Hello,
I have been using the software and the following problem is consistent on all versions.
I am using the custom option with read/writes LFU-R 4K 768 MB RAM and defer writes with a period of one day in order to preserve the life of my SSD.
My operating system is Windows 7 x64. The problem is that randomly the system just hangs with the mouse cursor circling and the only option is to press the reset button. The power button is unresponsive. Needless to say that every time it happens I have to reinstall windows. This time efore I reinstalled I checked the events log and I can see a line {Registry Hive Recovered} Registry hive (file): '\SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE' was corrupted and it has been recovered. Some data might have been lost. I am using this software to keep less writes on the SSD but since today I am reinstalling windows for the fifth time. I have a modern computer with OCZ Vector SSD. The defer writes mostly is holding the registry since windows periodically writes the registry hives to the disk. Have you been experiencing such behavior in your system? What could be the reason for this problem?
Thank you.
Registry Corruption
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fsommer1968
- Level 4
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:11 pm
Re: Registry Corruption
Try to reduce the latency time to 1 hour (3600 seconds). Anyway this seems to be a bug. 1 day is alot of time even with a SSD.
Re: Registry Corruption
Can you disable Defer-Write and try again? How much physical memory installed on your computer? Did you notice how much physical memory left after you set up cache?
With defer-write, system may corrupt at sudden power loss or crash.
With defer-write, system may corrupt at sudden power loss or crash.
Re: Registry Corruption
Hello,
I have 8GB of memory on my computer. I never use that much memory. I always have at least 3 GB available memory. I made a cache of 768 MB. I only want to reduce the constant writing of windows registry hives to the disk. After making the cache the memory that was left was reduced by 768 MB.
I have a UPS and the power line is very stable. If I don't use defer writes then I miss all the points of reducing writes to the SSD. I moved windows Events Logs to another partition as well as the windows update folder. With this arrangement if I don't install any software and just use my computer normally when the Primo Cache is working I have about 200 MB of writes on my Windows 7 per day instead of about 3-4 GB/Day. Primo Cache sometimes works for a few days without any problem, and randomly my computer is locked out and it is the end of it. I need to reinstall windows again. When Primo cache is not installed or not configured to run I never have this lock outs. I also checked my memory sticks for errors but no errors were detected. My computer is not over clocked and running on default memory SPD and default windows FSB. There must be something wrong with the software. Again it is a consistent behavior with the previous releases of the former FancyCache. I really like the idea of block level caching which are addressing the problems of SSD write wears.
If you need more info just let me know.
Thank you
I have 8GB of memory on my computer. I never use that much memory. I always have at least 3 GB available memory. I made a cache of 768 MB. I only want to reduce the constant writing of windows registry hives to the disk. After making the cache the memory that was left was reduced by 768 MB.
I have a UPS and the power line is very stable. If I don't use defer writes then I miss all the points of reducing writes to the SSD. I moved windows Events Logs to another partition as well as the windows update folder. With this arrangement if I don't install any software and just use my computer normally when the Primo Cache is working I have about 200 MB of writes on my Windows 7 per day instead of about 3-4 GB/Day. Primo Cache sometimes works for a few days without any problem, and randomly my computer is locked out and it is the end of it. I need to reinstall windows again. When Primo cache is not installed or not configured to run I never have this lock outs. I also checked my memory sticks for errors but no errors were detected. My computer is not over clocked and running on default memory SPD and default windows FSB. There must be something wrong with the software. Again it is a consistent behavior with the previous releases of the former FancyCache. I really like the idea of block level caching which are addressing the problems of SSD write wears.
If you need more info just let me know.
Thank you
-
AbsoluteJoe
- Level 2
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2013 3:46 am
Re: Registry Corruption
johnb,
I agree that given the current state of SSD technology, it's a good idea to use them mostly for read-only data. Unfortunately, Windows wasn't designed to make this easy to do.
But I am a bit concerned that you may be a bit too aggressive in preventing Windows from writing critical file updates to your SSD just to preserve it's life.
Have you actually killed your SSD due to writes not being deferred ? Don't all the registry corruption system restores and re-installs cause just as much SSD damage ?
