Using an SSD drive as Win 7 Ready Boost

I have an old Kingston 64GB SSD, it's a drive without trim and uses the old JMicron controller. As such I did not want to use as boot drive for new Win 7 installation.

Boot & programs are on a Weston Digital 500GB RE2, and have 2 x 1.5 TB Samsungs for media/data. My machine has 8GB Ram and is a i5 750.

Now Readyboost uses asynchronous writes, so the write delay on this old SSD won't really matter.

I set Readyboost up, allocating 32GB to the SSD (32GB appears the limit). I then loaded the performance monitor and added counters for ReadyBoost.

When I get more time it'll post some screen shots, however i'm seeing cached reads of 110MB/second (near the limit of this old SSD).

I shoot digital photography shooting in RAW (20MB files), these files are stored on the Samsung 1.5TB drives. When I access the files with Canon raw software, first time it's slow. However ReadyBoost usage counters raise significantly, and when I access these files again it's significantly quicker. This caching is not purely memory as I'm seeing read figures from the Readyboost monitor.

Using an SSD like this is an alternative to it's normal usage. When I get more time I'll post screen shots of the Performance Monitor to show the gains I'm getting. I may even try and produce a video so you can see apps loading, and ReadyBoost kicking in.

Just felt I should post this screen shot to explain better.

The screen capture shows 35GB cached in the readyboost (that's the 3.551e+010 number), dispite having 8GB of memory. This blows totally the myth readyboost only works on low memory systems.

If you look at disk drives. The SSDNow is the readyboost cache, WD5000YS is a 500GB RE2 drive that I boot from. There is also 2 Samsung 1.5 TB F2's.

Weston digital RE2 (boot) has a windows index speed of 5.6.

All regular accessed data is in the readyboost cache (Kingston SSD), so the slow relative speed of the HDD's is not that important.

In addition to readyboost cache I also place indexing folder for HDD's on SSD, and set page file location there.

When I switch machine off I hibernate and this saves having to rebuild the readyboost cache again. Even if I boot normally other than slower boot speed it's not an issue as readyboost will eventually repopulate.

Machine is very 'snappy' in use, *all* applications and *all* HDD data including from those Samsung 1.5TB drives is more responsive in use. There is no worry about what files go on SSD or HDD, I'm not dancing the SSD install shuffle!

Personally I think this is a better approach of using a small SSD, as once data cached machine is similar speed than if data was stored primary on SSD. Also if you put into context how much in excess of 3TB of SSD storage would cost!

Also there is a final benefit if worried about data reliability. I could very cheaply RAID those HDD's, compare cost against RAID SSD. If my SSD fails it's only a cache so I would loose no data.

Interesting reading, although I suspect the effectiveness depends a bit on how often you typically revisit the same (cached) files versus accessing new ones. Also to be effective you presumably have to hibernate which may not sit well with some users who like to reboot frequently (driver updates/installs etc).

Personally I don't think I'm sold on the idea, when I get a SSD it will be used as a boot drive. What I'd find interesting would be to see how much benefit people already running SSDs would get from this, e.g. say someone with a 128GB boot SSD paired with a few TB of 'normal' storage. Again it will probably come down to how much opportunity there is to cache stuff from the slower drivers versus how often they typically get accessed.

You don't have to hibernate to see the benefit as cache start repopulating shortly after windows start up. Your correct however it won't benefit updates or installs, as writes still go to HDD's.

Readyboost caches on a cluster level, so for example you have a large Outlook file, readyboost will only cache the file part that's repeat accessed.

Some areas for me where i'm noticing a good improvement.

1) Development (visual studio). When I first build it's the typical HDD speed, and can hear the HDD accessing files. However second / third build times onwards, it significantly quicker.

2) Canon Photo Professional software (RAW picture viewing). I shoot motorsport photography, and can easily shoot 700 or more images a day. These images are upto 20MB each, and my workflow is to preview these in Canon Photo Profession, I will skip around images until I find an image I wish to edit. At first it's dog slow as the Samsung F2's have to load this data, however once images are loaded it becomes much faster as reloads are from the cache.

3) SQL Server access. When I'm developing I have a local SQL Server running (SQL Server 2008 R2), the first queries I execute are slow then SQL starts speeding up. Some of the benefit will be SQL servers regular query optimization, however the speed up on repeat access is that significant I can only put it down to reads from the ready-boost.

4) Company of Heros. This is the only game I still play, when I first load it's typically slow. However in multi-player once you've played one game the next game loads very quickly.

5) General windows usage. Response of windows OS is quicker, things like opening start menu, running programs from control panel etc. This is noticed after first few minuets of Windows loading and cache beginning to populate.

