2 things here guys, please dont disable last access time stamps in registry. they are needed, especially for things like the disk defragmenter and chkdsk, and many other apps. alot of "registry tweaks" are very old, and / or snake oil. i have personally tested alot of these "tweaks" and they make zero difference to performance or benchmarks
General performance optimizations
- Thread starter Kjell
- Start date
Necrosaro
Active Member
I have disabled last access time stamps and had no issues getting a defrag done on my 12 terabyte spinning disk as well as had no issues at all since this has been done. It may have a near to zero performance difference but all my extremely little tweaks add up.
It's crazy to think but my system is smoother then some top of the line CPU's with nothing done on the operating system. For it being 10 years old it's super snappy.
Each to there own, if it works for you great if not then it's not the be all end all
I don't see how disabling timestamps will break disk tools. They're not dependent on those file attributes.
This tweak primarily exists for servers that handle the rapid access of hundreds of files in a short time period. Updating the timestamp for each file represents a single write back to directory structure, and might not be cached if the directory or file count is very extensive.
For the desktop, disabling timestamps will have negligible perf improvement. Most users or apps aren't reading individual files (files, not data blocks) fast enough to incur any penalty. What it can do is to break or confuse 3rd-party apps which expect non-zero access timestamps to perform some sorting actions.
This tweak falls is more "over hyped" than snake oil.
Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
This is why I don't use the tweak personally. I didn't realize this, and long story short, many years ago screwed up the metadata on a lot of family photos due to this tweak while using some other tools in conjuction.
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I went from AMD Kaveri/Godavari to intel 8/9th gen and to be honest i didnt notice a difference. More ram(from 4 to 8gb) and an ssd made a more noticable difference. For a VM i use 3 cores of the 6 and 8gb ram out of 16(total) and neither the host or vm get bogged downEach to there own, if it works for you great if not then it's not the be all end all
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Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
Yeah for sure on the SSD, the biggest change I've ever seen is by using an SSD or better. Even on an older operating system that doesn't utilize the new technology the best, and when using older sata cables and motherboards too, the improvement is still crazy good. The disk drives are by far the biggest bottleneck in every computer. I plugged a cheap one into my PS4 as well and it made such a noticeable difference that I could never go back.
i have tested timestamps, and when they are disabled, the disk defragmenter applications i was using, did not function properly
Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
So before we argue too much about the timestamp, I think I can clarify why there's disagreement.
I did some Googling and found documentation that does acknowledge this tweak in defragmenters. Here's an excerpt from a discontinued tool called JKDefrag/MyDefrag: "Windows can record the last time a file was accessed...in combination with JkDefrag it can make your disk faster...by moving files to the back that have not been used recently."
Now to clarify, it doesn't mean the tool freaks out if timestamps are disabled, but it won't "optimize" the way the developers intend. That's not to say other poorly written programs won't have a meltdown, since I know my situation years ago was really awful because of this tweak.
However, it likely doesn't matter for newer operating systems so it's a placebo tweak in many situations because timestamps are already disabled by default on many computers now. All it takes is a simple test to see:
Start > Windows System > Command Prompt > fsutil behavior query disablelastaccess
DisableLastAccess = 2 (System Managed, Disabled)
In my W10 21H2 it defaults to disabled. I didn't personally document what this setting was in all the previous operating systems, but Googling indicates that Microsoft might have started messing with this and some related seetings as early as Vista, and may have been turned off by Windows 8, or maybe it was finally official by Windows 10 1803 and beyond that it became more common for it to default to disabled.
The timeline I don't know, and it doesn't really matter, the point is people should check to see if the tweak even matters before applying it and since this thread was posted at the end of the year 2021, it's probably been disabled by default for everyone that came here and used the tweak, meaning it's placebo for those users.
In testing this just now I actually discovered a problem, and Microsoft is either bugged or it's a typo. If you use the command, "fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess" the values shown in that table do not match what Windows reports when you query it so that's probably where a lot of confusion is coming from and why the history timeline of this tweak is messed up.
I did some Googling and found documentation that does acknowledge this tweak in defragmenters. Here's an excerpt from a discontinued tool called JKDefrag/MyDefrag: "Windows can record the last time a file was accessed...in combination with JkDefrag it can make your disk faster...by moving files to the back that have not been used recently."
Now to clarify, it doesn't mean the tool freaks out if timestamps are disabled, but it won't "optimize" the way the developers intend. That's not to say other poorly written programs won't have a meltdown, since I know my situation years ago was really awful because of this tweak.
However, it likely doesn't matter for newer operating systems so it's a placebo tweak in many situations because timestamps are already disabled by default on many computers now. All it takes is a simple test to see:
Start > Windows System > Command Prompt > fsutil behavior query disablelastaccess
DisableLastAccess = 2 (System Managed, Disabled)
In my W10 21H2 it defaults to disabled. I didn't personally document what this setting was in all the previous operating systems, but Googling indicates that Microsoft might have started messing with this and some related seetings as early as Vista, and may have been turned off by Windows 8, or maybe it was finally official by Windows 10 1803 and beyond that it became more common for it to default to disabled.
The timeline I don't know, and it doesn't really matter, the point is people should check to see if the tweak even matters before applying it and since this thread was posted at the end of the year 2021, it's probably been disabled by default for everyone that came here and used the tweak, meaning it's placebo for those users.
