Fast Startup on M.2 NVMe

[Mikey89]

So ever since i reinstalled the OS i haven't disabled Fast Startup on it.

 

I used to have Fast Startup enabled on my HDD by default after OS installation because i never messed with it. But i've been reading around the web that for M.2 if Fast Startup is enabled then it might cause in fact some issues.

 

Is this true ?

 

Should i disable Fast Startup or should i keep it enabled ?

[Naijin]

3 minutes ago, Mikey89 said:

So ever since i reinstalled the OS i haven't disabled Fast Startup on it.

 

I used to have Fast Startup enabled on my HDD by default after OS installation because i never messed with it. But i've been reading around the web that for M.2 if Fast Startup is enabled then it might cause in fact some issues.

 

Is this true ?

 

Should i disable Fast Startup or should i keep it enabled ?

Source for issues?

I've always had it disabled on NVMe and SATA SSD's, it won't really do all that much in startup time. Fast startup might be cleaner on some boards, since it won't show you POST info.

[Mikey89]

4 minutes ago, Naijin said:

Source for issues?

I've always had it disabled on NVMe and SATA SSD's, it won't really do all that much in startup time. Fast startup might be cleaner on some boards, since it won't show you POST info.

@Naijin

 

Sorry i can't remember, i read this like 1-2 years ago but i remembered it now after i upgraded to M.2 very recently.

 

I just remembered this but i have no idea what it said back then about issues.

 

Anyway, if i let fast startup enabled like it is now will it cause any damage or problems to the M.2 ?

[Naijin]

Just now, Mikey89 said:

@Naijin

 

Sorry i can't remember, i read this like 1-2 years ago but i remembered it now after i upgraded to M.2 very recently.

 

I just remembered this but i have no idea what it said back then about issues.

 

Anyway, if i let fast startup enabled like it is now will it cause any damage or problems to the M.2 ?

It shouldn't cause any problems. The motherboard setting basically just only boots from the primary device, which is most likely your Windows installation or drive, and skips checking attached USB devices, CD/DVD's and other drives for OS files to boot from. If Windows boot manager is first but you plug in a bootable Windows 10 USB, it will not check whether or not the USB drive has a bootable OS on it.

[Mikey89]

4 minutes ago, Naijin said:

It shouldn't cause any problems. The motherboard setting basically just only boots from the primary device, which is most likely your Windows installation or drive, and skips checking attached USB devices, CD/DVD's and other drives for OS files to boot from. If Windows boot manager is first but you plug in a bootable Windows 10 USB, it will not check whether or not the USB drive has a bootable OS on it.

Ah ok, thanks i understand now.

 

Thanks for the info Najin, i will just keep it enabled.

 

The reason i was asking is because i've read on tenforums is that people have had issues with in the past but i can't remember what though. I do remember that what i read was on tenforums i think. I just checked browser history for "ssd startup issues" and found something i was looking at about 1 year ago on tenforums.

[Naijin]

1 minute ago, Mikey89 said:

Ah ok, thanks i understand now.

 

Thanks for the info Najin, i will just keep it enabled.

 

The reason i was asking is because i've read on tenforums is that people have had issues with in the past but i can't remember what though. I do remember that what i read was on tenforums i think. I just checked browser history for "ssd startup issues" and found something i was looking at about 1 year ago on tenforums.

By the way, are you talking about fast startup setting in the BIOS of your motherboard, or the fast startup option in Windows 10 power options?

[Mikey89]

7 minutes ago, Naijin said:

By the way, are you talking about fast startup setting in the BIOS of your motherboard, or the fast startup option in Windows 10 power options?

Windows 10's Fast Startup.

 

You know how windows has : fast startup (selective startup), diagnostic startup and normal startup ?

 

For me fast startup aka selective startup was enabled by default but i don't know if it can cause any damage or problems if i'm using an M.2 NVMe SSD.

[Mikey89]

@Naijin

 

Here, please take a look at this screenshot it will explain better.

 

 

[Naijin]

1 minute ago, Mikey89 said:

Windows 10's Fast Startup.

 

You know how windows has : fast startup and normal startup ?

 

For me fast startup was enabled by default but i don't know if it can cause any damage or problems if i'm using an M.2 NVMe SSD.

Motherboard BIOS fast startup and Windows fast startup are something completely different.

