Fast Start Technology - How it works?

Hi,

Earlier this week I was discussing this technology/function with Dannemand, and i decided to open a new thread where everyone can join and share their knowledge on this.

From Samsung:

This is what was said:

 

There is another thread discussing Intel Rapid Start Technology which was included on the Series 9 with Windows 7. Windows 8 comes uses something else. I once found a Microsoft web page which described what they put into Windows 8, but can't find it again.

John

 

Thanks for the input John,

I'm still confused on this, main confusion is, is there a difference between Rapid Storage and Rapid Start? Cuz i believe i only have Rapid Storage available in my lappy, not Rapid Start.

 

I think we all get confused about this. The Rapid Start is only (I think) on the Windows 7 Series 9s. Rapid Storage is for storage access.

Fast Start comes in various forms. One is Samsung's tweaks to the startup process (at least for Windows 7) and Windows 8 uses some extra tricks.

John

 

These different Fast This and Rapid That technologies and terms are almost begging to be confused. Let me try a quick clarification, to the best of my knowledge:

Intel Rapid Start (iRST): An alternative to Windows Hibernation, using a dedicated hibernation partition (preferably on SSD), and keeping it updated with RAM changes during CPU idle time, so that the PC can hibernate instantly -- not having to wait for all of RAM to be written to a hibernation file. As with Windows Hibernate, power is completely off. This feature is provided in SOME Samsung models (not all). On Series 9 models, iRST uses the main SSD for hibernation. Some Series 5 and 7 models have 16GB or larger iSSD, where some is used for ExpressCache and some is used for iRST. See John Ratsey's iRST Guide thread for more details.

Intel Rapid Storage: An alternative IDE ATA/SATA/ATAPI disk driver, replacing both the built-in Windows driver and the one provided with Intel Chipset drivers. Primarily targeting RAID setups, it also replaces the older Intel Matrix Storage Manager. It can be used on regular desktop and laptop PCs as well, and provides improved performance and latency on SOME hardware and for SOME situations -- but not all. It also includes a monitoring and notification service (which can be disabled) and a control panel.

Windows 8 Fast Startup: A Win8 feature (enabled by default) where Shut Down causes the Windows system state to be saved in a small hibernation file (SWAPFILE.SYS) instead of fully closing the OS down. Users are logged out and power IS turned fully off; but when powered back on, it quickly resumes from the small hibernation file instead of performing a full boot. It is simply micro-hibernate, making Shut Down and startup very fast. To fully (re)boot (say in order to use F2 or F4) requires either using Restart (instead of Shut Down) OR disabling Fast Startup: Control Panel - Power Options - Choose what the power button does - Change settings that are currently unavailable - Turn on fast startup (uncheck).

Fast Boot (BIOS): A feature available in the BIOS settings of SOME Samsung models (not all) which skips some of the BIOS Power-on Self-test routine (so-called POST) in order to speedup boot times. In particular does it skip looking for alternative boot devices, such as USB. It must be disabled in order to boot from USB. This feature is NOT related to Samsung Fast Boot Mode or Samsung Fast Start Mode -- both are Easy Settings features described below.

Samsung Fast Boot Mode: A Samsung software feature under Boot Optimization on the Boot Management tab in Easy Settings (see screenshot below). It is only available in Easy Settings for Win7, NOT in Settings for Win8. It speeds up apparent boot time by delaying the loading of various Windows and 3rd party startup tasks (in registry Run keys and Task Scheduler) thus getting to the login screen faster. Those delayed tasks are then loaded after login. It can occasionally cause incorrect loading of those delayed tasks, particularly on systems with multiple user accounts. The feature can be disabled, but requires additional steps to fully restore those delayed startup tasks (as described here).

Samsung Fast Start Mode: A Samsung feature under Lid Open Action on the Boot Management tab in Easy Settings (see screenshot below). When enabled, it causes the PC to wake up from Sleep whenever the lid is opened (not otherwise standard behavior in Windows). On some models, it also turns off the power LED during sleep (as opposed to blinking slowly). In Win8, Samsung Settings enables this feature without an option to change it. Note that this feature is unrelated to the Fast Boot BIOS feature described above.



The discussion referred to by the OP suggests that maybe the Samsung Fast Start feature modifies the Windows Sleep/Resume process further, in ways that are not fully documented in the user interface or documentation.

Are there more Fast Something features I forgot? Did I get some of these wrong?

 

Nice sum up Dannemand. I think we'll agree both that lack of documentation is what originated this discussion in the first place.
The point of this thread was to try to clarify Samsung Fast Start Technology the best we could, exactly because of its lack of documentation.

