Advice Request is there any software to preserve the life span of my SSD?

[lokamoka820]

I just asked ChatGPT and here is the answer:

No, if you set the Disk Defragmenter service to manual on Windows, it will not run automatically when needed. The Disk Defragmenter (now called Optimize Drives) service runs automatically in the background when it is set to automatic, usually as part of the scheduled maintenance tasks in Windows.

When you set it to manual, it means that the service will only run when you explicitly trigger it. So, you will have to manually start the defragmentation process through the "Optimize Drives" utility or by running the corresponding command. It won't run on its own in the background unless you change the service back to automatic.

If you want the defrag tool to run on a schedule, it's better to leave it set to automatic.

I change back to Automatic as recommended, thank you.

 

[lokamoka820]

Will the defrag tool still run weekly on time even when set to manual? I think I'll set it to Automatic as recommended by SSD Fresh just to be safe.

Just if you are interested to know, I set it to manual and kept my eyes on it to check if it runs as usual as in automatic or not, and for 2 weeks now it runs on the schedule as expected.

 

[Parkinsond]

This SSD Boster app made me curious to try out the options. Among these, hibernation was already off in my system. This is one of the first things I do after installing Windows.
The main controversial recommendation in this app is disabling Prefetch.

Prefetch aka SysMain should only be disabled under one specific circumstance and that is if you also completely disable PageFile. If you disable PageFile then you may disable Prefetch otherwise don't do it.
Keeping Pagefile while disabling Prefetch will cause significantly more disk writes.

Windows's memory management system has a feature named Memory Compression. Instead of paging to the pagefile, which is on your SSD, Windows first compresses them and stores them in memory. So, when a process suddenly needs to use those files again it uncompress the required files and give it back to the process.
Without the memory compression feature, all this paging will be done on your SSD's pagefile. So, there will be a lot more disk writes and disk related I/O operations in general. The memory compression ratio is usually more than twice the size. You can see how much memory has been compressed as well as the size of the uncompressed memory in Task Manager's Memory section. If you see 300 mb memory compression, then the uncompressed size could be more than 700 MB. So, if memory compression is not there, this uncompressed 700 MB would be written to the page file.
Memory Compression is directly tied to Prefetch/Sysmain so disabling Prefetch disables memory compression and instead of saving disk writes you would be unknowingly causing more disk writes.
Now memory compression doesn't disable paging to the pagefile because rarely used items will still be paged to the pagefile if required but this paged amount will also be in compressed format so fewer amount of disk writes.
You can check pagefile usage and peak usage in the current session using System Informer.

So, I don't like the fact that this SSD Booster app doesn't mention this crucial info. If they were also suggesting to disable the page file that I could have understood but disabling pagefile completely is not recommended anyway so they haven't put this into their app.
Disable PageFile only if you have plenty of RAM and your system never reaches high RAM usage, like 80-90%.
I can't afford to disable PageFile on my 16 GB RAM system. Running a browser while playing a ram-heavy game in the background results in instant crashes. The pagefile also helps me run certain games that require more RAM or even VRAM than my system has.

Lastly, I don't know what disabling the Thumbnail Cache option in the app does because thumbnails are still shown, and the cache is still created. Besides, thumbnails in some cases are useful and barely cause much disk writes especially on my system where Windows Explorer's view is set to details mode in all folders.

All other recommended options are safe in my experience. Disabling the search index causes slightly more CPU usage when you search for something on the start menu, but it's worth disabling it because of the absolutely unnecessary disk writes it causes.
View attachment 288183

How to completely disable PageFile?

 

[Victor M]

How to completely disable PageFile?

I think it is in Advanced System Settings.

 

[Parkinsond]

I think it is in Advanced System Settings.

Re-enabled sysmain again as you recommended to avoid excessive ssd write.

 

[Victor M]

Re-enabled sysmain again as you recommende

No, I was talking about search for "Advanced System Settings" > Performance "Settings button" > Advanced tab > Virtual Memory "Change button" to change the pagefile size. If you have enough ram, you can disable the pagefile and set it to = 0.. Chatgpt warns against setting it to 0, citing bad programming practices that assumes pagefile is always available and crashes itself when it is 0. I say maybe if you have 32 Gb ram, then it would be safer.

 

[SeriousHoax]

Just if you are interested to know, I set it to manual and kept my eyes on it to check if it runs as usual as in automatic or not, and for 2 weeks now it runs on the schedule as expected.

I also realized that it's set to Manual by default on Windows on a freshly installed system. So Manual is the way to go indeed

 

[Parkinsond]

No, I was talking about search for "Advanced System Settings" > Performance "Settings button" > Advanced tab > Virtual Memory "Change button" to change the pagefile size. If you have enough ram, you can disable the pagefile and set it to = 0.. Chatgpt warns against setting it to 0, citing bad programming practices that assumes pagefile is always available and crashes itself when it is 0. I say maybe if you have 32 Gb ram, then it would be safer.

Okay; I will keep it to the minimum to avoid potential software crashing and keep sysmain enabled too.
I have only 8 Gb of RAM.
Kept it 400 Mb on SSD as Windows warned against setting less than; and almost 2 Gb for HDD just in case.