Disable SuperFetch

[Helladen]

Will disabling SuperFetch hurt me at all? I don't like redundancy, and if this program is just an improved SuperFetch then I am going to just disable it to remove any wasted usage of my computer.

Thanks.

[InquiringMind]

It shouldn't have much impact - content preloaded by SuperFetch would probably be cached by PrimoCache also. The one situation where SuperFetch could make a theoretical improvement (using ReadyBoost to load small files onto flash storage) is duplicated by PrimoCache's L2 caching and useless to anyone using SSDs for program storage.

[Helladen]

Would it benefit it at all to use it, or does PrimoCache do everything it needs to do aka like a Windows Firewall vs. Third Party Firewall.

[InquiringMind]

SuperFetch's main feature is reading in data before it is needed, whilst PrimoCache (and any other cache software) retains data that is read, speeding up repeated access.

So SuperFetch can make applications faster on first run - but it requires time to load that data so overall, there is no benefit (the time required for first read just happens sooner, on Windows startup). The downside is that it may read data that is not used later, resulting in wasted time and memory.

So I don't think SuperFetch (or any other read-ahead software) provides an overall benefit, but others may argue otherwise. It will depend on your system usage so you might wish to test this for yourself.

[Jaga]

Superfetch can help to "prime" the cache that PrimoCache uses, since anything read into memory is also going to be cached by at least the L1. I've tried it on and off, and having fetch on usually loads both L1/L2 faster. But then I have 48gb in my system, so there's no shortage of headroom.

[Helladen]

Thank you, I have decided to keep it on. My computer performance is so much better now with this, really amazing.