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Tweaking Windows 10

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Windows 10 & SSDs

You do not need to tweak Windows 10 for SSDs.
Let me repeat,
YOU DO NOT NEED TO TWEAK WINDOWS 10 FOR SSDs.

Straight from Microsoft:
“A solid-state drive (SSD) is a hard drive that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data. An SSD must have a minimum of 16 gigabytes (GB) of space to install Windows. For more information about drive space and RAM considerations, see Compact OS, single-sourcing, and image optimization.
Note – It’s no longer necessary to run the Windows System Assessment Tests (WinSAT) on SSD drives. Windows now detects SSD drives and will tune itself accordingly.”

From the Intel SSD toolbox user guide:
“In Microsoft Windows 8, Superfetch functions differently than in previous versions of Windows, and should not be disabled for an Intel SSD.”

Micron – Windows 10 and Your SSD

“To be honest, between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, there are no major new requirements for SATA storage devices, particularly for SSDs…Trim is more readily available. Trim is an operating system function that helps an SSD manage space containing data that has been deleted or invalidated by the operating system. Trim has been available since Windows 7, but was somewhat invisible to the end user. This is fine in most cases, but some end users may want a bit more control. Now, trim is available in the drive Tools menu, in a feature called Optimize.”

 

Warning: Opinions Ahead

re: Manufacturers SSD Tools
Under Windows 10 you DO NOT need these apps to setup your SSD or tweak performance settings. Some of these are fine for viewing drive info and updating firmware. Some of these also offer over-provisioning options, which is just fine if you choose to use it. But some of these offer some rather dubious settings when it comes to Win10 (I’m looking at you Samsung).

Rapid Mode
Samsung Rapid mode can increase performance of your Samsung SSD.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/downloads/document/Samsung_SSD_Rapid_Mode_Whitepaper_EN.pdf

When enabled, RAPID mode is inserted as a filter driver in the Windows storage stack. The driver actively monitors all storage-related activity between and among the operating system, user applications and the SSD. The RAPID technology analyzes system traffic and leverages spare system resources (DRAM and CPU) to deliver read acceleration through intelligent caching of hot data and write optimization through tight coordination with the SSD.

Geeks seem to either love or hate rapid mode. There are continual reports all over the web of rapid mode causing problems and crashing systems. Personally, I’m not using it with Win10.

 

 

 

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Comments

  2. Hi Eric,

    Excellent job. I will have to re-read the whole thing again… My favorite is moving all the DOCS, Pix and Misc. to a separate drive. In this way, I can do more frequent OS backups that will not fill the backup drive too fast.

    Issues on my end:
    1. When I try to change Geolocation Service to AUTOMATIC, I get “the system cannot find the file specified”. Any suggestions?
    2. On your tweaks p. 13, you have more options. On Shutdown settings, I only have SLEEP and LOCK. You additionally have: Turn on fast startup and Hibernate. Are you running Win 10 Enterprise?

    Suggestion: It would be great to compile everything into a PDF file that can serve as desktop reference.

    • This is funny and just for a point of reference I have worked in IT primarily in Computer and Network installation, support, maintenance for 21 years now and have read Eric’s guides since Windows XP as it is one of the easiest ways to get great info on the manipulation of Operating systems and he is about as complete as it gets.

      Anyway the way I organize my files is on seperate hard drives internally and with USB media containers most often now (I have 2 64 Gb’s I use and on 256 GB one as well given to me by Corsair. My computer is set up with 3 hard drives (which I would like to grow to 5 with two or 7 in raid sets in 0,1 and 10 (0,1 being options with 5 and 10 being with 7). The first of course is the OS drive otherwise generally known as C:\ and the other two are P:\ programs, and M:\Media which I organize relatively often and I have backups and everything of course external from the OS drive which is also a Corsair Pro SSD and the things on it are often used, and active programs such as Office etcetera but not generally big saves (I like to keep SSD’s relatively light in volume)!

  3. Two things…
    1) Excellent job Eric! One thing I miss is the Logoff, Shutdown, and Restart tiles to which I pin to my taskbar…But hey that’s just me..
    2) Might as well make it a sixer…LOL

  4. Excellent work! This really takes all the “mystery” out of running and securing this OS…at least for me. A quick “typo” to correct. On page 3, when copying the GOD MODE title, the space between the period after the word MODE, and the first parentheses has to be removed for it to work.
    Thank you again for all your hard work!

  5. Defragment and optimize your drives bug

    There is a bug in Win 10, V 1511 build 10586.17 setting for “defragment and optimize your drives”. If I turn my HDD defrag schedule to ON, my SSD gets switched on too. If I turn OFF SSD defrag, HDD defrag is also turned off. I have defrag for all drives turned off turned OFF and will do it manually.

  6. I have 8Gs of RAM on a 32bit Windows with SSD on a laptop and it boots twice as fast (average 30 sec.) as Windows 10 32 or 64bit (1 min. +) – and Windows 32 bit can only use 4Gs of RAM max.!

    Same programs and all drivers all up to date on both so go figure!