The Windows 10 startup is better to be disabled, since you won't notice any difference in SSD boot times. If you have fast startup enabled and you click "shut down", it won't completely shut down, but rather write the current state to disk, to make it easier and faster to turn on again (think of it as a deeper hibernate). This can cause problems with stuck drivers for example. However, clicking "restart" will perform a cold boot.

When you disable Windows 10 fast startup, the "shut down" option will always wipe RAM and when booting, will read all data, including drivers, from disk. If there is an issue with a driver, clicking "shut down" and powering it on again will always clear that.

 

Since SSD's are so fast when reading random data compared to mechanical hard drives, it hardly makes any difference to disable fast startup. Generally, disabled can be better for stability.

 

TL;DR

Windows fast startup enabled:

• Shutdown: saves current state to disk as "deep hibernate" to resume faster
• Restart: performs cold boot

Windows fast startup disabled:

• Shutdown: clears RAM and when powering on again, always performs cold boot
• Restart: performs cold boot

BIOS fast startup enabled: only boots from first drive in boot order, skips checking other drives/devices

BIOS fast startup disabled: boots from first drive in boot order, but checks all other devices for a bootable OS

[Naijin]

2 minutes ago, Mikey89 said:

@Naijin

 

Here, please take a look at this screenshot it will explain better.

 

 

This screenshot is different from fast startup. Windows fast startup can be enabled/disabled here:

Control panel > hardware and sound > power options > choose what the power buttons do

There are greyed out boxes at the bottom which can be enabled by clicking "change settings that are currently unavailable". There the top option should be "turn on fast startup (recommended)".

[Mikey89]

4 minutes ago, Naijin said:

Motherboard BIOS fast startup and Windows fast startup are something completely different.

The Windows 10 startup is better to be disabled, since you won't notice any difference in SSD boot times. If you have fast startup enabled and you click "shut down", it won't completely shut down, but rather write the current state to disk, to make it easier and faster to turn on again (think of it as a deeper hibernate). This can cause problems with stuck drivers for example. However, clicking "restart" will perform a cold boot.

When you disable Windows 10 fast startup, the "shut down" option will always wipe RAM and when booting, will read all data, including drivers, from disk. If there is an issue with a driver, clicking "shut down" and powering it on again will always clear that.

 

Since SSD's are so fast when reading random data compared to mechanical hard drives, it hardly makes any difference to disable fast startup. Generally, disabled can be better for stability.

 

TL;DR

Windows fast startup enabled:

• Shutdown: saves current state to disk as "deep hibernate" to resume faster
• Restart: performs cold boot

Windows fast startup disabled:

• Shutdown: clears RAM and when powering on again, always performs cold boot
• Restart: performs cold boot

BIOS fast startup enabled: only boots from first drive in boot order, skips checking other drives/devices

BIOS fast startup disabled: boots from first drive in boot order, but checks all other devices for a bootable OS

@Naijin

 

Thank you for all the info, yeah I was talking about Windows 10's fast startup aka selective startup.

[Mikey89]

1 minute ago, Naijin said:

This screenshot is different from fast startup. Windows fast startup can be enabled/disabled here:

Control panel > hardware and sound > power options > choose what the power buttons do

There are greyed out boxes at the bottom which can be enabled by clicking "change settings that are currently unavailable". There the top option should be "turn on fast startup (recommended)".

So what about the selective startup, normal startup and diagnostic startup in msconfig ?

 

Is it good to leave it as it is : selective startup ?

[Naijin]

3 minutes ago, Mikey89 said:

@Naijin

 

Thank you for all the info, yeah I was talking about Windows 10's fast startup aka selective startup.

 

So it shouldn't cause any issues if i leave it enabled right ?

 

Also did u look at the screenshot ?

1) it shouldn't cause problems when it is enabled.

2) yes I did look at the screenshot. This is selective startup. Here you can choose what services to enable to include at boot. Do note that this is different from including programs on startup in the task manager

[Mikey89]

4 minutes ago, Naijin said:

1) it shouldn't cause problems when it is enabled.

2) yes I did look at the screenshot. This is selective startup. Here you can choose what services to enable to include at boot. Do note that this is different from including programs on startup in the task manager

So i should leave it like this set to selective startup ? Not normal startup ?

[Naijin]

1 minute ago, Mikey89 said:

So i should leave it like this set to selective startup ? Not normal startup ?

Just leaving it there is fine

[Mikey89]

2 minutes ago, Naijin said:

Just leaving it there is fine

@Naijin

 

Thanks for all the help !