Solid State Drives
Over time, several technologies have been incorporated into subsequent versions of Windows to improve the performance of the operating system on traditional hard disk drives (HDD) with rotating platters. Since Solid state drives (SSD) differ from mechanical HDDs in some key areas (no moving parts, write amplification, limited number of erase cycles allowed for reliable operation), it is beneficial to disable certain optimizations and add others, specifically for SSDs.
Windows 7 incorporates many engineering changes to reduce the frequency of writes and flushes, which benefit SSDs in particular since each write operation wears the flash memory.
Windows 7 also makes use of the TRIM command. If supported by the SSD (not implemented on early devices), this optimizes when erase cycles are performed, reducing the need to erase blocks before each write and increasing write performance.
Several tools and techniques that were implemented in the past to reduce the impact of the rotational latency of traditional HDDs, most notably disk defragmentation, Superfetch, ReadyBoost, and application launch prefetching, involve reorganizing (rewriting) the data on the platters. Since SSDs have no moving platters, this reorganization has no advantages, and may instead shorten the life of the solid state memory. Therefore these tools are by default disabled on SSDs in Windows 7, except for some early generation SSDs that might still benefit.
Finally, partitions made with Windows 7’s partition-creating tools are created with the SSD’s alignment needs in mind, avoiding unwanted systematic write amplification.
Read more about this topic: Features New To Windows 7, File System
Famous quotes containing the words solid, state and/or drives:
“When much intercourse with a friend has supplied us with a standard of excellence, and has increased our respect for the resources of God who thus sends a real person to outgo our ideal; when he has, moreover, become an object of thought, and, whilst his character retains all its unconscious effect, is converted in the mind into solid and sweet wisdom,—it is a sign to us that his office is closing, and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Fashion required the suppression of all naturalness—’to walk upright, with unbending joints; to shake hands after the pump- handle formula; to look inexpressibly indifferent towards everybody and everything; and speak only in a mincing voice was to be a decorous member of society.’”
—For the State of Rhode Island, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I am nothing but a miserable, crushed worm, whom no one wants, whom no one loves, a useless creature with morning sickness, and a big belly, two rotten teeth, and a bad temper, a battered sense of dignity, and a love which nobody wants and which nearly drives me insane.”
—Sophie Tolstoy (1844–1919)