Read this thread 1st...Generic solution to fix OS stuttering and stalling for XP and Vista (32-bit)
In order to improve readability, the original “SteadyState” thread has been split into two new threads. This thread contains instructions and background. For general discussion please read/post here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=46804
This thread contains a generic solution to fix the OS stuttering and stalling under Windows XP (32-bit) and Windows Vista (32-bit) that some users of the Core series v1 and v2 SSDs are experiencing. The stuttering and stalling seem to be related to random write performance (which is similar on all first generation MLC-drives) but it is unclear why only some users are affected by the problems.
The purpose of Windows SteadyState is to protect Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems, applications, and files from being altered. This is achieved by SteadyState intercepting all writes to the Windows volume and redirecting them into a cache file. Depending on the chosen settings, the writes are either committed to disk or discarded on next restart.
By caching all writes to the Windows volume, SteadyState is converting random writes into sequential writes. This is similar to how MFT functions (www.easyco.com). First generation MLC-drives (including the Core series) have far greater sequential write performance than random write performance. Converting random writes into sequential writes is a very efficient way of improving performance on systems that are experiencing problems.
For background and benchmarks, see post #2 in this thread
INSTALLING AND USING WINDOWS STEADYSTATE
Before proceeding any further you really, really, really need to make a backup of your system. Always make backups!
Windows SteadyState can offer a significant performance boost to those experiencing random write problems with Core SSDs and other first generation MLC-drives. It does this by storing any writes to the Disk Protected Windows volume, into a cache file on the volume itself. The caching seems to convert random writes into sequential writes, giving a significant performance increase and eliminating stuttering and stalling. Please note that SteadyState only caches writes that are done to the Windows partition.
Depending on your settings in SteadyState, the cached changes in the cache file are either committed to disk or discarded when you chose to shutdown/restart the system.
However, a known issue with the current version (2.5) of SteadyState is that inability to perform a controlled shutdown/restart from within Windows (e.g. due to power failure or complete system freeze) may result in a complete loss of the cached data from the current session!
Microsoft has stated that it is striving to improve the situation but until this issue is resolved I present two different ways of using SteadyState.
SteadyState – “Safe” alternative
The “safe” alternative requires the user to create two partitions on his SSD. The first partition is the system partition where Windows resides and which will be subject to the Disk Protection of SteadyState. The second partition is the data partition, where the user data files, documents, ost- and pst files reside.
By storing the data files on a non-Windows system partition, the user will avoid potential data loss in case of power failure or system freeze but will still benefit significantly from the improvements in system responsiveness and the improved random write capacity on the non Disk Protected volume.
SteadyState – “Fast” alternative
The user only creates one partition on his SSD and installs Windows SteadyState. User data is kept on the Disk Protected partition and is therefore vulnerable to power failures and system freezes. However, user enjoys performance improvements that in some cases approach those of MFT.
Installation Instructions
Before proceeding make sure that you have a well functioning installation of Windows with updates applied. Make sure that you do not have any other software with Disk Protection features installed (e.g. installing SteadyState on a system with Acronis True Image Home results in a BSOD).
1. If you opted for the “safe” alternative, make sure that your SSD has an appropriately sized data partition before installing SteadyState
2. Download Windows SteadyState http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=117104
3. Download Windows Steady State Handbook http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=117101 (and preferably read it)
4. Install Windows SteadyState
5. Start Windows SteadyState
6. Remove all Computer Restrictions (maybe keep "do not store LAN Manager Hash values" if you are security conscious).
7. Turn on Windows Disk Protection (the system will restart and create the write cache file)
8. Start Windows SteadyState and change the protection level to “Retain all changes permanently”
Sizing of the Windows SteadyState cache file
SteadyState is supposed to give a warning when the writes to the Windows Disk Protected volume are approaching the limit of the cache file and schedule an automatic restart (whereby changes are committed or discarded depending on the user settings). However, we have found that both the warning and the scheduled restart may fail if the Windows Disk Protected volume is subject to heavy write operations (e.g. copying a multi-GB-file to the volume at high speed when the cache file is almost full).
If the automatic (or manual) restart fails and writes to the cache file exceed its size, the system will crash and you will lose the session data from the crashed session. If you opted for the "Fast" SteadyState alternative, this will be very bad as you will lose any personal session data from the crashed session.
There are two approaches to dealing with this.
For those having sufficient disk space, allocate a large cache file so that you do not need to worry about exceeding it. Tony recommends a 10GB cache file.
However, if you happen to have a 30GB drive or have a larger drive but not that much space to spare, there is another alternative to having to restart the system on regular basis because you cannot have a 10GB cache file and you are not sure of exactly how much data has been written to the Windows volume.
HDDLed http://www.hddled.com
The application HDDLed simulates one (or several configurable) onscreen HDD Led(s), indicating the disk activity of your drive(s) by flashing green and red. However, the more useful feature is the ability to display detailed real time statistics (amount of data read/written, read/write speed, queue length etc). This is displayed when placing the mouse pointer over the relevant onscreen HDD Led light.
So for you guys who do not have 10GB to spare, this program is an excellent companion to SteadyState as you no longer "blindly" will need to restart your machines to commit the changes.
