Have you ever wondered why after you boot up your hard drive stills spins for around 5-10 mins after all programs have loaded?
Have you ever wondered why your hard drive suddenly starts to spin rapidly whilst playing a game? Etc
And no matter how little amount of programs you have starting up your hard drive stills spins for a good while after everything as booted up?
Today I thought I would enlighten gamers especially about the so-called SUPERFETCH service, its benefits and in many cases especially gamers (like me) its disadvantages?
Before I begin this posting is mainly for VISTA Users especially the 64-bit gamers amongst us, in light of Windows 7 users you will be pleased to know after reading this that the superfetch service as been re-designed, tweaked and modified in Windows 7 but I still advise you analyse as I have done to see which works best for you.
What is SUPERFETCH? superfetch is a Microsoft service that is set to automatic by default, and 70% of users still use it and most users are even unaware of it, many tweak guides (except the odd few) praise superfetch and readyboost service and always recommend its stay at automatic, I disagree especially if you’re a gamer, READYBOOST YES, leave this set at automatic, readyboost does increase boot time immensely so leave it well alone, superfetch however is an all different story and one which I think gamers will find interesting. Superfetch is designed to load the most commonly used programs into your memory for you, it’s a kind-of artificial intelligence that prefetches all the most commonly used programs and loads them into memory for quicker loading, in THEORY.
For me it took 3 re-formats of Windows Vista x64 to finally realise that it was superfetch that was creating all my problems (if you can call them that), I could not understand why even though I had a very powerful PC with 6GB of ram that my hard drive kept spinning for around 5 minutes after windows had loaded, sometimes more, WHY IS THIS, I got so fed up that I re-formatted 3 times to see if the problem would go away and it did not, I like things fast, I don’t want my PC hard drive to spin & churn away for no reason, do you? Many of you will know what I’m talking about, go and listen after boot up and see how long it takes for your hard drive to stop spinning?
Anyway, I have now studied and analysed the superfetch service in great detail and trust me when I say, the benefits do not supersede the disadvantages its creates, having this service enabled all the time WILL decrease the life span of your hard drive FACT, especially if you are using the page file on the same hard drive, WHY? the trouble is with superfetch it prefetches everything you execute, and even executes all the things that you are unaware of (all the windows essentials stuff), installations, uninstallations etc everything that is done on your PC is prefeteched for you and loaded into a folder called prefetch (in the windows directory), the trouble of course it’s that the artificial intelligence fetches everything it thinks you will use, so for example if you spend an hour installing games and programs when you next boot up it will prefetch all those execute files and load them into your memory for you, because as you used it recently it thinks you will use them again, so it will load them into memory for you, sounds great, but it’s not, because on average we use different programs every day, play different games each day YES? Yes of course we do, can any of you honestly say you use the exact same programs each day, and do few installations? no of course not none of us can, yes we all use Firefox to browse and play the same games daily often enough, but do you use office every day etc, so if you used office just once it would load it into memory the next time you boot up, and load a lot of other junk that was a one-off installation & other junk into your memory that was simply a one day occurrence and will not be executed for a while.
I have found from extensive study and analysing this service that it can load up to 2GIG of data into your PCs memory much of which you are not even using at the time, in some instances I found it loaded a massive 3GB of data into my memory for quicker execution, and 80% of it I did not wish to use, this is all in the background and if you do not know where to look this will all go un-noticed to the average user, for Gamers this is a nightmare believe me, how many gamers want 2GB of unnecessary data loaded into RAM? Few of us. When I say it goes unnoticed it does, unless you listen to your hard drive spinning away you won’t notice it in task manager neither, just go ahead a listen to your hard drive for a few moments after boot up? How long does it take to stop spinning?
