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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: SymphonyMr on April 01, 2011, 08:12:36 PM

Title: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: SymphonyMr on April 01, 2011, 08:12:36 PM
While I was using Avast my system SSD drive got average 1-1,5 GB writes per day. That is with all the necessary settings for a system SSD drive: TRIM supported and on, index, prefetch, superfetch off, pagefile, browser cache, temp on other drive etc. SSDLife application showed that the brand new drive will last for a year. After two months usage I have installed another antivirus application (this was a month ago) for test, and since then my writes went down to average 200-300 MB per day. You should check this out. As I remember Avast caches some results for faster checking, maybe that part worth a look.
Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: DavidR on April 01, 2011, 08:44:33 PM
If you are using an SSD as your primary drive then I would be looking at changing the environment variables to that your windows\temp folder isn't the temp location, but something like a location on your secondary drive, e.g. D:\Temp, etc. that way avast won't be using c:\windows\temp for it's temporary unpack area _avast5_ or _avast_ location.

I believe you can also change the location of your documents and settings/ProgramData locations. You may also be able to change the location that programs are installed, you could try a google search for something like, optimising your Windows 7 for using an SSD and see what that brings (assums you are using win7). http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=optimising+your+Windows+7+for+using+an+SSD (http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=optimising+your+Windows+7+for+using+an+SSD)

I would have considered installing avast on your secondary drive, that however wouldn't change the fact that it would still use c:\windows\temp\_avast5_ to unpack files for scanning as it uses what you have set for the Temp folder in your environment variables. But this would mean the creation of new folders for virus definition updates average twice a day wouldn't be on the SSD.
Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: igor on April 01, 2011, 09:05:48 PM
I kinda doubt that those 1.5GB would be the virus definitions or unpacking archives (unless you're running on-demand scans every day).
But maybe(?) WebShield could generate some traffic, if you browse a lot...

Changing the TEMP folder would be worth a try (if you have a different drive, of course).
Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: DavidR on April 01, 2011, 09:12:17 PM
I don't either, but for each new VPS update there is a new 50MBish folder created and over time would mean a lot of writes and deleted. It was just a thought on moving avast completely to a secondary HDD to reduce overall writes to the SDD.
Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: SymphonyMr on April 01, 2011, 09:30:45 PM
My temp is and was on an another drive, as I said in the post before. The environment variables, both TMP and TEMP are and were set onto another drive.

On SSD-s the 1 GB written data doesn't mean that exactly 1GB was written to disk. If 4KB is the smallest size that an SSD can handle, then even a 1Byte write results a 4KB write onto the disk. Also a 2*1 Byte write into the same 4MB file but on different places can result 8KB or more data actually written to the disk.

SSD needs some different handling. Example I couldn't find any info on this but I'm yet to see a cache file in Firefox's Cache folder which is less then 3KB size (real size). Maybe this is the reason.
Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: igor on April 01, 2011, 09:37:24 PM
Both your user's TEMP and system's TEMP?
Except for the virus database updates, there shouldn't be much writing on the system drive. I mean, the virus database updates could do a couple of hundreds of megabytes, but 1GB... seems too much to me.

Did you run any on-demand scans regularly, or was it basically just the real-time protection?
Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: SymphonyMr on April 01, 2011, 09:45:53 PM
Yes, temps were directed onto another drive, also SSD Tweker was used with all the suggested settings.

No, I didn't run on-demand scans, not even once, just using the real-time protection and WebShield.
Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: doktornotor on April 02, 2011, 12:11:54 AM
Ah, my favorite topic. SSD -> fail.  ::)
Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: Nesivos on April 02, 2011, 12:55:48 AM
I don't think that you stated what kind of SSD you have.

It sounds like you must have a very old SSD drive because Samsung for one now rates their SSDs at

Quote
System reliability    1 million hours MTBF

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/SSD/Products_Client_SSD.html (http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/SSD/Products_Client_SSD.html)

Seagate has just announced two SSD's with a reliability of 2 million hours MTBF

http://www.infostor.com/disk-arrays/disk-drives/seagate-announces-two-ssds-three-hdds.html (http://www.infostor.com/disk-arrays/disk-drives/seagate-announces-two-ssds-three-hdds.html)



The Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

has a MTBF    1,200,000 hours

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148348

Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: doktornotor on April 02, 2011, 01:06:31 AM
MTBF has nothing to do with the issue at hand. The technology is broken by design, you can render SSD drives unusable in a matter of days.
Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: Nesivos on April 02, 2011, 01:09:12 AM
MTBF has nothing to do with the issue at hand. The technology is broken by design, you can render SSD drives unusable in a matter of days.

You can render anything unusable in a matter of days.

Based upon my experience with companies that manufacture SSDs I stand by what I posted.

cheers.

Title: Re: Avast seems to be bad for SSD sytem drive
Post by: doktornotor on April 02, 2011, 01:11:44 AM
Yeah, so send me your SSD and I will send you a brick after weekend. You cannot render anything unusable merely by using it for the purpose it was designed for, at least not in days.