[WhiteLighter]

as to my perspective, I believe that disabling stuff like page file and other stuff that makes constant changes/re-writes to SSD is a good idea since it will be preserving the performance (and maybe life) of the SSD (of course, the free space that comes along by disabling those constant changes/re-writes is a good thing). Please see this article on how constant changes/re-writes affects SSD's performance.

[Gaalahaad]

[...] I will be forced to change all your forum avatars to pictures of ponies.

Can we vote for that?

[ghart999]

Eskro, you state "Disable Page File (not recommended for systems with less than 4GB's of RAM)."

If I have exactly 4GB of Ram, should I leave enabled or disable it?

[eskro]

if you have 4GB or +, like u do now, u can disable it

[baldmosher]

If you're worried about potential swapfile problems you could always use a 2GB/4GB USB stick and designate that as the swapfile drive.

(Good practice with platter disks is always to put the swapfile at the start (outside edge) of the disk, where the platter spins fastest. So along the same train of thought, although you'll suffer noticable performance disadvantage when swapping to the flash drive compared to the SSD, if you have 4GB RAM that won't happen very often.)

[ghart999]

Eskro - Do all these steps apply for non-boot drives too?

[eskro]

certainly wont hurt!

[Bram77]

You're optimizing windows here, not the boot drive as the title states.

[problaze]

little suggestion to add eskro...
[All]
Ensure that SSD is first boot device :O

[Windows]
from msconfig try;
setting wait period from 30secs to say 3
No GUI boot
Disable services such as FAX etc that will require R/W on boot too!
Disable aero [higher texture level graphics are marginal ^ in R/W too!]
Disable gadgets, even in bkground windows will always try to run/search for them. [more of a squeeze technique here]

don't wanna sound too much like a windows optimisation guide but I think they are relevant to ensuring "max speed"

I have no idea if this is placebo or not but I have found that using a tool like "gamebooster" (I was desperate ) to quit explorer.exe (gui) etc on launch of an application can be a stability benefit (less to go wrong) - though relevancy depends on the methodology you implement to auto start xbmc in windows obviously!

Hope this is relevant and helps somone!

[eskro]

i'll see what i can do problaze, thx

[ghart999]

Problaze - I have some questions about your thoughts.

When setting wait period from 30 to 3 seconds, is this the same as Timeout from the Boot tab? Also what does this do?

When loading no GUI boot, do this mean I lose something when booting this way? What does it disable, etc? What is the purpose of this tweak?

What other services aside from Fax would make sense to diable?

Thanks.

little suggestion to add eskro...
[All]
Ensure that SSD is first boot device :O

[Windows]
from msconfig try;
setting wait period from 30secs to say 3
No GUI boot
Disable services such as FAX etc that will require R/W on boot too!
Disable aero [higher texture level graphics are marginal ^ in R/W too!]
Disable gadgets, even in bkground windows will always try to run/search for them. [more of a squeeze technique here]

don't wanna sound too much like a windows optimisation guide but I think they are relevant to ensuring "max speed"

I have no idea if this is placebo or not but I have found that using a tool like "gamebooster" (I was desperate ) to quit explorer.exe (gui) etc on launch of an application can be a stability benefit (less to go wrong) - though relevancy depends on the methodology you implement to auto start xbmc in windows obviously!

Hope this is relevant and helps somone!

[ghart999]

Eskro - how does disabling hibernation hep with performance? Would this only be a performance issue when I come out of hibernation? If I wanted to save power when my HTPC is not in use, would I just have the drive(s) shut down, etc?

[problaze]

Problaze - I have some questions about your thoughts.

When setting wait period from 30 to 3 seconds, is this the same as Timeout from the Boot tab? Also what does this do?

When loading no GUI boot, do this mean I lose something when booting this way? What does it disable, etc? What is the purpose of this tweak?

What other services aside from Fax would make sense to diable?

Thanks.

Yeah no problem!
Lowering the wait time basically reduces the time you have to say boot in safe mode.
No GUI boot results in you losing the flashy logo at startup that's all...I think it lowers boot time but it may be slightly placebo...it is replaced by just a black screen, in Vista you got a cool graphic and could customise but no longer
I can't remember a whole list of the ones I disable but heres a good rudimentary list: HERE

Hope this answers all questions...

[ghart999]

Thanks Problaze. That helps a lot.

[apañero]

For optimization of the SSD, is it good to install XBMC in the SSD? Would not be better to install it in the storage drive (not SSD) in order to reduce writes?? Or the XBMC writes are not relevant??