TRUTH of SUPERFETCH: YES Superfetch does load programs quicker than if your PC is without it, so for example if you use internet explorer daily or Firefox daily with superfetch enabled it will take 1 seconds to execute, with superfetch disabled it will take up to 5 seconds to execute? quite a drop in seconds I know, but remember superfetch as loaded a lot of other junk into your RAM because it thinks you will use it and in most cases you won’t, from deep review of this service the maximum increase in program execution is 4 seconds but do you want a 4 second benefit or a hard drive that will last many more years if you have it disabled? And do you want your games to use more RAM?
Why will it decrease hard drive life? the answer is simple, superfetch is constantly and I mean constantly fetching data for you, loading into RAM, some of it into your page file, which means the platters of your hard disk are constantly spinning & skipping from one place to the next, most of the time for no reason, after I used superfetch constantly intensively for one week the hard drive started making little grinding noises not good, but it all stopped after superfetch was disabled.
how does it affect my data on my hard drive, if you use a powerful defrag program such as "ultimate defrag" you will notice that with super fetch enabled data is mixed up and jotted all around your hard drive, no matter how many times you defrag it, data still seems scattered and still spins for a good few mins after boot up, unless you consolidate your data, this is because superfetch as neatly scattered you data for you or so it thinks, but it’s not neat neither its a total mess.
What is THE REAL WAY to optimize data for quicker execution, faster game play and have an hard drive that last many years? if you are a gamer and use different programs each day disable super fetch and clear out your prefetch folder immediately, the only folder that should be in there is a folder named readyboot, DO NOT DELETE this folder because this is for readyboost, then go to regedit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters and click on enableprefecther and change the value data from 3 to 2. Restart your PC.
NOTICE IMMEDIETELY that as soon as windows boots up and into windows your hard drive stops spinning after its loaded all your start up programs, it’s quite a refreshing feeling, trust me if you have 6GB of RAM like me you expect windows to boot and load all your start-up programs in no less more than 30 seconds from the power button to loading into windows to having all your programs nicely loaded up. with superfetch it was like quick to post but the hard drive loved to spin and make horrible churning noises for about 5 mins-10 mins after windows had loaded, it was loading all my programs into my RAM For me so they would execute 2 seconds quicker aint that sweet NOT, not sweet at all, trust me, set the super fetch service to manual, DONT DISABLE it all together, just set it to manual and it will never bother you again, go boot up your PC without superfetch enabled and if you have a powerful PC with at least 3GB of ram watch how it all goes silent within 2 minutes max after you have loaded into windows, and ENJOY THAT NICE REFRESHING FEELING, your hard drive is not churning away and spinning away like a happy kid on a roundabout, its silent, quiet and only spins when you TELL IT TO, which is what we want, the hard drive to do what we want it to do not do lots of other things and loads lots of programs into memory we perhaps used once and may not use again for 6 months.
But that’s not all, get ultimate defrag on your PC, and if you really want faster execution then load into ultimate defrag then tools then options, in the high-performance menu select custom, then ADD all the folders, e.g. games, start up programs, most commonly used programs into the list, and then let ultimate defrag do the rest you choose whether you want strict placement, fast placement of very fast placement, if you really want superfast execution of all the programs, games etc you use most often, then select STRICT PLACEMENT, then let ultimate defrag do its business, A WORD OF WISDOM: if you do this, it takes times, for example if you have chosen 100GB of DATA to be loaded using STRICT PLACEMENT this can take up to 12 hours, games of course take up more space, so I use 100GB as a general rule, for me I loaded lots of games into this, but you can trim it down to just programs you use more often. this basically places all the mostly used data one the fastest part of the hard disk, so every time you use it, its superfast execution, but to get all your data placed on the hard drive where you want it to be takes time, so be patient, but it’s worth the wait if you are a gamer, ultimate defrag is the best defrag program I have ever found, there is a lot of so-called defragers out there and trust me I have tried them all, ultimate defrag is the best one yet (for me anyway) and is found at
http://www.disktrix.com/
A word of defragmentation: having used all the defraggers on the market, diskeeper, perfectdsik etc, I have realised that when you have them set to automatic, they do basically what superfetch does but rather than putting it in the RAM it scatters data all around the hard drive, the problem again of course it is using a artificial intelligence kind of thing that places data based on how often you used it, when you used it etc, but it can never be perfect because few of us use the same program every day, so even though it thinks it’s making things better, it’s not, its scattering a lot of unneeded data all over the place on the outer tracks of your hard drive, when most of the time some of that data you might not use for 6 weeks or so you see, most advanced defraggers like diskeeper put data where it thinks it should go, not where it needs to go, this is the ultimate problem and the same with superfetch.
