Should I enable or disable Prefetch/Superfetch with my new SSD?

Solution 1:

Windows 8 will skip SSDs, so NEVER change the start type of the Suprfetch service in Windows 8.

Solution 2:

Samsung Magician has some translation imperfections, which makes some settings in Samsung Magician hard to understand (incomprehensible), especially in OS Optimization – Advanced tab. An easy way to understand how buttons in Samsung Magician Advanced tab work is to enable hidden system files, go to the root of system C drive, and look at creation and deletion of hiberfil.sys file when Hibernation Mode is activated or deactivated in Samsung Magician Advanced tab.

1. You can Apply Maximum Performance, Maximum Capacity, Maximum Reliability tabs and see what functions were activated or deactivated in Advanced tab. Advanced tab uses a little bit awkward style by showing the opposite of the current status, i.e. Activate means that currently this feature is deactivated and Deactivate means that the feature is currently activated.

2. Changes that you make in Advanced tab by pressing Activate or Deactivate buttons are instant and don’t require pressing Apply All button. For instance, pressing Activate button of Hibernation Mode instantly creates hiberfil.sys in the root of system C drive and button name is changed to Deactivate. On the other hand, pressing Deactivate button, instantly removes hiberfil.sys from the root of system C drive and button name is changed to Activate.

3. You don’t need to press and you shouldn’t press Apply All button in Advanced tab once you finish manually settings the features, because it changes the values to default ones designed by the developers, for instance it Activates (button name is changed to Deactivate) Hibernation Mode.

4. If the combination of settings that you’ve made in Samsung Magician Advanced tab is the same as predefined modes in Apply Maximum Performance, Maximum Capacity or Maximum Reliability tabs, Current Status: name will be changed from Advanced to that particular mode name.

5. In Samsung Magician Advanced OS Optimization:

"Deactivate" button deactivates Prefetch / Superfetch.

"Activate" button activates Prefetch / Superfetch.

For SSDs Prefetch / Superfetch should be disabled.

Here is how you can check that the Superfetch is really disabled in Windows: Open Run dialog (Win + R) - Type services.msc + Enter to open the Services Manager - Scroll down to Superfetch service - Double-click on it to open it Properties box - The startup type should be Disabled.

Example showing how to interpret Samsung Magician Advanced tab settings:

Buttons are showing the opposite status of the current state. Clicking the button will set it to the state that it is showing. Currently the settings shown in the image mean this:

Hibernation Mode: OFF

Indexing Service: OFF

Prefetch: OFF

Write Cache Buffer: ON

Write-Cache Buffer Flushing: ON

Solution 3:

In Samsung Magician 4.4 Advanced OS Optimization:
"Deactivate" button deactivates Prefetch / Superfetch
"Activate" button activates Prefetch / Superfetch

So for SSD Prefetch / Superfetch should be disabled.

Here is how you can check that the Superfetch is really disabled in Windows:

• Open Run dialog (Win + R)
• Type services.msc + Enter to open the Services Manager
• Scroll down to Superfetch service
• Double-click on it to open it Properties box
• The startup type should be Disabled

Solution 4:

According to Intel you should disable Superfetch and not defrag your SSD; OCZ also says this.

There are reasons for this:

• Defragmentation reduces the life of the drive for no peformance gain.
• Superfetch was essentially invented because hard drives are slow. SSD's pretty much eliminate this reason.