Windows 10: Basic SATA disk or SSD for OS?

Windows 10 x64 Pro, v1803, OS build 17134.165.
OS disk: WDC WD10EZEX-08M2NA0, basic internal SATA, 1Tb, 56% full.

I often find, for the first 15-30 minutes after startup, that the operating system disk is running at 100% active (from Task Mgr), with average response times of well over 100 ms.
Not surprisingly, this results in a poor response time for other active processes, while this situation pertains.

I have seen from Resource Monitor and Task Mgr, that two unavoidably vital processes run concurrently at this time; coreServiceShell.exe of Trend Micro Maximum Security, and iCloudDrive.exe, both of which put a heavy load (read and write) on the OS disk when running. After a time, both processes finish the work they're doing, and quieten down. System performance then returns to its usual perky self.

I have thought of moving the \User folders to another disk (which appear to be the main focus for these processes), perhaps an external USB disk (I have two already, for backup purposes), but I don't know how to do that without throwing Windows into confusion. I don't know if that is even possible.

Another thought I've had, having seen a Windows 10 x64 Pro laptop running from a 1Tb SSD, and the way it boots from cold in less than 10 seconds (I wish I could do that!), is to buy a 1Tb internal SATA SSD (not cheap), clone the contents of the current system disk onto it, then make it the boot disk. I have another problem there, since using this system, which was an upgrade using a new motherboard; I have never managed to interrupt the startup sequence and gain access to the BIOS. I've used what is supposed to be the correct key input to do this (<escape> if memory serves), but it seems either not to work, or I am consistently mis-timing it.

Can anyone tell me if this would be an effective plan to improve performance, or if might there be gotchas that would come back and bite me. Even if this upgrade can be done without difficulty, I have to decide whether the cost of buying a 1Tb SSD is worth the benefit.

BTW, I forgot to mention; the OS disk is defragmented and optimised about once a week.

:)

 

Error connecting SATA disk to Windows 10 using a SATA to USB harness

Tried running troubleshooter and restart as you suggested. I cannot allocate a Drive letter. Device Manager sees the device and driver ok. Says ASMT 2105 and says device is working properly. If I use Disk Manager it sees the device but says Dynamic Invalid.
It won't let me reactivate as it says it can't do this on an invalid Disk Pack. If I go to use Convert to Basic Disk it says I will loose data. This disk was the Disk 0 bootable disk for Windows 7. So it will have a boot sector and and a reserved section
etc. Then 2 main partitions. The first was the old partition mounted on C: as the OS 'disk'. The second partition was where I put some other data. I can't allocate a drive letter to this disk as I can't see any partitions. The driver is loading Ok.
But I am just not seeing this disk via the USB connection via the SATA cradle. Thanks for the suggestions but they don't solve the problem. The idea of the SATA saddle is so that I can connect SATA disks is necessary. I have looked in the Event Log but
cannot see anything obvisous. It also keep trying to do something with this disk/saddle. So something comes up and then disappears.

 

Microsoft Drive Optimizer mistakenly lists SATA hard disk drive as SSD and will not defragment the drive

HP Pavilion p6754y Desktop PC was upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7.

The Device Manager shows the boot C:\ drive as:

Disk: ST310005 28AS SATA Disk Device

Disk Driver: Microsoft 10.0.10240.16384

Disk Driver Date: 6/21/2006

The disk is the original Segate 1 TB disk that came new in the HP PC.

In Windows 7 the disk could be defragmented using the standard steps of:

Select C:\ disk > Properties > Tools > Optimize Drives > Select (C Hard disk drive > Optimize

In Windows 10 the disk can NOT be manually Optimized because it is identified as SSD:

Select C:\ disk > Properties > Tools > Optimize Drives > Select OS (C Solid state drive



Is this a problem with the Microsoft program dfrgui.exe ?

Here is what the diskpart command shows:

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---

Disk 0 Online 931 GB 0 B

Disk 1 No Media 0 B 0 B

Disk 2 No Media 0 B 0 B

Disk 3 No Media 0 B 0 B

Disk 4 No Media 0 B 0 B

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> detail disk

ST310005 28AS SATA Disk Device

Disk ID: C562DE02

Type : SATA

Status : Online

Path : 0

Target : 0

LUN ID : 0

Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1100)#ATA(C00T00L00)

Current Read-only State : No

Read-only : No

Boot Disk : Yes

Pagefile Disk : Yes

Hibernation File Disk : No

Crashdump Disk : Yes

Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------

Volume 1 SYSTEM NTFS Partition 100 MB Healthy System

Volume 2 C OS NTFS Partition 918 GB Healthy Boot

Volume 3 D HP_RECOVERY NTFS Partition 12 GB Healthy

Volume 4 NTFS Partition 450 MB Healthy Hidden

How do I get this drive identity corrected in the disk properties so that it can be optimized ?

 

Microsoft Drive Optimizer mistakenly lists SATA hard disk drive as SSD and will not defragment the drive

It sure looks like a Windows 10 bug. The OS knows it is a SATA disk drive but the disk properties > defrag shows it as SDD which is wrong. The only problem this has caused is not being able to run Windows defrag on the disk. So - I downloaded a FREE defrag
program and run it to clean up the disk.

I suggest using either of these 2 defrag programs:

www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag

www.piriform.com/defraggler

Dave