Performance Tuning Tips

You increase performance by eliminating bottlenecks in your system, starting with the slowest component, which is usually the hard drive.

  • Install adequate RAM

    At least 1 GB for most people. This will allow the operating system to avoid using the hard drive as virtual memory.

  • Install a faster hard drive

    At least 10,000 RPM for normal hard drives and 7,200 RPM for laptop hard drives. Or get a few hard drives and setup RAID. The fastest storage you can get is some form of flash memory or solid state drive. These usually have smaller capacity because they are very expensive. As a compromise, vendors have created hybrid drives, it is a regular hard drive with a relatively larger (e.g. 1 GB) non-volatile flash memory cache.

  • Install adequate disk storage

    Don't allow your hard drive get too full or it will start to trash around looking for empty spaces.

  • Defragment your hard drive regularly

    Some file systems like Windows NTFS need to be defragmented regularly to reclaim disk performance.

  • Prune your list of programs that start automatically during boot time

    In Windows, there are three places where you can prune off unwanted programs:
    1. The registry key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\
      Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
    2. The "Startup" menu under start -> All Programs -> Startup
    3. In the "Services" control panel under start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services

  • Use hibernate instead of shutting down

    When you wake up from hibernate, you don't have to wait for all your start up programs to load.

  • Uninstall bloatware

    Uninstall bloatware such as Norton's that comes bundled with you new computer. If necessary, replace it with more agile programs such as AVG etc.
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