Out of curiosity, I tested Windows 10 Pro v1507 on my Inspiron 5458, and surprisingly, it runs extremely well. Even with all the "bloat" and modern apps installed, it ran as fast/smooth as Windows 8.1. Live tiles still work to this day BTW. As standard v1507 has been EOL since May 2017, I just put Enterprise LTSB 2015 on it. Updated it all the way to 10240.20162 and so far it has been running great. The HDD isn't pegged to 99-100% usage all the time and as a result doesn't keep thrashing all the time as well. - I've also tested LTSB 2016 and LTSC 2019 on it, both OSes run slow as heck. But as the title says, why does modern Win10 and by extension, Win11, run so incredibly bad on computers with HDDs?
It all depends on what you are running on your OS. My Windows 7 runs equally sh*tty when the RAM is exhausted. And that's the point. Modern OS run more background stuff, and take more RAM. The less RAM, the more the disk drive has to swap. And swapping is much faster on SSD than on HDD, that's a fact.
The reason is very simple. There is a section of people for whom everything is always terribly bad, but what was before is always terribly good. From my own experience, I can say that the worst was Vista (it doesn't matter which Build or version), followed by XP, then Windows 8-8.1, then Windows 7, and the worst so far is Windows 11. The best so far is Windows 10, there is no matter which build or version. If something works poorly , then the main cause is generally always between the keyboard and the back of the chair. PS. I left out the ones before XP because I used them little or not at all.
When developers write software, they design the software in a manner that takes advantage of the currently available hardware. They optimize it so that it works best with current hardware, and less so with older ones (it's also a cost optimization thing). Since most computers come with SSDs, it's how it goes.
Start uninstalling defender and disabling the wsearch service, a relevant share of the of the hdd traffic comes from them. Also use imtoolkit ramdisk and put the cache of browsers there, especially chromium based ones have an incredibly stupid (and useless) caching mechanism.
3 Keys problems OS slow lag is 1.) HDD RPM may be slow like 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm.. 2.) Not enough RAM... 3.) CPU 1 or 2 Cores and speed. Best way: 1.) SSD or 10k RPM HDD .. 2.) 16GB RAM or more... 3.) CPU 4 or more cores and speed.. I am running i7 4.0Ghz 8 Cores, 32GB ram 1- 500GB SSD (OS'es and Applications), 2- 2TB SSD, 1 - 1TB SSD, 1 - 1TB HDD @7200rpm and 1 - 1TB 10krpm WD HDD. ATGPUD2003
I have one too, but I'm afraid that theese days they cost (used) more than a brand new SSD of the same capacity
At Amazon was cost me new one $50 1TB 10krpm WD HDD!! I am not kidding! 1TB SSD are pretty cheap today at Amazon from $35 to $50 depending brand quality name ATGPUD2003
My 160GB Velociraptor did cost more than 300$ when I bought it in 2007 or so, taking the inflation in account it's like 600$ in today's money. I paid it a lot less because it was a refurbished unit. It's still like new after 15 years of almost continuous uptime
@acer-5100 , While back 2008 I bought 300GB WD 10Krpm for $150 that time at Fry's Electronics... ATGPUD2003
mmm... In 2008 the msrp was 299, so either your memory is failing or you got a really good deal, which seem strange for something just released (the 300GB unit was released in April 2008)
The only build that is reasonably quick on HDDs is 1507 so everytime I get a HDD system I just install Windows 10 LTSB 2015 . It's similar running 7 on HDD maybe liter due to missing aero
2016 is very close, and server 2016 TP4 (1511) is the best, in part because is just a refined 1507, in part because it's a server that (as usual) is better than clients, in part because its last update comes before all the "mitigation" released after spectre, that impacts the performances especially on Intel machines. Being lighter because the lack of Aero is a myth, usually seven is faster using aero. But the mileage may vary depending the specific HW
That correct and bought in Aug 2008 that time... and I still have it and still alive anyway... ATGPUD2003
To circle back from all the irrelevant and self-indulgent posts that have nothing to do with the OT -- there are a lot of Developer articles about exactly this; it's not just HDDs per se, it's also things like memory constraints, CPU and bus capacity et al... Summarily, as computer hardware got faster and cheaper, software development has gotten lazier, and the product more bloated -- not just on that account but with telemetry, advertising, security features, integration of new layers of interface design, enormously bloated libraries of trash that are rarely or never used -- you you get the idea... And it's a situation that's not only not improving, it's getting worse, which is why if you want a more efficient operating system and software you have to look elsewhere... The Vole has zero incentive to do anything differently, and on the contrary has enormous monetary incentives on the current trajectory...
Yes! This is exactly what is happening at the IT world in general. You can see this in games, cell phones, operating systems, browsers, you name it. The days of really optimized programs are long gone.
If you look around on sites like MajorGeeks for image viewing software, you can find packages (based on installer sizes) from under 2 megs to over 100 megs.
I remember reading that for Win 10 there were internal improvements which made it slightly faster than Win 8. Also, I think similar happened between the move from 7 to 8, from XP to 7, and so on. Meanwhile, there might be slowdown because of new features (several wanted by various users), etc. Given that, you can deal with them by combinations of factors, like adding more memory, using an SSD, look for any updated drivers, and so on.