What is the rationale behind disabling Superfetch on SSD systems?

Question

I understand that Superfetch was designed to use RAM for caching with HDDs in mind due to their high latencies, something that SSDs don't have. However, I don't understand how an SSD could outperform RAM.

Does Windows 7 automatically disable Superfetch on systems with fast enough SSDs solely to free up more RAM?

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 22 '12 at 07:23

5

It is not so much that the SSD that will be faster than the RAM, but that the lifespan of the SSD will be decreased. The benefits don't outweigh the cost.

answered Jul 22 '12 at 07:23

soandos

24,600
29
105
136

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 27 '12 at 20:30

4

The reason why SSD manufacturers recommend turning off SuperFetch is because SSD's can only take so many read/write cycles to the same sector before performance degrades and SuperFetch will read and write to the same sector repeatedly.

edited Jul 27 '12 at 20:30

Louis Waweru

25,409
45
137
203

answered Jul 22 '12 at 07:27

David Murray

494

What is the rationale behind disabling Superfetch on SSD systems?

2 Answers2