It sounds like you don't really have a lot of write activity to your SSD and I assume that most of your frequently changed files, pagefile, and hiberfile are on a real HDD.
I don't believe that Windows is writing the entire registry hive on every flush, only the updated sectors or clusters (4K by default), so the hit on the SSD by flushing the deferred-write cache more often should not be that bad - if it is then blame the SSD's memory poor write cycle lifespan. As you have discovered, Windows doesn't like it when critical writes are deferred to files on it's system drive on either SSD or HDD - if you try, it frequently ends badly, even if you have a excellent UPS, stable power, stable hardware, and stable software.
To help preserve its life, I am using my SSD mostly for PrimoCache read-only persistent L2 cache. An enhancement - It would be nice if PrimoCache persistent L2 cache could be
configured to L2 cache only read-only system and user specified directories or files to an SSD. And once a file is opened r/w, it should be excluded from SSD L2 cache.
I hope that you are successful in getting PrimoCache L2 caching to become very SSD friendly.
I agree that given the current state of SSD technology, it's a good idea to use them mostly for read-only data. Unfortunately, Windows wasn't designed to make this easy to do.
But I am a bit concerned that you may be a bit too aggressive in preventing Windows from writing critical file updates to your SSD just to preserve it's life.
Have you actually killed your SSD due to writes not being deferred ? Don't all the registry corruption system restores and re-installs cause just as much SSD damage ?
It sounds like you don't really have a lot of write activity to your SSD and I assume that most of your frequently changed files, pagefile, and hiberfile are on a real HDD.
I don't believe that Windows is writing the entire registry hive on every flush, only the updated sectors or clusters (4K by default), so the hit on the SSD by flushing the deferred-write cache more often should not be that bad - if it is then blame the SSD's memory poor write cycle lifespan. As you have discovered, Windows doesn't like it when critical writes are deferred to files on it's system drive on either SSD or HDD - if you try, it frequently ends badly, even if you have a excellent UPS, stable power, stable hardware, and stable software.
To help preserve its life, I am using my SSD mostly for PrimoCache read-only persistent L2 cache. An enhancement - It would be nice if PrimoCache persistent L2 cache could be
configured to L2 cache only read-only system and user specified directories or files to an SSD. And once a file is opened r/w, it should be excluded from SSD L2 cache.
I hope that you are successful in getting PrimoCache L2 caching to become very SSD friendly.
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InquiringMind
- Level SS
- Posts: 477
- Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 11:10 pm
Re: Registry Corruption
Johnb,
Did your system hangs/registry corruption occur only after installing PrimoCache? If they were present before, that suggests an underlying cause (which your PrimoCache configuration may be exacerbating - disabling Deferred Writes would be a good idea in the interim).
As a short term measure to avoid having to re-install Windows, I'd suggest you install ERUNT (which will backup your registry every time you start Windows - you can then restore a backup via the Recovery Console).
In terms of limiting SSD writes, it may be a good idea to use software like Process Explorer or Process Hacker to see which processes are writing the most data - Process Monitor can then be used to identify the files accessed. While some things are obvious (moving the pagefile and temp folders to a ramdisk), it is less clear which programs log data the most. Once identified, these can be dealt with by moving the files/folders to a ramdisk and using Link Shell Extension to create links/junction points at the original locations - assuming the data doesn't need to be retained (if the data is important, then locating it on a non-SSD hard disk may be better).
Some Windows services may involve extensive writes too - check Black Viper for information on which can be disabled to streamline your system. If the majority of writes are for the Windows registry though, there's probably not much you can do to reduce them aside from disabling unneeded services.
Did your system hangs/registry corruption occur only after installing PrimoCache? If they were present before, that suggests an underlying cause (which your PrimoCache configuration may be exacerbating - disabling Deferred Writes would be a good idea in the interim).
As a short term measure to avoid having to re-install Windows, I'd suggest you install ERUNT (which will backup your registry every time you start Windows - you can then restore a backup via the Recovery Console).