Enjoy your SSD equipped, stutter free, high performance system!
This post details the background to the SteadyState solution and presents benchmarks
Two weeks ago I got the opportunity to experiment with two Core Series V2 30GB drives. As I happen to own two identical Thinkpad T60p computers, I had the ideal setup for some serious experiments.
My first order of business was to make a clean install of Windows XP Pro on one of the SSDs and load it with some serious software and applications. My intention was to see if I could replicate the reported performance problems (which was necessary if I was going to be able to search for a solution).
I installed Windows XP Pro SP3 (disabling AHCI in BIOS) with the latest patches, Office 2007 (including Outlook 2007), Avira Anti-virus, Comodo Firewall, Comodo Defense+ (full HIPS mode) and many other programs. I did not employ any of the tweaks from this forum and did not disable any functionality (e.g. System Restore was enabled and running) as I wanted to find a generic solution without needing to sacrifice functionality (see attached Belarc report for details on system hardware and software).
I then cloned the Core SSD installation to the stock Hitachi 7200 RPM drive (7K100 series) and installed it in my second T60p. I could now run both computers side by side with an identical software setup. This would enable me to really say if encountered performance problems were due to the Core SSD in combination with Windows and the T60p or just general “Windows-related” performance problems which would show up on both systems.
I was able to reproduce performance problems on the Core SSD drives doing:
- Heavy (many small files) compression/decompression operations
- Heavy (many small files) copy operations
- Heavy .ost and .pst operations in Outlook 2007
- Heavy browsing (many multiple tabs)
- Multitasking (e.g installing new programs while running anti-virus scan)
With the exception of some stalls in Outlook 2007, the performance problems experienced on the Core SSD were not present when using the Hitachi HDD in the same way.
After a week of tweaking write caches and write pipelining, I still did not have a solution that resolved the stuttering and stalling issues. Yesterday, I decided to try a new approach in which I would try to combine Windows SteadyState and MFT, in order to achieve MFT-level performance on a boot drive (which MFT does not support yet).
As it turns out, I was able to resolve the OS stuttering and stalls and in some instances get almost MFT-level performance by just using Windows SteadyState alone!
The Disk Protect feature of Windows SteadyState has a driver that operates below NTFS and writes are captured to a write cache file on the protected disk itself. As small write performance went through the roof and approached that of MFT in some cases.
BENCHMARKS
Traditional benchmark programs did not give useful results.
ATTO Diskench would not show much difference between a Steady State Disk Protected Volume and a normal Windows volume. Yet, the stuttering and stalling on the Disk Protected Volume was gone and file copy operations on the Disk Protected Volume were up to four times faster than on the normal Windows volume.
Crystal DiskBench did not show any notable difference either between a Disk Protected and a normal Windows volume.
(On a side note, running ATTO DiskBench on an MFT-Volume indicated a read/write speed equivalent of a 1.44” floppy drive)
Despite the strange benchmark results, the OCZ Core SSD blew the HDD completely away in responsiveness, application loading and overall speed, after enabling the Disk Protect Feature of SteadyState.
In order to get some quantifiable numbers I had to resort to a stopwatch and file copy operations.
Benchmark 1 – Copying the folder $NtServicePackUninstall$, containing 2691 files in 1 folder and being 375 MB large, from Ramdisk to the different volumes. (see attached JPGs for better tables)
_____________________________Attempt 1 (s)_____Attempt 2 (s)____Attempt 3 (s)
SSD - Normal volume_______________56_______________72__________ ___81
HDD - Normal volume_______________49_______________45__________ ___48
SSD – MFT volume_________________19_______________16________ _____17
SSD – Disk Protected volume________ 18_______________17_____________20
SSD – Non Disk Protected volume,____27_______________25_____________30
with Steady State*
Benchmark 2 – Copying the folder $hf_mig$, containing 793 files in 168 folders and being 196 MB large, from Ramdisk to the different volumes. (see attached JPGs for better tables)
_____________________________Attempt 1 (s)_____Attempt 2 (s)____Attempt 3 (s)
SSD - Normal volume_______________38_______________42__________ ___39
HDD - Normal volume_______________20_______________19__________ ___18
SSD – MFT volume_________________07_______________07________ _____06
SSD – Disk Protected volume________ 09_______________08_____________10
SSD – Non Disk Protected volume,____13_______________14_____________12
with Steady State*
The normal HDD volume outperformed the normal SSD volume by a wide margin. Also, the normal SSD volume displayed large variations in copy speed
The SSD MFT volume was the fastest of all but the Disk Protected SSD volume showed impressive performance as well.
The Disk Protect feature of Windows SteadyState only works with the volume containing Windows. Remaining partitions are not protected and thus random writes to other partitions are not "accelerated".
*The last row in the tables above shows the performance of a non Disk Protected partition on a system running SteadyState. Interestingly, the non Disk Protected volume on a system running SteadyState still shows very significant performance improvements compared to the normal SSD volume and it was also significantly faster than the normal HDD volume.
My guess is that as Windows Disk Protection is converting the many random writes that Windows always performs in the background into sequential writes, it frees up capacity for the SSD to successfully manage additional random writes.
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