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is there any software to preserve the life span of my SSD?
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<blockquote data-quote="SeriousHoax" data-source="post: 1123443" data-attributes="member: 78686"><p>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.</p><p>The main controversial recommendation in this app is disabling Prefetch.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p>Keeping Pagefile while disabling Prefetch will cause significantly more disk writes.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>You can check pagefile usage and peak usage in the current session using <a href="https://systeminformer.com/" target="_blank">System Informer</a>.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p>Disable PageFile only if you have plenty of RAM and your system never reaches high RAM usage, like 80-90%.</p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]288183[/ATTACH]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SeriousHoax, post: 1123443, member: 78686"] 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 [URL='https://systeminformer.com/']System Informer[/URL]. 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. [ATTACH type="full" width="430px" alt="1745246776558.png"]288183[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]
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