In terms of limiting SSD writes, it may be a good idea to use software like Process Explorer or Process Hacker to see which processes are writing the most data - Process Monitor can then be used to identify the files accessed. While some things are obvious (moving the pagefile and temp folders to a ramdisk), it is less clear which programs log data the most. Once identified, these can be dealt with by moving the files/folders to a ramdisk and using Link Shell Extension to create links/junction points at the original locations - assuming the data doesn't need to be retained (if the data is important, then locating it on a non-SSD hard disk may be better).
Some Windows services may involve extensive writes too - check Black Viper for information on which can be disabled to streamline your system. If the majority of writes are for the Windows registry though, there's probably not much you can do to reduce them aside from disabling unneeded services.
Re: Registry Corruption
InquiringMind,
Thank you for your reply. I never had any problems with windows prior to using PrimoCache. I was investigating who is writing to the hard disk and there are 4 main processes..
1. Registry Hives
2. Windows Event Logs
3. Windows Update
4. Windows Indexing (Search)
There are also writes to the Temp folders as well as to Internet Explorer Cache. I moved Windows Events Logs, Windows Update folder, Windows Indexing, Internet Explorer Cache and The temp folder via Symbolic links to a regular Hard disk. If I use my computer normally without installing any software at the end of the day I have about 3-4 GB of writes to my SSD. Almost all of those writes are because of the continues writing of Windows Registry hives to the disk. If I use PrimoCache I have total 200 MB Writes/Day. Again if I disable defer writes I see no benefit of using this software. I am sure that many people who have an SSD will be interested in using this software because of the same reasons that I want to. I My windows install is fresh without too many programs, and I have this registry corruption every few days. I stopped using this software and I will not recommend it to anyone I know because there is something inherent in the algorithm which is corrupting the system. As you can see I received one response from "Support" and they did not respond again. I wonder if they tried to replicate the steps that I did in order to debug their program or they just ignored my case. If this is how they behave they definitely lost me as a customer and maybe others who are reading this topic.
Thanks again
Thank you for your reply. I never had any problems with windows prior to using PrimoCache. I was investigating who is writing to the hard disk and there are 4 main processes..
1. Registry Hives
2. Windows Event Logs
3. Windows Update
4. Windows Indexing (Search)
There are also writes to the Temp folders as well as to Internet Explorer Cache. I moved Windows Events Logs, Windows Update folder, Windows Indexing, Internet Explorer Cache and The temp folder via Symbolic links to a regular Hard disk. If I use my computer normally without installing any software at the end of the day I have about 3-4 GB of writes to my SSD. Almost all of those writes are because of the continues writing of Windows Registry hives to the disk. If I use PrimoCache I have total 200 MB Writes/Day. Again if I disable defer writes I see no benefit of using this software. I am sure that many people who have an SSD will be interested in using this software because of the same reasons that I want to. I My windows install is fresh without too many programs, and I have this registry corruption every few days. I stopped using this software and I will not recommend it to anyone I know because there is something inherent in the algorithm which is corrupting the system. As you can see I received one response from "Support" and they did not respond again. I wonder if they tried to replicate the steps that I did in order to debug their program or they just ignored my case. If this is how they behave they definitely lost me as a customer and maybe others who are reading this topic.
Thanks again
Re: Registry Corruption
Hi johnb,
I'm sorry for the late reply. All bug reports are tracked in our systems. So don't worry that we'll miss a case. However sometimes it is quite difficult for us to reproduce the issue. Usually we also need to find out which functions of the program may cause the issue. So we asked if your computer will work well without defer-write feature. If it works well, then we'll focus on the defer-write function. If not, we'll check other things.
I'm sorry for the late reply. All bug reports are tracked in our systems. So don't worry that we'll miss a case. However sometimes it is quite difficult for us to reproduce the issue. Usually we also need to find out which functions of the program may cause the issue. So we asked if your computer will work well without defer-write feature. If it works well, then we'll focus on the defer-write function. If not, we'll check other things.
Re: Registry Corruption
I will try using it without defer writes. I will contact you in about a week, if I see no hangs then it is possible that it is because of defer writes.
Thank you
Thank you
Re: Registry Corruption
Many thanks, johnb. Please keep same cache settings except defer-write.