Safe to turn off Superfetch?

NorthstaNder · 4 Apr 2008 at 09:10

As title really...I have turned it off and my laptop boots a lot faster now!

Also I turn my laptop off everynight, so not really sure Superfetch would benefit me.

But...is it safe to turn off? I'm not jeapordising system stability by doing so am I?

bledd · 4 Apr 2008 at 09:37

it is safe to, but it does help your machine (even if it does slow startup times a bit)

have you got all windows updates (like sp1) sp1 really helps it's 'behaviour'

Dolph · 4 Apr 2008 at 10:20

There's a better solution, get a readyboost ready flash drive. This will store the superfetch data so when you turn the PC on, it's already there. Fast boot times and all the benefits of superfetch in normal usage. I paid £15 for my 4gb readyboost compatible usb drive

You're not going to damage stability by turning it off, but you're missing out on one of vista's best performance enhancing features.

TheVoice · 4 Apr 2008 at 10:36

The other thing to do is stop shutting down; use Hibernate instead. It tends to be much quicker to resume from.

gareth170 · 4 Apr 2008 at 10:56

Dolph said:
There's a better solution, get a readyboost ready flash drive. This will store the superfetch data so when you turn the PC on, it's already there. Fast boot times and all the benefits of superfetch in normal usage. I paid £15 for my 4gb readyboost compatible usb drive

You're not going to damage stability by turning it off, but you're missing out on one of vista's best performance enhancing features.

but when u shutdown or reboot windows deleted the file cache file from the flash drive and it puts it back on when windows loaded

Dolph · 4 Apr 2008 at 12:05

gareth170 said:
but when u shutdown or reboot windows deleted the file cache file from the flash drive and it puts it back on when windows loaded

No it doesn't, the cache file remains on the flashdrive when you shut down.

NathanE · 4 Apr 2008 at 12:12

gareth170 said:
but when u shutdown or reboot windows deleted the file cache file from the flash drive and it puts it back on when windows loaded

What muppet told you that?! :eek:

gareth170 · 4 Apr 2008 at 12:30

Dolph said:
No it doesn't, the cache file remains on the flashdrive when you shut down.

NathanE said:
What muppet told you that?!

turn on readyboost then reboot in to xp or another vista , u'll see your flash drive as the full free space, even u show hidden files, nothing is on it..

oh and another thing while booting it didn't read/write from the flash drive. it only reads/writes it within windows

NathanE · 4 Apr 2008 at 13:17

Shouldn't do. There should be a file called ReadyBoost.sfcache file on there.

If it's getting deleted at shut down then it may be because it is being invalidated by some device driver or a group security policy.

gareth170 · 4 Apr 2008 at 13:31

NathanE said:
Shouldn't do. There should be a file called ReadyBoost.sfcache file on there.

If it's getting deleted at shut down then it may be because it is being invalidated by some device driver or a group security policy.

well ive tested it on 32 and 64 of vista both do the same. when enableing readyboost the ReadyBoost.sfcache is put on it but if i reboot in to the another vista and check the flash drive, the ReadyBoost.sfcache isn't there... also i tested it on vista 64 without drivers install but still same...

uv · 4 Apr 2008 at 13:41

I didn't think readyboost cache was resilient - it just acts as a swap for small files, so doesn't need to remain between boots, unlike superfetch which pre-loads boot and app information.

Hence, why you don't see any readyboost cache files when you boot from another OS.. it just acts like random access memory

Final8y · 5 Apr 2008 at 00:01

gareth170 said:
well ive tested it on 32 and 64 of vista both do the same. when enableing readyboost the ReadyBoost.sfcache is put on it but if i reboot in to the another vista and check the flash drive, the ReadyBoost.sfcache isn't there... also i tested it on vista 64 without drivers install but still same...

Reboot into another vista..well no wonder as cache is not from the the vista your booting into.

On the odd occasion that i may sometimes loose my readyboost file is when my over clock has crashed vista.

Vertigo · 5 Apr 2008 at 01:02

The last time I saw tests on ReadyBoost, the results showed that, if you have 2GB of main memory or more, ReadyBoost makes no difference whatsoever.

Dolph · 5 Apr 2008 at 07:51

Vertigo1 said:
The last time I saw tests on ReadyBoost, the results showed that, if you have 2GB of main memory or more, ReadyBoost makes no difference whatsoever.

What were they testing? If they were testing FPS in games or time to compress a zip file, then it would show no benefit, because they are testing completely the wrong thing...

Nearly every online review of readyboost I've seen has either tested the wrong things or not given enough time for the readyboost to stabilise (needs at least 2-3 weeks)

gareth170 · 5 Apr 2008 at 12:50

Final8y said:
Reboot into another vista..well no wonder as cache is not from the the vista your booting into.

On the odd occasion that i may sometimes loose my readyboost file is when my over clock has crashed vista.

but my point is using readyboost doesn't speedup boot time because it doesn't read/write from the flash drive while booting in to windows. it only reads/writes from it within windows

Vertigo · 5 Apr 2008 at 14:10

Dolph said:
What were they testing? If they were testing FPS in games or time to compress a zip file, then it would show no benefit, because they are testing completely the wrong thing...

Nearly every online review of readyboost I've seen has either tested the wrong things or not given enough time for the readyboost to stabilise (needs at least 2-3 weeks)

Don't recall tbh and can't find anything now (typical!

)

Would also be interesting to see what differences there are with SP1. I know they've made quite a few tweaks to Superfetch in the service pack but not sure how this would affect ReadyBoost.