Here Comes Superfetch for the Hybrid-Hard Drive

We revisit Windows Vista anew with its continuing buzz on how it will incorporate flash memory in the OS. In the past we looked at the promise of Readyboost and how it can speed up your system by doubling as an extra RAM provider. Now we will focus our sights on its sister technology, Superfetch.

TechEd 2006 highlighted the presentation of Windows Vista and one of the most intriguing part was when it was shown that through Superfetch, applications load faster after continues use.

"...a battery of four applications were loaded in sequence: Outlook first, followed by OneNote, PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat. On an ordinary HP notebook computer, with a 2 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM, the sequence of apps took 32.6 seconds of load time. With SuperFetch turned on, load time immediately improved to 26.5 seconds - a boost of 18.7%."

"Frankly, that's not too impressive. But as Matt Ayers explained, SuperFetch is learning from its user about the patterns of hard disk pages it tends to load."

The load time after such repeated trials were improved by 206%! You begin to wonder if coupled with ReadyBoost, the load times will even be more dramatic.

This still however begs the question on how the market will receive a more expensive machine since the hybrid-hard drives will definitely jack up prices. Will the speed really be that significant for the market to try this out and again the lingering concerns as well on the ability of flash memory to last the distance.

Read More About Superfetch: Microsoft details performance of Vista's SuperFetch, ReadyDrive

Technorati tags: Flash Memory / Hybrid Hard Drive / Windows Vista / Superfetch / ReadyBoost / ReadyDrive