In testing this just now I actually discovered a problem, and Microsoft is either bugged or it's a typo. If you use the command, "fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess" the values shown in that table do not match what Windows reports when you query it so that's probably where a lot of confusion is coming from and why the history timeline of this tweak is messed up.
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Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
Yeah I'm not by any means defending their coding practices, just trying to figure out what's going on is all. I edited the last paragraph of my previous post because originally I thought TenForums tutorials had a typo, but it turns out the problem is on Microsoft's side.
that was the name off the application. thanks for reminding me, it was so long ago. and there was a few others, i just cant remember the names of them, i think "My defrag" was one? it was some guide about compression and files, then defragmenting them from the inner layer of the disk to the outer, for the bigger ones. and some games crashed also, after registry "tweaks"
do you use it on an SSD or just a normal drive? i have heard SSD does not need defrag, only TRIM? still trying to understand how to do this, properly
SSD's don't need defrag, NAND memory has the same access times no matter where data resides. The only factor is the grouping size of memory cells for write performance. TRIM releases reserved memory that's a byproduct of the wear-leveling logic that spreads writes all over the disk to minimize the write passes on any individual block.
It's in one of the write-ups...
It's in one of the write-ups...
Source? I have no problem with either of the 2.
With an SSD you won't notice any difference, with high end hardware you won't notice any difference using tweaks or a heavier version of an OS as long as you meet the minimum necessary to run it. But why waste resources if you don't need a certain feature? In the end it's because there are people who like to make their OS as efficient as possible that NTLite exists, otherwise everyone would just blindly install Microsoft's ISO and have fun with its amazing new features.
You just set my Sarcasm Detector off
Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
We dug into defrag stuff in another thread (link) and here's the summary of that.
- By default, newer Windows set the defrag task to "Daily" but it automatically changes to "Weekly" the first time task scheduler runs silently in the backround. Windows wants to defrag as soon as possible on a clean install of the OS, then puts itself into weekly maintenance mode.
- You can't easily modify the defrag task due to its design in Windows, you can leave it as-is or disable the task with NTLite, but modifying it to a different frequency (monthly) is not easy. Even if you change the frequency, Windows will intentionally ignore you and defrag a drive once per month anyway, so the only good solution is to leave it default or disabled.
- If you have an SSD or similar, Windows will not actually run defragmenting on that drive weekly, even though it's scheduled. Instead, it runs features like retrim to make sure basic garbage collection is done.
- Windows does intentionally defrag an SSD once per month if the built-in volume shadow service (VSS) is enabled. VSS is disabled by default though on newer operating systems, so you would have to enable this file backup feature for the defrag to occur. Microsoft does this to prevent the backup program from having worse performance and taking too long. There is conflicting advice here, because this is what a developer says, but in the whitepapers it doesn't mention VSS and just indicates defrag will run once per month on an SSD.
- The developer states it is a misconception that fragmentation is not a problem on SSD. If an SSD gets too fragmented it can result in errors when trying to write/extend a file. Also, fragments mean more metadata to process while reading/writing a file, which reduces performance.
- The concerns about defrag wearing a drive down are grossly overblown too, it takes many cycles to wear out an SSD and it's just not possible for defrag to be an issue. That's not to say that there weren't all sorts of BIOS and firmware issues, driver problems, and Windows bugs that needed ironing out when SSD first launched, but the defrag concerns were bogus.
- You can't easily modify the defrag task due to its design in Windows, you can leave it as-is or disable the task with NTLite, but modifying it to a different frequency (monthly) is not easy. Even if you change the frequency, Windows will intentionally ignore you and defrag a drive once per month anyway, so the only good solution is to leave it default or disabled.
- If you have an SSD or similar, Windows will not actually run defragmenting on that drive weekly, even though it's scheduled. Instead, it runs features like retrim to make sure basic garbage collection is done.
- Windows does intentionally defrag an SSD once per month if the built-in volume shadow service (VSS) is enabled. VSS is disabled by default though on newer operating systems, so you would have to enable this file backup feature for the defrag to occur. Microsoft does this to prevent the backup program from having worse performance and taking too long. There is conflicting advice here, because this is what a developer says, but in the whitepapers it doesn't mention VSS and just indicates defrag will run once per month on an SSD.
- The developer states it is a misconception that fragmentation is not a problem on SSD. If an SSD gets too fragmented it can result in errors when trying to write/extend a file. Also, fragments mean more metadata to process while reading/writing a file, which reduces performance.
- The concerns about defrag wearing a drive down are grossly overblown too, it takes many cycles to wear out an SSD and it's just not possible for defrag to be an issue. That's not to say that there weren't all sorts of BIOS and firmware issues, driver problems, and Windows bugs that needed ironing out when SSD first launched, but the defrag concerns were bogus.
TLDR: Most knowledge about how SSD and defrag work is myth or outdated. Defragging an SSD still makes sense, you just don't have to do it as often, because the negatives of fragmentation take much longer to become noticeable due to the high speeds of SSD. A good time for a full defrag would be after a clean install of Windows (after you're done installing all updates, drivers, and other software), then once every 6 or 12 months depending on how heavy the drive is used. Constantly installing and uninstalling programs requires more frequent defragmenting. SSD aren't harmed by this maintenance.
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might look into getting a defragger, and try it out. cant hurt. windows wont let me "defrag" only trim. time for 3rd party... *cracks knuckles*