Disable Superfetch = snappy???

[tonyz3]

Not sure if this is just a placebo affect, but I gave this a try this morning and my pro def seems to be snappier throughout the day. How to Disable SuperFetch in Windows 7 & 8Just a note after you hit disable I noticed it was still running until I hit stop..did not see that step in the post linked. Curious to see if anyone else feels snappier.

 

[ArnoldC]

Not using Surface Pro, but since I moved to a hybrid hard disk (Seagate Momentous) , and now to SSD (Micron C400), the Superfetch service has been set to Manual and is not currently running. So I can't compare.

 

[tonyz3]

Update....I am convinced it is faster. I definitely notice it when swing down to close out an app. It seems to load apps quicker. Less time with the circle spinning around. I used to have an issue of a few sec pause when loading tweetro plus as the timeline updated, seems to come on instantly now. It still remains to be seen if this setting causes any other issues, but so far two days and everything else seems to work fine.

 

[Amdukias]

Just disabled it, not too sure as to any performance benefits yet, but the one line in the article you posted made me do it. "this is even more true with SSDs (solid state drives) where the service actually becomes detrimental to both the system performance and health of the drive."

 

[tonyz3]

Yep that is what caught my attention as well mg:

 

[bryanhayn]

Myth Busted: Why Disabling SuperFetch on Vista and Windows 7 Is a Bad Idea » TuneUp Blog about Windows

not sure if I want to do it now :/

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2727880

nevermind. I disabled it.

 

[tonyz3]

Windows 7 & SSD: defragmentation, SuperFetch, prefetch[/url]

nevermind. I disabled it.

yeah I saw the some where else. I was sure about the prefetch part so I have not tried that yet.

 

[Intangir]

I disabled it, but I can't really tell for sure if it made things more zippy or not. My Pro seems zippy.... but it is pretty fast anyway so it might just be a placebo effect lol.

 

[mparks]

This makes me think changing superfetch may not be advantageous.

 

[Rvacha]

I have researched high and low... and I am convinced that it should be left on. You'd think MS's MSDN would have a definitive explanation but they don't. They DO however say this:

Results for the On/Off Assessments

Superfetch Prepare Memory Duration

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Most Applicable to: Application developers, Windows service developers

Relevant Assessments
1. Boot Performance (Fast Startup)


2. Standby Performance


3. Hibernate Performance



This metric measures the time that the Windows Superfetch service spends preparing the memory state for the subsequent boot/resume. Superfetch pre-fetches data that is frequently accessed on startup, and stores it either in the hiberfile (for Boot Performance (Fast Startup) and Hibernate Performance) or main memory (Standby Performance) to avoid excessive disk accesses on resume. This feature accelerates the resume process.

Typical Influencing Factors

During this phase, the Superfetch service accesses data that is read during startup. The duration of this phase is directly influenced by the amount of data that must be read during startup by startup applications, services, credential providers, and so on.

So yes, the reports of SuperFetch working differently in Win8 are true - whereas before it was a one-way pipe (moving frequently used data from disk to RAM) in Win8 it works in both directions and is used to send RAM to disk (hyberfile) as well!

 

[Rvacha]

One more thought.... It is possible that Superfetch is also quite useful for micro SD cards, since this type of memory is quite a bit slower than SSD. I don't have one yet so I can tell for sure

 

[bertopl]

I've read on some microsoft boards that windows 8 sometimes leaves superfetch, defrag etc enabled even though it detects an ssd. supposedly it is smart enough to know, even with the features enabled, to not use these services if an ssd is present. if true, the speed difference is probably just a placebo effect but I'd imagine disabling the service might use a little less memory.