# Is momentum cache and overprovisioning worth on my ssd?



## Vendor (Mar 2, 2021)

so i have crucial bx500 120gb, i want to improve it's performance but i'm already very satisfied with it how snappy my system became ever since moving on from a 7200rpm hdd as boot drive. I see crucial storage executive seems to be a very useful tool for optimizing and maintaining your ssd but is it really worth it? some people say they get like ssd speed after enabling momentum cache

but even then nvme and sata ssd gamre load times are quite similar so i don't really think it's worth tinkering around, also because i only keep my os and daily / basic apps on my drive so it's hardly utilizing 21% of storage space (did a clean install of 1909 last night). For most stuff nvme speeds seem to be a gimmick unless you are doing some really large file transfers and that is definitely not the case with me, can someone shed some light?


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## Zach_01 (Mar 2, 2021)

Vendor said:


> so i have crucial bx500 120gb, i want to improve it's performance but i'm already very satisfied with it how snappy my system became ever since moving on from a 7200rpm hdd as boot drive. I see crucial storage executive seems to be a very useful tool for optimizing and maintaining your ssd but is it really worth it? *some people say they get like ssd speed after enabling momentum cache*
> 
> but even then nvme and sata ssd gamre load times are quite similar so i don't really think it's worth tinkering around, also because i only keep my os and daily / basic apps on my drive so it's hardly utilizing 21% of storage space (did a clean install of 1909 last night). For most stuff nvme speeds seem to be a gimmick unless you are doing some really large file transfers and that is definitely not the case with me, can someone shed some light?


You maybe want to say NVMe like speed, because its already an SSD...
And what ever optimization can a software do on a SATA SSD cannot ever make it NVMe SSD with those 2, 3, or 4000+MB/s sequential transfers.
You're right tho, on typical daily usage there is no real difference between a SATA and NVMe SSD drives. Opening apps, loading games...


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## tabascosauz (Mar 2, 2021)

Vendor said:


> so i have crucial bx500 120gb, i want to improve it's performance but i'm already very satisfied with it how snappy my system became ever since moving on from a 7200rpm hdd as boot drive. I see crucial storage executive seems to be a very useful tool for optimizing and maintaining your ssd but is it really worth it? some people say they get like ssd speed after enabling momentum cache
> 
> but even then nvme and sata ssd gamre load times are quite similar so i don't really think it's worth tinkering around, also because i only keep my os and daily / basic apps on my drive so it's hardly utilizing 21% of storage space (did a clean install of 1909 last night). For most stuff nvme speeds seem to be a gimmick unless you are doing some really large file transfers and that is definitely not the case with me, can someone shed some light?



Momentum Cache is just another RAM cache gimmick, like Samsung RAPID. NVMes are already pretty fast at sequentials these days, so these kinds of tech are more a relic of the SATA days. It's basically just to soothe one's ego by boasting unrealistically high seq benchmark speeds.

It is your SSD so it's yours to play around with, but knowing that it is a RAM cache you had better be sure you're never going to be unexpectedly pulling the plug on your computer, or that you have a UPS to protect you from brown/blackouts.

Even your regular old Windows installation will rack up disk and filesystem errors over time from power loss , so you can probably imagine what the stakes are like for a RAM cached boot drive.

As for overprovisioning, it's already a tiny drive. Keep only the essentials on that drive, don't fill it up past 70-80%, don't use the drive for unnecessary writes, and you'll be fine.


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## Zach_01 (Mar 2, 2021)

The Overprovisioning is not a performance enhancer feature, but more of a preserving feature. Make the SSD last a little longer after its cells start to worn out. Samsungs typically have a 10% space reserved for overprovisioning. I dont know what momentum cache does, but I suspect its a performance tric that stores some data on a temporary fast(er) space for quick access.


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## Athlonite (Mar 2, 2021)

Momentum caches is the same thing as samsungs Rapid all it does is use up some of your ram to copy over regularly used files to system ram making for faster reading as they're already cached in ram


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