Portable or Install, and SSD wear

General discussion related to "Everything".
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HMR
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2017 9:30 am

Portable or Install, and SSD wear

Post by HMR »

Hello,
Would like to ask couple of questions

1. Is there any advantage of installing Everything, instead of using it's portable version? Speed, more precise search results, something else maybe?
I've seen this question on forum but it has no reply..

2. I have my Win7 system on SSD now, so try to reduce that SSD wear everywhere talk about.
I have read this forum on that and found advices to uncheck Options- NTFS - Enable UNS Journal.
But if I uncheck it, I cannot search on that drive anymore? So that's probably not an option?
Maybe, I should uncheck the "Monitor changes" option, instead?
Also, should I disable Windows indexing option, for hard drives, as well as Windows Search service? Will that help, to prevent unnecessary disk access, and won't that interfere with Everything performance?

Thanks!!
void
Developer
Posts: 16753
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: Portable or Install, and SSD wear

Post by void »

1. Is there any advantage of installing Everything, instead of using it's portable version? Speed, more precise search results, something else maybe?
I've seen this question on forum but it has no reply..
The performance will be the same.

The Everything.exe from the installer is the same Everything.exe in the portable version.
All the options in the installer are available in the portable version from Tools -> Options -> General.

The installer will install the Everything service, desktop shortcuts, efu file association and start menu shortcuts by default.
The portable version does not modify the system by default.

There is a small over head with the Everything service. However, it should not be noticeable.
If you choose to not install the Everything service, you will need to run Everything as administrator to index NTFS volumes.
2. I have my Win7 system on SSD now, so try to reduce that SSD wear everywhere talk about.
I have read this forum on that and found advices to uncheck Options- NTFS - Enable UNS Journal.
But if I uncheck it, I cannot search on that drive anymore? So that's probably not an option?
You will need Everything 1.4 to index a NTFS volume without a USN Journal.

I would recommend leaving the USN Journal enabled on SSDs:
Pros: Improved file system recovery in case of a crash.
Cons: very small wear on disk, on modern SSDs this would be of no concern.
Maybe, I should uncheck the "Monitor changes" option, instead?
Monitoring changes has no wear on the disk.
Monitor changes simply reads the USN Journal.
Also, should I disable Windows indexing option, for hard drives, as well as Windows Search service? Will that help, to prevent unnecessary disk access, and won't that interfere with Everything performance?
Yes, disabling Windows indexing will improve system performance.
There is very little SSD wear from using Windows indexing, it would be mostly read-only.

Some other notes:
Avoid defragging SSDs. Windows disables defragging for SSDs by default.
Keep plenty of free space so empty sectors can be reused.
The minimum size written to a SSD is usually 1MB, so writing lots of small files can cause more wear than you would think.

Most modern SSDs have support for 1PB+ of total bytes written. Unless you are writing more than 1TB+ a day I wouldn't worry about SSD wear. Make backups of important data often.
HMR
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2017 9:30 am

Re: Portable or Install, and SSD wear

Post by HMR »

What you mean by "over head"? That Everything service may slow the system down, or, what would it do?
The service uses slightly more ram roughly an additional 1MB.
The service uses slightly more CPU, it should not be noticeable. It should not cause any system slow down.
Is it a system (windows) crash?
When the system does not shutdown correctly.
NTFS volumes will be marked as 'dirty'.
The USN Journal is used to bring NTFS volumes back to a 'clean' state.
And file system recovery is Windows recovery, by built-in Windows recovery app?
The USN Journal and NTFS volumes are managed by the NTFS driver, not the Windows recovery app.
So that USN has something to do not only with Everything app, but with entire OS as well?
Yes, the USN Journal is part of the OS / NTFS driver.
The USN Journal is not a part of Everything.



Try leaving Everything with the default settings, USN Journal enabled and monitoring enabled.
Check the CPU usage and RAM usage of Everything from the Task Manager.
If you find Everything is using too much ram or CPU, try disabling monitoring for all NTFS volumes:
  • In Everything, from the Tools menu, click Options.
  • Click the NTFS tab.
  • For each NTFS volume:
    • Uncheck Monitor changes.
  • Click OK.
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