Boot Speeds With SSD?

[ItBeSethy]

Hello LTT Community 

So I recently installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Pro on my new 240gb Apacer Panther SSD. I decided just now to test my boot speed to the appearance of the lock screen and I was rather surprised with the results that I got.

Here is how I conducted my tests:

Restart Times are from the moment I press the Restart Button located in the Windows Start Menu (Software)

Startup Times are from the moment I press the Power Button located on my PC Tower. (Hardware)

 

My Results:
1st Restart (Fast Boot Disabled)
36.45 Seconds
1st Startup (Fast Boot Disabled)
16.86 Seconds

 

2nd Restart (Fast Boot Enabled)
41.32 Seconds

2nd Startup (Fast Boot Enabled)

17.30 Seconds

My simple question is. What does fast boot actually do?

I would think it would be in the name but from the results that I have gathered when I turned on fast boot in my BIOS my system had worse boot times. 

And lastly what options in my BIOS may actually help me speed up my boot

NOTE: I didn't do any extensive testing and some of the timings will come down to human error. My SSD has a write speed of 300mb/s

 

Thanks.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Fast boot remembers the state of the Windows kernel between reboots so it doesn't have to load all those tiny little files required for normal startup, which is extremely slow on a HDD.  Its basically a form of hybernation.

 

As you found out, its generally better to leave it off with an SSD as they load small files really quickly so it can actually be faster than having it on.  Plus personally I always prefer to have a clean boot as it means any instability that has developed due to running Windows for a long time gets cleared out.