Another solution for SSD: EWF?

Before I commit the time to do this mod, could someone please explain the reasons I might not want to do this mod? I'm assuming there are some.

Z

 

I enabled this mod using the scripts for the registry entry, and when I try entering ewfmgr c: I receive the following error:

Failed getting protected volume configuration with error 1.
Incorrect function

I have confirmed that my disk(0), etc information is correct, and googling hasn't helped much. I am still able to write to my SSD. If anyone can assist, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Brandon, try Idq steps in the earlier posts... ...it shud work..

 

zk2008, it's worth it, speed is ridiculously fast, but downfall is that if you install or setup something in windows, you need to run the commit script so that it saves for next session. Other then this, Windows is blazingly fast.

 

I was getting the exact same error when I tried it out too.

And I did follow the steps from this thread. No idea what the problem may be, the error message is a bit cryptic and uninformative, hehehe.

 

Ok, figured it out. The .reg files that are posted do not work 100%. You have to go through the registry entries and edit them manually. Once entered properly, it works just fine, and the speed boost is absolutely unreal. Simply go through iDq's steps one by one in your registry, and it's beutiful.

 

...good for you...and now enjoy yr AAO...

 

this worked great for me! the speed is amazing
after geting everything setup i followed this guide to make my sd card a local disk

http://www.lancelhoff.com/2008/06/19/ma ... ocal-disk/

then i used TweakUI to move my documents, desktop and favorites folders to my sd card i can now save files make folders and add favorites without the need to commit the changes.

 

For anyone still having trouble with the registry editing, I just used the whole thing from the blog post and it works instantly

EDIT: EWF plays nice with Truecrypt too! Yay How freaking cool is that 0b?!?!

 

Would EWF work if you installed a ZIF HDD or CF in your AA1, or on a 120GB model? The ATTO disk benchmark for EWF installed on the SSD posted previously was a write speed of over 600MB/sec, whereas a ZIF drive and the Transcend 300x CF write speeds were only 34MB/sec.

Comments?

 

Rocklord, it shud work flawlessly...but in yr case with the CF mod it shud solve most of yr stalling write issue. IMHO, this EWF thing is good for those who do not intend to do CF/HDD mod and its just another alternative to the CF/HDD upgrade.

For my case, mine is an Intel SSD, with a 3 year full warranty and I like my cheap AA0 to be a durable netbook, shared with kids and wife. It has to be ruggard !! So I do not wish to have the hdd worries or warranty void issue.

 

the very meaning of this EWF is to not use the disk but instead create a virtual disk in your RAM running everything from there (at least this is how I've understood it). This is what makes the speeds so incredible. changing out the SSD is another way around the problem with slowups, but if you do that it won't be necessary to use EWF.

EDIT: I missed that an answer was already posted

 

I've done some more study of this EWF stuff.
It doesn't actually create a "RAM Disk" - it simply buffers the writes to the flash, and stores them in memory. XP (and Vista) write to the "drive" all the time, and with the flash module, writes preempt reads (and are slow), so it kills read performance too. The reason the benchmark looks so good with EWF is that it writes data to the drive and then reads it over and over. Since it wrote the stuff to RAM, it gets read from the RAM too. Real-world performance isn't sped up that much.

As far as managing it, it isn't necessary at all to use the "Group Policies" thing to install a shutdown script. The EWF driver "Does its thing" on shut down all by itself. You just have to tell it what you'd like it to do.

EWFMgr does that. Normal commands are things like:
-Enable: Sets the pending command so that the next time the system restarts, EWF is enabled.
-Disable: The opposite of Enable.
-Commit: Sets the pending command so the next time the system shuts down, the EWF cash gets written to the flash drive.
-CommitandDisable: Combines the Commit and Disable commands. Needed because there's only one "pending command".
-CommitandDisable -Live: Does the commit and disable functions right now. Flushes the buffers to the flash memory, and leaves the EWF disabled until the next reboot. It will still be disabled when it reboots too, if you don't follow this command with an "-enable".
-NoCmd: Clears the pending command. Sounds useless at first, but I'll explain in a moment why it isn't.

So - the post a couple pages back suggested using a shutdown script with:
ewfmgr c: -commitanddisable -live
ewfmgr c: -enable
This works, but what it's doing is saving the buffer, disabling the EWF, and then telling the system to re-enable it when it restarts. But since it's just about to shut down anyway, this isn't necessary.