Will add this.
Samsung Fast Start: Once FS is activated on lid action, it will modify sleep all together. Whenever you'll sleep it will be through FS and not Windows sleep. Also, in my experience, turns off the power LED in all models with FS feature, not some.

Samsung Fast Boot: I've had this feature for years (since XP) through 3rd party SW like TuneUp. Still, It's cool Samsung is providing free SW like this, Speed Up Manager (that defragment your registry) and others, although IMO it would be best if they came in All-in-one Interface, and separated from settings GUI. But that's me..

Fast Boot (BIOS): Being an avid user of Fast Start this feature is a bit pointless to me. But I'm sure it will serve many others.

Windows 8 Fast Startup: This feature in a SSD (6sec. boot) makes all the other fasts something a bit pointless to me, I disabled sleep and hibernation using Win8. But then again, many other features in Win8 are pointless to me, which makes Win8 pointless itself, overlapping this feature easily.

Intel Rapid Store: I've read, in some cases the software causes significant system load, but i've also read its drivers make drives perform faster.

Intel Rapid Start: I will not comment on this, would love to try this feature out, but it's simply not available in my laptops and i have no experience in it.

Cheers.

 

Yes, I agree, that was how this discussion began. And elaborating on Samsung Fast Start beyond those basic Lid & LED functions is the topic of this thread. I hope that was well enough reflected in my summary; otherwise I am happy to edit it.

It would be great if you can share any additional data on Fast Start you may have. Where did you learn that information that Samsung implemented it as "Hibernation in RAM"? I am intrigued by it and would love to find out.

Let me be completely honest with you and tell you what I am thinking. PLEASE don't take offense, what I am about to say is speculation on my part, and doesn't stand up against any hard evidence you may have:

Back in the days (before XP and S3 support) Suspend/Sleep wasn't very deep: USB and keyboard and mouse and many internal components would still be running, waking up at the slightest touch. The only way to REALLY minimize power was a full hibernation: Save all RAM to disk and power off completely. Of course Hibernation is slow to enter and resume from because of all the disk reading/writing.

I can imagine a laptop vendor back in those days inventing a clever Fast Start feature that implements hibernation to RAM instead of disk, so that everything can be turned off (except RAM). Kind of tricky to implement (saving all RAM to RAM, fooling Windows into thinking it was saved to disk) but definitely faster than traditional hibernation/resume.

Since then, ACPI has evolved, and today "real" sleep is a standard on all systems and fully supported by Windows. In S3 state, all components are powered down, except RAM -- and even RAM goes into a low-power mode where it is only concerned with keeping itself refreshed (not concerned with serving up data to the CPU).

That clever old Fast Start feature may still work, but it just isn't as relevant: Why "save all RAM to RAM" when there is a standardized way to just leave RAM alone and power down the rest?

Hibernation is still relevant if you want to unplug the power cable for an extended time. But nobody likes the idea of saving all RAM to disk because it takes so long. And that's where Win8's Fast Startup comes in: It still requires Hibernation to be enabled (and unfortunately still reserves a full-size HIBERFIL.SYS); but it only saves 256 MB of core Windows system state: just the part that takes so long to rebuild if you have to boot from scratch and initialize everything.

In other words: it would make perfect sense to me for Samsung (or other vendors) to invent a "hibernate to RAM" function back in the days. But I have a hard time seeing the need for it today -- even if it still works that same way. Part of its function (such as Lid Open Action) is still relevant, though, which is why they keep it in Easy Settings.

Again, please don't take offense. I am just spilling my thoughts here. My intent is NOT to prove you wrong.

Below are some links to various articles on power management and sleep states:

MY ARTICLES: ACPI States
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Everything You Need to Know About the CPU C-States Power Saving Modes | Hardware Secrets
Processors — What is difference between deep and deeper sleep states?

 

I do understand and the logic or lack of it in what you said here about it all, and saving RAM to RAM is pretty confusing..

As additional data, I did notice that, like in Win8 FS, Samsung FS also needs hibernation file active in order to work.
Also, i noticed that if you remove and re-insert the battery or RAM, and power on, the lappy gives an error message that isn't able to resume. This leads me to believe the laptop is actual more hibernated (deep deep sleep) than sleeping, because if you do this in Windows Sleep, it will power on from BIOS, no error message will appear, except maybe the safe mode (not properly shut down) message. Other than this there's not much more relevant information i recall.

I won't take offense even if you ARE trying to prove me wrong with the right facts, in the end we're both here with the same purpose, which is not being stubborn, is simply LEARNING.

Cheerio!