[SOLVED] Is fast startup useless these days?

[Jacob 51]

With SSDs computers boots in the same time with fast startup enabled and disabled. There's hardly any noticable difference of some milliseconds. So, when a lot of people are using SSDs as their boot drives, why is it "Recommended" in the power settings to use fast startup?

What are the possible cons of using fast startup?

 

[lvt]

If you use SSD as boot drive and you found it fast enough, you can turn it off.

That option still exists because we can't assume that everybody has SSD.

 

[Colif]

Its default in win 10 as 6 years ago when it was released there were more PC with hdd and win 10 was open to any PC that could run it. Win 8 introduced the feature so it was even more for same reason, 2011 almost all PC had hdd as C drive.

I don't get why its still default in win 11, how many versions will have it before its decided it doesn't really help the majority. I don't know how many PC made that are compatible with win 11 and still come with just hdd, I guess there would be a few but majority would have an ssd you would think.

It only helps people with hdd, if you have anything else (ssd, nvme) you don't need it, it won't help as they are fast enough to not benefit from it.


One Con of fast startup is if you unplug PC with it on and fiddle with the internals of PC, it can mess up windows. Since fast startup saves files into both ram and hiberfil.sys on shutdown, you can corrupt files by unplugging PC. I have helped people who it happened to.

Another one is, even though its been around since 2011, not all drivers work with it well and it can cause errors on startup. On older PC I generally tell people to disable it for that reason

I generally have it off even on PC with hdd, as mums PC is unplugged more often than not, and I don't want to deal with corrupted files on her PC. It was turned off on my PC almost right away.

 

[JWNoctis]

It's still understandable in that budget PC's are still being shipped with HDD alone, and leaving it on will not trouble most users, except for wasting some disk space and a bit of SSD write life most users won't run out of during the useful life of their computer.

But thanks for reminding me to turn it off on mine.

 

[Jacob 51]

Its default in win 10 as 6 years ago when it was released there were more PC with hdd and win 10 was open to any PC that could run it. Win 8 introduced the feature so it was even more for same reason, 2011 almost all PC had hdd as C drive.

I don't get why its still default in win 11, how many versions will have it before its decided it doesn't really help the majority. I don't know how many PC made that are compatible with win 11 and still come with just hdd, I guess there would be a few but majority would have an ssd you would think.

It only helps people with hdd, if you have anything else (ssd, nvme) you don't need it, it won't help as they are fast enough to not benefit from it.


One Con of fast startup is if you unplug PC with it on and fiddle with the internals of PC, it can mess up windows. Since fast startup saves files into both ram and hiberfil.sys on shutdown, you can corrupt files by unplugging PC. I have helped people who it happened to.

Another one is, even though its been around since 2011, not all drivers work with it well and it can cause errors on startup. On older PC I generally tell people to disable it for that reason

I generally have it off even on PC with hdd, as mums PC is unplugged more often than not, and I don't want to deal with corrupted files on her PC. It was turned off on my PC almost right away.

Sooooo, long story short, fast startup can cause damage and corruption to files?

 

[Colif]

under certain conditions. Most of the time its fine on systems its needed on.

i unplug My pc any time there are storms around so being able to do that without worrying about damaging windows is why I have it off. Apart from not needing it anyway.

 

[SkyNetRising]

So, when a lot of people are using SSDs as their boot drives, why is it "Recommended" in the power settings to use fast startup?
What are the possible cons of using fast startup?

On systems with SSD it's NOT recommended to have fast startup enabled.

Cons of fast startup are-

excessive writes to SSD. This is a problem, since SSDs have finite writes available;​

increased chances of data corruption.​

 

[JWNoctis]

On systems with SSD it's NOT recommended to have fast startup enabled.

Cons of fast startup are-

excessive writes to SSD. This is a problem, since SSDs have finite writes available;​

increased chances of data corruption.​

Not really!

Assuming a very generous 16GB written to disk on each hibernation/fast startup shutdown and 2 of those each day, in 5 years this alone would have written about 57TB of data, which would be about 1/3 to less than 1/10 of the rated write lifespan of most consumer SSD's, largely depending on size.

Wasteful, but not quite disastrous by itself.

Data corruption from what's essentially an incomplete shutdown is still a risk best avoided, though.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Not really!
Assuming a very generous 16GB written to disk on each hibernation/fast startup shutdown and 2 of those each day, in 5 years this alone would have written about 57TB of data, which would be about 1/3 to less than 1/10 of the rated write lifespan of most consumer SSD's, largely depending on size.
Wasteful, but not quite disastrous by itself.

Those extra writes doesn't matter until your SSD fails.
When it already has happened, then you wish you were more gentle to it and cared a bit more to limit unnecessary writes.

SSDs not always live up to their TBW ratings.

 

[Jacob 51]

So, after disabling the fast startup, is there a need of deleting the hyberfile.sys it created? Or anything else need to be deleted?

 

[Colif]

not unless you need the space.

 

[SkyNetRising]

So, after disabling the fast startup, is there a need of deleting the hyberfile.sys it created? Or anything else need to be deleted?

Disable hibernation. Hiberfile gets deleted automatically then.

 

[hotaru.hino]

The only time I could see fast startup being useful is if you have an entry-level system and you do perform shutdowns on it. Entry level being something like <$500 laptop or other system. Since Fast Startup saves off the state of the OS basically when nobody's logged in (which supposedly is in a similar state as if it was just booted), the computer doesn't have to go through the initialization process. How fast that initialization process goes is primarily determined by CPU performance.

Otherwise I don't see a need for it even on a system that's entry level. In my case, I rarely do a "Shutdown" anyway.