What Is Service Host Superfetch High Disk Usage

What is Service Host Superfetch?

Service Host Superfetch is a built-in Windows service designed to pre-load frequently used applications and files into your memory and thereby speed up your system. In 2007, Microsoft introduced Windows Vista and Superfetch was i of its new features. Superfetch became a built-in service of Windows 7 and Windows x likewise.

(Skip directly to our section on how to disable Superfetch.)

How does Service Host Superfetch work, exactly?

Hither'southward how Superfetch works:

Superfetch predicts which applications you'll run next and pre-loads the necessary data into your memory. It also does that with kick files. This helps prevent accessing the slower hard disk as well often. The result? Programs launch much more quickly, and Windows boots faster.
Superfetch'south prediction algorithm can make up one's mind which application y'all'll open at a certain time and on a sure day. It can predict up to the next iii applications you'll launch.
Superfetch is smart — it prioritizes the programs you currently run over groundwork tasks, such every bit defragmentation. Those background tasks run when the reckoner is idle, simply when they're washed, Windows Service Host Superfetch populates the retention once more.
Superfetch is dynamic — it constantly adapts to your needs. So, if your favorite programs change over fourth dimension, Superfetch can speedily adapt.

Why practice nosotros demand Superfetch?

While Superfetch isn't strictly "necessary" for the normal operation of your computer, on a majority of PCs information technology provides noticeable performance benefits. In fact, Superfetch tin be a real performance booster. Your favorite programs — similar your Web browser, your media player, and your e-mail application — are probable to load much faster after a couple of days.

And even if you install a new application, Superfetch won't have a negative impact on its performance. Equally soon as the new application demands memory, the Superfetch information gets flushed. As far as the new program is concerned, the memory is empty.

For the tech geeks out there, we recommend this helpful video from MSDN'southward Channel ix. Michael Fortin from the Windows Performance Team talks near what Microsoft had in mind when developing Superfetch and other, similar operation technologies.

In some cases though, enabling Service Host Superfetch might actually impede performance (we'll dive into this more below).

Is Service Host Superfetch necessary for gaming?

Superfetch should noticeably better gaming performance too — at least in theory. Just gamers in particular have voiced some concerns over the service, because Superfetch can cause high disk usage, both earlier and during gaming. If your PC is slowing down and you're facing long loading times, it might be because Superfetch is having problems "fetching" the information from your game.

The reason Superfetch sometimes struggles during gaming is because some game files are extremely large, and if you play a game repeatedly — similar classics such as Ark: Survival Evolved and GTA 5 — Superfetch will try to pre-load files from that game into retention. Under certain circumstances, this can cause issues. To bank check whether that's the case, right-click on your desktop taskbar and select Chore-Manager. Scroll downward until you see the entry "Service Host: SysMain." This is Superfetch.

Task-Manager showing SuperFetch usage If your Task Manager shows Superfetch consuming a lot of resources (dozens of MB/sec or high CPU usage) for a sustained period, you should disable information technology. Read more below on how to practice that. If your games by and large run dull, we also have a great guide for yous that volition walk y'all through the well-nigh common performance optimization tips to improve your gaming performance.

When Superfetch goes incorrect

Superfetch doesn't cause problems just for games: Even on normal work machines Superfetch can cause high CPU usage, drain your retentiveness (RAM), and thrash your hard disk, massively impacting your reckoner'south speed and overall performance. This can happen when Superfetch gets alee of itself and loads way likewise many programs or applications (or the wrong ones) in advance. This even happens to those of usa that have a blazing fast SSD!

If you're noticing your hard disk drive going nuts, or if background processes are hogging your resources, you may demand performance boosting cleaning software. AVG TuneUp will automatically clean up your unneeded programs, junk files, and other inefficiencies slowing you downwards. AVG TuneUp is an all-in-one tool cleaning tool dedicated to restoring your PC. Effort it free for 30 days.

How to disable Superfetch

If you want to turn off Superfetch and see if information technology fixes your performance issues, here's how:

Right-click on the Windows get-go button in the lower-left corner of your screen and select Run. Type in services.msc.
Click OK. You'll now see a long listing of items. Observe the Sysmain entry, double-click on it, and select Disabled.
Click the OK button and and so reboot your system.

It'due south get-go. Is your PC withal running tiresome? Is your hard drive still getting thrashed? So it wasn't Superfetch and you can safely turn it back on again.To practice that, repeat the steps outlined above, but rather than selecting "disabled," select Automatic (Delayed Starting time) instead, equally seen above — boom, information technology's back on!

If the issues persist, check out our guide on how to set up high CPU usage in Windows.

How to enable Superfetch

If Superfetch is already disabled and you want to turn it back on (and see it helps improve performance), here's how:

Right-click on the Windows start push in the lower-left corner of your screen and select Run. Type in services.msc.
Click OK. You lot'll now see a long listing of items. Find the Sysmain entry, double-click on information technology, and select Automated (Delayed Start).
Click the OK button and so reboot your system.

Is disabling Superfetch a bad idea?

If you're having performance issues and disabling Superfetch helped, then clearly information technology was a bright thought! But if information technology didn't help, yous should exit Superfetch on, because it really does better performance.

Some other way to boost functioning and ensure unnecessary programs don't clog up your hard drive is to use a dedicated cleaning tool. AVG TuneUp comes packed with a suite of optimization tools to detect performance bottlenecks and help y'all fix them with just a few clicks. Try AVG TuneUp today and go on your computer running similar new.