Big problem, Outlook 2007 and Solid State Disks (SSD)

[Mixing Solutions Ltd]

I've a user with a Dell laptop that was purchased with a 64GB Samsung SSD,
and ever since getting the laptop at the start of 2008 he's had a severe
problem with it where the laptop regularly hangs for 30 seconds or so. The
cause of the problem has been narrowed down to Outlook 2007 ! (after many
months and plenty of research/testing).

Recently whilst conducting more reasearch on this I came across the
following...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940226

.... so I now have hard evidence that there is an issue with Outlook 2007 and
SSD's.

OK, now how the heck do I find out what Microsoft are actualy doing to try
and fix this issue ?. I doubt they will let me discuss this with the 'Outlook
Product Team' ?, also how far away could the fix be as if it's months away
I'm going to have to argue with Dell to get the SSD swapped over with a
standard HDD as I very much they even know about this problem

Thanks.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Call Microsoft and find out. They could have a BETA Hotfix available for you
or they could use your feedback to come up with a solution faster. The more
info about an issue, the easier it could be to troubleshoot it and come to a
solution. Also knowing how many people are affected by the issue could
increase the priority of the issue.

 

[Mixing Solutions Ltd]

I would love to but to talk to someone at Microsoft I'd have log a support
call with them which is chargeable, I'm not aware of a means of contacting
them which is free ?.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Discussing or reporting bugs and security issues is free of charge. Also
when you ask support for an issue that appears to be a bug, support costs
are weaved afterwards.

 

[Mixing Solutions Ltd]

Well, I contacted Microsoft and mentioned the article below, the bottom line
was that to take this any further I have to log a support call costing
£195.00 GBP !. This is without any guarantee of a fix, so far I can see the
t's and c's relating to support calls anywhere but I'll find them out first.

I was polite on the telephone as the member of call centre staff is just
doing their job.

I'm very annoyed though in that the article below states that this is a
known issue without a fix and that the the product team are working on it.
I'd like to think that they would jump at the chance to take a look at this
laptop as it's further evidence of the issue and they could use it to work
towards a fix for all users.

I'm going to see if there's a way of containg them without having to log a
support call but I doubt that there is ?...

 

[D D]

I developed these tricks for a eee PC 1000. It should work for XP, Vista, and Outlook 2003 / 2007.

Read it here:

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=44736

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=44928


The gist is XP / Vista were architectured for very small amounts of DRAM, and relatively slow hard drives.

Techniques like caching, prefetch, etc. are all intended to optimize for mechanical hard drives.

SSDs basically read samll, random files fast, (with out the need for regular defrag), but write very slowly especially if the data is in large blocks (which means it has to erase an entire block just to write a file that may take only 1% of the size of the block).

A mechanical hard drive can write 2 bytes and ignore the rest of the space in an 8k block. An SSD has to erase an entire 8k block just to write 2 bytes.

Programs like Outlook that writes lots of small files are a killer.

So the fix is real simple --- use very small sized clusters, 512k in my case, and then turn off a lot of unnecessary disk activity that an SSD do not need, like NT Journaling, writing the date and time of last access, etc.

Also, do not use SSD for a page file if at all possible --- too much writes.

Because SSDs have a potential failure mode where the entire block can fail (or drive) rather than a hard drive's more forgiving partial failure, I also recommend that you backup the Outlook pst or ost files to an entirely different drive regularly.

Good luck.

 

[D]

developed these tricks for a eee PC 1000. It should work for XP, Vista,
and Outlook 2003 / 2007.



Read it here:



http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=44736



http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=44928





The gist is XP / Vista were architectured for very small amounts of DRAM,
and relatively slow hard drives.



Techniques like caching, prefetch, etc. are all intended to optimize for
mechanical hard drives.



SSDs basically read samll, random files fast, (with out the need for regular
defrag), but write very slowly especially if the data is in large blocks
(which means it has to erase an entire block just to write a file that may
take only 1% of the size of the block).



A mechanical hard drive can write 2 bytes and ignore the rest of the space
in an 8k block. An SSD has to erase an entire 8k block just to write 2 bytes.



Programs like Outlook that writes lots of small files are a killer.



So the fix is real simple --- use very small sized clusters, 512k in my
case, and then turn off a lot of unnecessary disk activity that an SSD do not
need, like NT Journaling, writing the date and time of last access, etc.



Also, do not use SSD for a page file if at all possible --- too much writes.



Because SSDs have a potential failure mode where the entire block can fail
(or drive) rather than a hard drive's more forgiving partial failure, I also
recommend that you backup the Outlook pst or ost files to an entirely
different drive regularly.

These solutions fix the problem of slow reads of the in box, but if you go
to the other boxes (sent, deleted) the slowness problem recurs probably
because Outlook is rewriting the entire file even if you just read one
message.


Good luck.