Everything and SSDs

[rpsgc]

Hello,

First of all thanks for such a great piece of software!
Now, my question is: is it OK for me to use Everything with an SSD? As it is recommended to disable Indexing, Superfetch, etc on an SSD I was wondering if using Everything's indexing on an SSD would have a negative impact on its health.


Thanks.

[therube]

Because of this, Flash-memory cells have limited lifetimes and will often wear out after ..., I would say you're better off not indexing.

But as Everything works differently the most other search/index utilities (dealing with the MFT), perhaps there is less impact?
David would have to say for certain.

[rpsgc]

Yes, that's what I wanted to know.

[cacamama]

Uh, ssds wear out when you write on them. There shouldn't be any problems with indexing or using Everything. If you want to minimize writes to your ssd, move Everything to an hdd, and execute it from there.

Regardless, write-related wear is not issue for the average user. You could never subject your disk to the amount of I/O a server would.

[David]

"Everything" saves the Everything.db and Everything.ini files to disk on exit.
To avoid writing data to a SSD volume with "Everything", install "Everything" to a non-SSD volume.

Indexing and monitoring SSD volumes with "Everything" will only read data (not write any data).

If you enable the USN Change Journal on a SSD volume then the NTFS driver will log all file and folders changes to that volume.

The data that is logged for a change to the USN Change Journal should not be larger than the actual change itself.

For most users this would have minimal impact on the SSD drive life.

To disable the USN Change Journal for each SSD volume:

• In "Everything" from the Tools menu, click Options.
• Click the Volumes tab.
• For each SSD volume in the Local NTFS volumes list:
  • Uncheck Enable USN Journal Logging.
• Click OK.

[rpsgc]

Thanks for taking time to reply. I'm already using the portable version of Everything in a mechanical HDD.
Is the USN Change Journal important on the SSD? I mostly search things in other partitions located on a mechanical HDD.

[David]

Is the USN Change Journal important on the SSD?

Your computer will operate normally with the USN Change Journal disabled.

The USN Change Journal is not really important, It can help recover data and file and folder names of damaged volumes.

Please note "Everything" requires the USN Change Journal to be active on a volume to include it in the database.

[rpsgc]

Got it, thanks!

[David]

It might be useful to watch what files are changing on a SSD drive.

You could use the USN change journal and the latest alpha version of "Everything" to monitor changes to the SSD drive.

Once the SSD drive is included in the database, sort by recent changes to monitor file changes real-time.

[HouseX]

so everything is safe running on a different hdd when your primary disk is a ssd?
i run it on a hdd and on options i did what david said (disable usn etc) but when i close it and open it again still those options on C are marked. it doesnt save them.
but also it doesnt have results for C:\ when i search something cause i also exclude it from list.

[Nistag]

Hi,

I also tried to disable USN Change Journal from my boot ssd disk, but when I reopen Everything settings it is always checked.
I'd like to reduce the impact that Everything has on my ssd, so imho this feature is important

[eswul62]

Is the USN Change Journal important on the SSD?

Please note "Everything" requires the USN Change Journal to be active on a volume to include it in the database.

by David » Sun Oct 18, 2009 12:36 am
For each SSD volume in the Local NTFS volumes list:

Uncheck Enable USN Journal Logging.

Eh ... am a bit confused, just to make sure...

[Enable USN Journal]
a. SSD : Untag
b. HDD : Tag


[Include USN Journal in recent changes]
a. SSD: Tag or Untag ?
b. HDD: Tag or Untag ?

SnagIt-16012015 093646.png (45.67 KiB) Viewed 19582 times

Thanks
-

[mnf]

Hi, (@David) I have crucial, archived 32 bit CAD drawings on my XP Pro SP3 NTFS HD and finally managed a sorely needed PC upgrade by adding Win7 on an SSD in a dual-boot setup. I'm having some general teething pain as I transfer mentally but the indispensable "Everything" is working great as always - thank you.

I'm just not sure I have the NTFS SSD indexing issue sussed out. Should I uninstall Everything from the SSD and reinstall on another partition on my HD or is it enough/optimal to make changes to the Everything settings? If "changes," would you mind re-listing them? Thanks, Michael

[void]

No need to uninstall, simply change your database location if you are concerned about SSD wear.

To change your Everything.db location:

• In Everything, from the Tools menu, click Options.
• Click the Indexes tab.
• Click Browse....
• Select a new database location and click OK.
• Click OK.

[mnf]

Perfect. Thanks

[TTTTII]

Here's a quote referenced from another study on HowToGeek. It's consistent with other things I've read on SSD life. If you leave a bit of extra space available on your SSD for wear leveling, you shouldn't ever really see problems with your SSD at all in any reasonable lifetime for your computer. About the only thing I don't do on mine is use it as a data highway for really bulk data:

"Over the past 18 months, we’ve watched modern SSDs easily write far more data than most consumers will ever need. Errors didn’t strike the Samsung 840 Series until after 300TB of writes, and it took over 700TB to induce the first failures. The fact that the 840 Pro exceeded 2.4PB is nothing short of amazing, even if that achievement is also kind of academic."

Here's another article from a MS emplyee's blog (referenced from the same HTG article) that I found interesting and useful. It's more generally informative than just the title would indicate.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheRealAn ... urSSD.aspx

Here's the original HTG link:

https://www.howtogeek.com/256859/dont-w ... its-doing/

So, in short, after much research, of which that article is a fairish (and convenient summary) my personal choice has been to enjoy the speed advantage I get from my system SSD, not abuse it with bulk data transfers, but everything else is fair game - including my Everything index which has many Terabytes of files indexed from external HDs with frequent changes and not infrequent full Everything database rebuilds.

Remember, it's too many writes to the same sectors, and Windows and firmware are smart enough to spread things around. Constant small writes I don't see as a problem as long as I keep extra space available.

Just my two bits. I really looked into this awhile back, and this seems to me a reasonable usage pattern and consistent with multiple studies. Sorry I didn't give more links.

[TTTTII]

Btw, if you're interested in just why Windows does need to do some SSD defragmenting, I found this article interesting on the NTFS file system:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/ask ... le-growth/