What I've done instead is add the following command to the "Run" registry key. (It could go in the startup folder instead.): EWFMgr C: -Commit

What this does is set the pending command to "Commit". That means whenenever the system is shut down, it flushes the EWF buffer first. It doesn't need a disable or enable because it remains enabled from the last time. All the startup command does is tell it what to do when it shuts down.

Now the use of the NoCmd. I've also created a little batch file and a start menu shortcut for it with the following:
EWFMgr C: -NoCmd

I named this "DiscardEWF". What it does is clear out the "-Commit" pending-command that automatically gets set on Startup. If I do something to my configuration (get a spyware infection or something) that I don't want to save, I can run that, and then shut down. Since the "Commit" command is erased, it just shuts down without saving the buffer.

Otherwise, when the machine shuts down, the exit screen sits on "saving settings" for 20 or 30 seconds longer than it used to, before it powers off.

 

Thanks a lot for explaining this in more detail, made it easier for me to understand. with your script I'm thinking of trying this out, can't really see any disadvantage of using it!

 

Only disadvantage is that if you hold the power button for 7 seconds (not that difficult to do accidentally), you'll kill the power without telling it to shut down- and you'll lose any changes that you might have tried to make to the C drive. Or, if it locks up (not unheard of , the same thing could happen. You're at more risk of data loss this way. If you do it, you should DEFINITELY stick a decent size SDHC card in the left slot and move your "My documents" structure to it. (In fact, it's apparently possible to move your "documents and settings" main user directory to the D drive, although I haven't figured it out yet.) That way, you won't lose hours of work editing word documents or something if the worst happens.

 

another happy ewf user. i just got my aao about 2 day ago and am up and running with xp injected FAST. i installed ewf before i put my ram upgrade in(and internal BT ) and with 512mb of ram and no page file i was running into trouble quick. with 1.5gb of memory, its a dream. thx for the help.

 

Great tip! This is running really well.

One question though -- I have this set up so it's enabled on my c: drive, and "ewfmgr c: -commit" is in the run key and on shutdown it commits the changes. Is there a way to force a commit while the system is running, yet still keep EWF enabled and have it do the default commit? I'd like to set up a batch file to force a commit without reboot for situations where I've installed some software and want to save state before continuing.

It seems like a batch file that does "-commitanddisable -live" then "-enable" then "-commit" may work, but I noticed that it leaves ewf on that drive in the "disabled" state.

Will play with this a bit more to see if I can figure it out myself, but I figured someone may have already sorted this out as well. Again, thanks for the excellent thread!

 

Another tip for those who are going to use EWF (and I highly recommend it -- the speed is awesome!): Even if you have 1.5GB of RAM, it's easy to run out of space when doing things like a large windows update session. I hit issues after installing Office and going back to windows update and I had a total of about 400MB of updates (one was a 200-300MB Office service pack). I couldn't figure out what the problem was at first, because it'd download the largest file (that service pack) and then hang and I couldn't launch task manager or anything.

Then of course it hit me that it just downloaded that 400MB file, which really went into RAM because of EWF, then decompressed that package, also going into RAM, etc. So I was out of memory. I rebooted, did a -commitanddisable -live, then ran it again and let it sit. No problems at all.

So yeah, don't forget that until you reboot, anything you download to your C: drive is really taking up space in RAM, so large downloads should either go to your SD card directly or you'll want to do a commit yourself to free up the memory.

 

From what I can tell, the answer is No. The only way to do an immediate commit is with the CommitAndDisable -Live command. (This is the only command the "-Live" option is available for.) Unfortunately, the "disable" part is done "live" as well, leaving the cache disabled. But the "-enable" command is put in the "pending command buffer", not executed immediately. If you try to follow that with another "-commit", the "commit" will replace the "-enable" part, leaving the EWF disabled. It won't actually commit again either, because the prior "disable" caused it to stop buffering things anyway.

 

I can see one post where someone is still using the stock 512Mb model but is it really viable with only 512Mb. I haven't upgrade the memory yet and if this does work giving a good speed boost I may not bother with upgrading the memory. My AA1 is only my go-anywhere machine so I don't want to start spending on upgrades if I can help it.

Thanks.