It's difficult to quantify the above into any benchmarks or actual speeds, however for every one I've watched the readyboost populate it's cache. For SQL Server queries / RAW files I've seen large volumes of data being written to readyboost. Then on repeat access heavy read stats from the readyboost. Other thing is HDD noise is less audible.

Other than readyboost, I've moved moved HDD indexing locations, and page file to SSD. Currently i'm seeing 6GB of indexing data. Most people would be surprised at the amount of disk access that happens on those indexing files, and the default location is the actual drive they are indexing.

There is a lot of media (mp3's etc) on the Samsungs, for example in Windows media player if I search for a file results are returned very fast (and very silently) , because index of those Samsung F2's is on the SSD. Unlike readyboost the Windows Indexing does not repopulate.

Really good read Well done

BringTheRain said:

Really good read Well done

Click to expand...

Thanks

Presumably the other 32GB on your drive is all available (and being the place you mention putting swap and indexes onto etc., but is it all the 32GB remaining available or is readyboost a bit greedy in requirements?)

I wonder if in a multi-SSD environment where a mechanical HDD also lives, whether Windows is smart enough to only be cluster caching the mechanical HDD or if my readyboosting will blindly try and cache the other SSD too (I should really read up on it some more I guess to see if you can configure these things or it does them for you sensibly).

topdog@OC said:

Presumably the other 32GB on your drive is all available (and being the place you mention putting swap and indexes onto etc., but is it all the 32GB remaining available or is readyboost a bit greedy in requirements?)

Click to expand...

Yes correct, the other 32GB is where HDD Indexes and swap file reside. Indexes are taking up 6GB, and there is 8GB of windows managed page file. It leaves about 13gb thats unused.

32GB appears to be the limit for a single readyboost volume (compression is on top, hence there was 35gb showing on my screen capture), as I can't set any more. 32GB is quite a lot, Seagate hybrid drives only have 4GB of SSD space.

Note also: I put my windows temp folders on the SSD drive, however it made the computer slower when writing temp data. I'm using a slow kingston SSD drive, I think the SSD drive was overloaded. I put the temp location back to c:, however on a modern SSD drive I would put the temp folders there also.

Also while mentioning write speed: Readyboost is asynchronous (non blocking) background task. It's the read speed of SSD thats important for this.

topdog@OC said:

I wonder if in a multi-SSD environment where a mechanical HDD also lives, whether Windows is smart enough to only be cluster caching the mechanical HDD or if my readyboosting will blindly try and cache the other SSD too (I should really read up on it some more I guess to see if you can configure these things or it does them for you sensibly).

Click to expand...

I wondered this also, however I've read people trying to use Readyboost (on memory stick) while using SSD and windows would not use it. I presume Windows would measure the performance and decide it would not cache an existing SSD (using another SSD - hope that makes sense).

Incidentally. I tried adding another readyboost (using a fast patriot USB stick). When I next booted the computer was slow to start, then looking at stats windows would not cache data on the second (slower) USB stick, choosing instead to use the SSD readyboost only. I can only presume the delay at windows boot was a benchmark test of the readyboost volumes, and as the SSD readyboost would be approx 10x faster then USB readyboost (memory stick), windows decided not to use the readyboost on USB stick.

BringTheRain said:

Really good read Well done

Click to expand...

Not really very useful personally as I have a good SSD as a boot drive already, but still interesting to read. Good thread.

LinktoInsanity said:

Not really very useful personally as I have a good SSD as a boot drive already, but still interesting to read. Good thread.

Click to expand...

Yes cheers.

This SSD was used as a boot drive (be it on XP64). It made a big difference to load times, but then I became frustrated with the small space. I also became frustrated with slow down (and lock ups) when the SSD became nearly full. I will say the SSD I'm using is an older JMicron controller type, at some point I may upgrade the SSD, but saying that computer is running very well.

My machine is used amongst other things for remote access into work - it's important it boots every morning without fail! I like the reliability of the Weston Digital Raid Edition HDD, these drives are well established and very reliable.

Theres a case the readyboost cache, along with both relocation of page file and HDD indexing, is improving reliability of HDD's as HDD's are accessed less.

Plus company (where I work) is an MSDN subscriber and have installed most of the MS products, so multiple Visual studio versions, multiple SQL Servers, then I have all the Adobe and Canon software. Even a 128GB SSD would not cover what's installed, 256GB would however.

SSD will eventually replace HDDs. However while storage costs of SSD are high, those balancing a budget any hybrid solution is worth considering.

@JasonM Sorry for reviving an old thread, but how long did it take for the readyboost cached bytes to reach 35GB? I have the same setup but I never saw mine reaching 3GB.