Disable in windows 10 to copy/move files first into the RAM from SSD?

Discussion in 'PC' started by ArticStorm, May 15, 2023.

  1. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Moderator Staff Member

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    I dont want windows 10 to copy files first into ram when copying/moving files around to other ssd and also fast USB HDD. This drives me crazy as it is painful slow.

    I had this turned off in the previous system and it working fine for me.
    (did find anything useful searching with google.)
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2023
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  3. GammaStar

    GammaStar Platinum Record

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    i just right clic the .rar & drag to folder where i want to extract to... it just extracts for rars anyhow
    (winrar) :wink:
     
  4. tzzsmk

    tzzsmk Audiosexual

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  5. jhagen

    jhagen Platinum Record

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    As far as I know to copy anything from A to B you need to buffer data into memory, pointers are needed.
    Sure you can reduce buffer size but you can't skip it.
    Even if you copy just a byte one by one it is stored in a memory address first.
     
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  6. SineWave

    SineWave Audiosexual

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    You want to turn off disk write caching. That's easy - go to device manager, find your disk under "disks", click on it>properties>caching>turn off write cache. It's actually recommendable setting for audio computers - safer for data and uses less cpu. If you have only NVMes and SSDs this caching is a complete waste of time. You may find this setting turned off by default depending on your OS and disk types.

    Cheers ArticStorm! :wink:
     
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  7. tzzsmk

    tzzsmk Audiosexual

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    sorry to hijack thread by slightly offtopic comment, but what if NVME SSD actually leverages Host Memory Buffer (HMB) to access host system’s RAM for storing parts of the SSD’s mapping tables, as seen by for ex. WD Black SN770, is that completely independent from OS write caching?
     
  8. SineWave

    SineWave Audiosexual

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    It's a great question. Knowing how Windows, and Linux for that matter, handles caching - it does what's generally best for a certain type of disk automatically, I don't think it is possible to make anything worse or unstable by turning it off, if it is possible to turn it off at all. I don't have NVMe so I don't know how OSes handle these. It might be disabled by default and parts that need to be in RAM are handled differently.

    What I said here is - I'm sure HMB caching is retained in any case. Sorry, I'm still a bit groggy from sleeping. :)

    So I wonder if it will be possible to do anything at all. We'll see what ArticStorm says.
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2023
  9. saccamano

    saccamano Rock Star

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    I've turned off write-caching on the large HDD where I keep vsti's (and their associated samples), new footage that needs to be cataloged, and storage for offline footage. Write caching on NVMe's and SSD's is kind of a wash because they are very fast to begin with and you really don't notice the speed difference that much. HDD's especially ones larger than, say 3TB, you will notice some speed increase with it turned off.
     
  10. erminardi

    erminardi Kapellmeister

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    Teracopy.
     
  11. Olymoon

    Olymoon Moderator

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    @SineWave will turning off write caching create a problem for mechanical hard drives?
     
  12. shinjiya

    shinjiya Producer

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    AFAIK Windows will disable or enable cache if it deems necessary for the disk in question.

    Edit: worth noting that disabling cache is a placebo at best. The only reason to disable it is if you're afraid of data loss (and if it's on and never happened, no reason to be afraid now)

    Cache will boost performance, but results in data loss in a crash or outage. If you also turn buffer flushing off, you might damage the filesystem. I would keep it as is, whatever is the current setting.
     
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  13. panaman

    panaman Kapellmeister

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  14. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Moderator Staff Member

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    this was meant in general, when i copy stuff around it usually copies/moves first into RAM and then it almost falls off.
    After copying/moving is done explorer.exe is 5GB big and it doesnt give the Memory back. Only way to free the RAM is to kill the explorer process and recall it to have the taskbar back.
     
  15. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Moderator Staff Member

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    If this is really the case why is using Total commanders copying/moving feature so much faster?
    Both were equal on the old notebook i had. but here windows normal copying/moving is super slow and leaves garbage in the RAM after the operation is finished.
     
  16. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Moderator Staff Member

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    Let me try, if this is faster now.

    Didnt read your answer earlier.
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2023
  17. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Moderator Staff Member

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    Okay it work now. But it could be that compressing the Partition with windows might not be to good for moving, copying bigger stuff around.
    (I always had specific folder compressed, which have lots of space saving files in it, but never the whole drive.)
     
  18. saccamano

    saccamano Rock Star

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    For media production of any kind at all, you want the easiest, most direct, and fastest path between data storage, RAM, and CPU/GPU that you can get. Unfortunately, they don't make NVMe's in 6-12+ TB sizes yet (if they did they most likely be out of anyone's price range). So for large cheap, fairly fast storage, the job still falls to HDD's.
     
  19. shinjiya

    shinjiya Producer

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    I can't say Total Commander is faster without benchmarking it, but why it can be faster is because Total Commander doesn't use the same copy/move code from Windows Explorer. Instead of calling those native functions, it has its own. If it's faster or not in all cases, that can't be said without proper testing, but caching has not a lot to do with that. Windows will not cache unimportant files, and mostly important, it flushes its cache constantly to avoid data loss.

    The issue with slow copying and garbage being left behind might be a symptom of another problem entirely.
     
  20. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Moderator Staff Member

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    yeah i think a big problem is that i had the drives compressed.

    Still TC copies a lot faster than windows method (and yes after copying explorer process was as big as 6GB in the RAM, could be its connected with the compression of the drive, which i have removed.)

    I had the cache always turned off and it never failed me over 10 years.
     
  21. saccamano

    saccamano Rock Star

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    Have you retested with teracopy? Does it leave the same garbage in RAM as the os file-mangler does? Would be interesting to find out.

    I learned early on that microsoft's drive encryption and compression were junk and never ever used them in my some 20+ years using mickey-soft operating systems. The encryption service is one of the first things to be deleted on a new build.
     
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