WE AS GAMERS, and PC USERS should always have the choice to what data we want where, diskeepers and perfect disk auto option is a lazy way of doing this for you, placing data on the faster parts of the hard disk, but it can never be perfect because our choices change daily.
Also from experience having automatic defragmentation enabled using programs such as diskeeper with super fetch enabled creates all sorts of mess on the hard disk, because they are fighting for the same data all the time, diskeeper says one thing superfecth says the other thing it become of constant battle of sorts between which program get which data, creating a minefield of scattered data all over the place, and no matter how many times you defrag it’s never going to be perfect unless you defrag manually.
from months and months of analysing how hard drive data works with superfetch and how defrag programs work, the BEST SOLUTION IS TO DEFRAG manually on a daily & weekly basis, use ultimate defrag to do the initial strict placement procedure and enjoy a fast hard drive fast execution and a much smoother more enjoyable PC and gaming experience.
and one FINAL WORD if you don’t play the same games daily, if you don’t use the EXACTLE same programs daily SET SUPERFETCH to MANUAL, and if you a GAMER ITS A MUST to set it to manual.
Trust me your PC will work far better with superfetch set to manual, and what’s a second of 2 slower execution without superfetch enabled is a 2-4 second increase in execution time better than having 2GB of unneeded data loaded (behind the scenes) into you RAM?
Bill Gates created a so-called artificial intelligence with superfetch but as we all know, it will never be perfect, it decides what data goes where & when, but we all know that a PC cant think for us, at least with prefecther in XP, it only fetched .pf files that we actually needed and did not load junk into our ram that’s what superfetch does, or and btw the superfetch experience is much worse with x64-bit Vista for some reason, it’s a lot kinder with x32-bit users, not actually sure why, think it’s to do with the coding, but still it’s a pest.
To conclude using superfetch is going to make your hard drive work harder, a lot harder, it`s basically thrashing your hard drive on a daily basis while it loads programs into your RAM, many of which you use rarely, or use on the odd occasion, so if you use office today it will load office into your memory 6 out of 10 times after you boot-up because it thinks you might use it, so will pop all the office execute files amongst some other office essentials into your ram just in-case, same with games if you played GTA4 today it will load the GTA4 execute files into your ram tomorrow just in-case you decide to use it and on the list goes, and the worst scenario you spent a day installing new software, so tomorrow it will load all that junk-installer stuff into your ram just in-case you use them again, it will fill your ram with installers and all sorts of data you do not need, in theory it is meant to refresh the data from time – time but it cannot not really because an artificial code cannot tell if you will use it or not, it just make a choice based on the executions you made throughout your PCs life and load them quicker that is all, but even though some programs will be quicker to execute there is a lot of junk in your RAM and data is jotted all around your hard disk and it will be thrashed after every boot up.
Superfetch is basically like having your lights switch on before you arrive home just as you enter, because it got use to you going to work and returning at a certain time, so each day it will turn the lights on ready for when you walk in, but the trouble is, you are not going to arrive home at the same time each day, nor are you going to return home each day, so the lights are burning for no reason, just like your hard drive, its loading data for no reason and loading it into your ram for no reason other than the possibility that you might actually need it and use it, but you might not for a while.
Ultimately its us that needs to make the CHOICES not Superfetch.
I think you get the picture and I hope it helps.
So for me I’d like to say SUPERFETCH OFF.
What’s Your Choice?
Wishing you all a perfect gaming and PC experience.
To Superfetch or not to Superfetch Data 
