SSDs and Microsoft's SteadyState - A Solution

[jrsade]

Like many of you I was very dissappointed regarding the performance - especially writing performance - of my new SSD. In my case the Titan 256GB.

It seems that except the Intel SSDs all other brands have more or less the same problem.

After applying all the Vista tweaks mentioned in the forums performance increased only a little.

On some further investigation I found the following link:

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=47183.

It explains the installation of Microsoft's SteadyState. A software actually meant to protect filesystems and discard all changes after the session i.e. in internet cafes etc. As a side effect it converts all random writes in the file system to sequential writes in a cache file! All the changes in there can be retained on the next reboot. This takes about 2-3 mins.

The software is free and pretty stable with one significant drawback. If your system crashes or freezes your session is gone!

It uses a similiar technology as MFT does (http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...d.php?p=314909). While MFT doesn't work on the system drive (yet) SteadyState only works on the system drive.

However, in my case I did not recognize my system. Overall performance increased significantly. No stuttering or delay. The system is always responsive and snappy. Now everything seems to be as expected. Even while logging in when all the services, apps and databases are starting up clicking on my mail program shows it up in 1-2 secs. Installing Office 2007 went from almost half an hour down to 5 minutes.

Try it out and make your own experiences. If you can live with the drawbacks you will enjoy a real fast system.

[Tradesman]

Good to hear your experience, am planning to put this on a new production system, prob the end of next week, am thinking of trying w/ the Vertex SSD

[Tradesman]

For those interested - more info and Microsoft download:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...s/default.mspx

[jrsade]

Well, after having used Steady State for quite some time now, I can say it works flawlessly and it increases the poor writing performance of the Titan drives significantly. Without it the performance is almost unacceptable.

It has a nice side effect: If you install some application just for testing or you have some strange behaviour afterwards it's easy to get rid of it.

[Ristogod]

At what point does it do the sequential write back to the disk? When you shut down?

[tehroller]

Like many of you I was very dissappointed regarding the performance - especially writing performance - of my new SSD. In my case the Titan 256GB.

It seems that except the Intel SSDs all other brands have more or less the same problem.

I think it's a bit harsh to say 'except intel' ssds. I have a falcon, and it doesn't have any problems, in fact it's insanely good I've heard most indilinx based drives are similar performance too.

[jrsade]

@tehroller: You are right. When my first post was written, Falcon was not yet released ;-)

@Ristogod: Writing back to the file system happens at startup. Takes about 2-3 minutes.