that this format......I wouldn't disable NTFS Compression to see what happens, as expected, I don't have the COMPRESS this drive checkmark ticked in the drive properties yet I saw this.... why in the world would Windows compress a driver folder!

 

There is not much inside and it is probably rarely accessed, if at all. There are a few of them and I think windows does this setting for them during the installation.

 

A lot of those tweaks should be already set by default if it's a clean install: Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives - Engineering Windows 7 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

If you use search a lot, don't disable indexing, just don't. SSDs are fast, but search is still faster with indexing. The point of saving the little amount of writes it incurs is pretty much mooted given life expectancy of SSDs with real world testing.

Lastly, never follow tweak guides blindly, I'm not telling you not to do what they suggest, but you should at least look into everything more closely before doing it. What works for someone else, may not work for you. There are some things that I would do here and some I wouldn't.

Messing with the registry can also be dangerous, so be extra careful if you apply anything that involves the registry.

EDIT: Regarding Windows 8.x and page file, the page file default size is set according to crash dump settings. As an example, you may have 32 GB of RAM, but you'll end up with roughly 25% of that as page file depending on your settings. It could also be the same size as RAM if you're set to take a full snapshot of whatever was in RAM.

 

On my setup (W7) I made a custom size page file (Initial/Minimum =16MB, Maximum =2048MB), I also have crash dump settings set to (System failure /Write debugging info set to =None) since I'm not getting any BSOD. From what I can tell my page file hasn't been used/accessed. I have 16GB RAM on both machines.

How To Size Page Files on Windows Systems -- Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine Online

 

Windows 8 was designed natively for SSDs so most of these tweaks either already have been implemented, unnecessary or are downright detrimental. For example, Win 8 Fastboot requires hibernation to be enabled. Additionally, Superfetch acts similar to Samsung's RAPID mode in Win 8 so disabling it diminishes your performance.

 

Now I have installed Autoruns.exe. Are there any processes I can disable (remove cross) from the startup in the program autoruns?

 

Man, you have a ton of unnecessary crap running at Windows startup. For starters, disable all of the following startup garbage...

Autorun Entry:

• Apple Mobile whatever
• Futuremark Systeminfo
• GfExperience
• gupdate and gupdatem and gusvc
• ioloEnergyBoo...
• iPod Service
• NvNetwork Service
• SkypeUpdate
• Steam Client Service
• TeamViewer9
• All of the browser helper objects and tool bars (unless you really use them)
• NvBackend
• ShadowPlay
• iTunesHelper
• Bluetooth.lnk (this is an OSD message pop-up, not the system tray icon for BT)

Task Scheduler:

• All of the PC-Doctor stuff
• Samsung Magician

None of these things need to launch at Windows logon/startup. They can all be run on demand, if and when you actually demand. Samsung Magician does not need to run in the background, even if you are using RAPID. You can use RAPID without the Magician software running.

 

Hello
Why is it that even if you disable some processes, they have added to the automatic start again when you restart the computer. (after you have used the application manually)?
I have also disabled Malwarebytes during boot (I'll start it up manually self) After I started the program manually, add Malwarebyte to automatic startup services after I restart my pc. How do I avoid it? A lot of people talk about this subject.

 

I am a big fan of MalwareBytes and have a lifetime subscription. But, I don't leave it installed. I only install it and run it if I have a reason to... which is almost never. I don't know how it re-enables itself, but it is probably by design to make it highly effective as a malware removal product for those that want to set it and forget it. If it is light on resources, it will not have a major effect on performance in day-to-day use.

Some utilities and application have multiple startup options. It could be a service, a Windows Task or a registry startup as a fail-safe effort, so you may need to disable some things in more than one place.

 

I do not want have Malwarebytes during startup before Benchmark tests, otherwise it's ok. It's just that after I have used Malwarebytes manually and start up my computer again, adds the program to start up again.

EDIT: Was this better then, or is there anything I've forgotten?
This software I liked very very well. If I have not used this program, it is not certain I have found everything to be turned off.




It is also something I wonder when it comes to using images in the forum. I see that I have a limit on the number of mb when it comes to pictures (ca9.3mb) What do I do when I have exhausted this? (You are currently using 8.48 MB to store 37 uploaded attachments.)

If I delete a photo I upload a text that says for example (Attachment 116187) When I click on this text where there has been a picture before I come to this: (Invalid Attachment Specified. If you Followed a valid link, please notify the administrator)

 

Upload your images to: image-upload.de - Kostenlos Bilder hochladen

then grab the hotlink and copy it, then use the picture icon from the post message toolbar and when given the choice to upload a pic, choose the 2nd tab which is to paste a URL and paste it there

or alternatively,

simply paste the URL between this.....

 

Should it be a cross in this box (Write cache buffer flushing) or not? I forgot what it should be. Does this have anything to offer in terms ssd speed?

 

Checked (for Samsung). Disable Write Cache Buffer flushing

 

yes that's right keep that checked for max performance

 

I assume that Samsung 850 pro has not factory over-provisioning. it seems Samsung has left it up to the user to do on any of provisioning. Then I expect Samsung 850 pro has not factory over-provisioning, and I must do it myself in samsung ssd Magician software or I just shrunk my C drive Using Windows Disk Manager (under services) to create Unallocated space, which is what OP uses. When the Samsung SSD Magician shows 0% provisioning That actually Means the standard factory 7% overprovisioning has not Been expanded or contracted by the user. If the time comes when i need the space back, I will reclaim it. This means that I now do this: in Samsung I Press the (Set op)in Samsung Magician software. I put 10% op (47.7gb which I think is enough for my use of a ssd. I never use one ssd long, when I switch it out for something better.
Link Samsung SSD magician over provisioning - SSD - Storage

 

There isn't any factory or otherwise built-in reserve space for Over-provision on any Samsung Pro series drives.