SSD Questions

I have a few questions about SSD drives. I have no idea how they are setup. I was reading somewhere that installing windows onto an SSD drive is different than a conventional HDD. Something about having to "line up" the operating system.

Can someone thats knows about these drives clear this stuff up for me? How does windows install?, Is defragging different?, Are there limitations to SSD drives? and anything else I should know.

I would very much love to buy one of these drives but I need to know the basics first so I know if this is the way I want to go or not. And yes, I could research them online but asking you guys here in one place is easier than checking multiple sites online for my answers.

Windows 7 installs everything for you really and sets it up right if you let it format you.

You dont run a typical defrag (like windows defrag), its built into the firmware of the SSD. Its called TRIM.

No real limitations, no. Just arguably the best upgrade for your PC.

From what I understand(I'll be getting my first SSD in a short couple weeks). If you do a fresh install onto Win7 it will automatically align. And you DO NOT defrag SSD's. There are 2 programs, one is called T.R.I.M. and the other is G.C.(Garbage Collection). Depending on the brand of SSD will depend on the which program(However if you are gutsy and want to use an SSD on a different OS then I believe that G.C. is the only option.) Here is a post from another forum I was browsing, so credit goes to him. My apologies if I break some rules but I didn't see any copyright stuff.

The red posts are all you really need unless you are an advanced user and enjoy tweaking.

Windows 7 SSD installation procedure: (starting with a new or secure erased SSD)
(1) Check the board is in AHCI mode, if no option is available there is nothing you can do.

(2) Check if S1 and S3 sleep are supported in bios, I usually set S1 but S3 should be ok also....if they are not in bios there is nothing you can do

(3) Check ACPI 2.0 is in bios and enabled, if its not in bios there is nothing you can do.

(4) Let win7 installer create and format the partition, all you do is hit NEXT even though the installer sees the drive and reports the drive space is RAW. Win7 will create a primary partition and quick format all on its own.

Immediately after installing Windows:

(1) Turn Off Hibernation File: Type cmd in search, right click cmd symbol that comes up and choose "run as administrator". Type “powercfg -h off” and press enter.

OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED SHORT STROKE DRIVE 25%: control panel/administrative tools/computer management/storage/disk management/ right click on C drive/ shrink volume follow instructions to shrink volume shrink so you have 25% unallocated space minimum. Helps drive maintain its self at higher performance and helps overall drive life.

(2) OPTIONAL BUT HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Turn off paging file: control panel/ system/advanced system settings/performance settings/advanced/virtual memory/change click no paging file, click set, apply, ok. (Restart later) Note: if you want to use a paging file for some reason set the minimum size to 1000mb and the maximum size to 1000mb. (Restart Later)

(3) OPTIONAL BUT HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Turn off system protection: control panel/ system/system protection make sure all drives are off especially C. You can make system images so system protection is just a giant waste of disk space.

(4) Turn off drive indexing: Right click all drives and uncheck drive indexing, click apply (ignore all when comes up) Also go to windows storage manager select the system reserved partition right click uncheck drive indexing, click apply (ignore all when comes up).

(5) OPTIONAL: Turn off Recycle Bin or reduce in size.

(6) Turn Off Reliability Monitor: Admin tools, open task scheduler. expand task scheduler library, then Microsoft, then Windows. Scroll down and click on RAC. Go to the top and select View then show hidden tasks IF RACTASK is not showing. Right click on RacTask and select disable. To re-enable it, you right click it and select enable.
Here is the good part.... disabling it stops it from PROCESSING reliability data and errors for reliability viewer. The data is still collected in the logs, just stored efficiently. You can re-enable it and see the reliability stuff when U wish. Disabling it saved RAM and some drive churning until U need to look at it.

(7) Set the power state to high performance and set the machine to never sleep, HDD power down to OFF (off is before 1 minute).

(8) Disable SuperFetch: Type regedit in search, click on symbol then go HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchPerameters right click EnableSuperfetch hit modify and change to 0 and hit OK.
(NOTE: alot of people also disable prefetch as well as superfetch but I find system runs better with prefetch enabled).

(9) Enable Large System Cache: Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management right click LargeSystemCache hit modify and change to 1 and hit OK.

(10) Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\FileSystem right click NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation hit modify and change to 1 and hit OK then right click NtfsMemoryUsage hit modify and change to 2 and hit OK.

(11) Disable SuperFetch in services: Go to Control Panel select Administrative Tools\Services double click SuperFetch select startup type as disabled then click ok.

(12) While in Services double click Disk Defragmenter select startup type as manuel then click ok.
Now Restart Your System For The First Time then:

(1) Install Chipset Drivers.

(2) Use win7 native AHCI (Will be automatically installed by windows during installation) driver for AMD. Use the newest Intel RST driver (Download and install after windows installation. Note INTEL Chipset Drivers should be installed first then RST driver.)for INTEL systems.

(3) RESTART

(4) Enable windows write back catching on C drive: right click C drive/hardware/your drive/ properties/change settings/policies/ check turnoff windows write-caching buffer flushing.......................

(5) Install Windows Updates Including Optional Hardware Updates.

(6) Install any additional drivers as necessary.

(7) Install Software

(8) NOW ENJOY YOUR SUPERFAST SSD

this is what i do for every ssd installation its a compilation of what i have found to produce the best results

The red posts are all you really need unless you are an advanced user and enjoy tweaking.

Holy crap! That's allot of work for a SSD. I have also just seen a post on another site that said these drives degrade over time? WTF is that? Are they a rechargable battery or something? Only good for so many hours then you gotta trash them and buy a new one?

Screw all that. I will just buy myself a good 1tb Velociraptor and call it a day. I mean really, They are charging all this money for these things and they don't last? Plus they are ALLOT more complicated than a traditional HDD.

Thanks for all the info guys. With you and what I have read on other sites I don't think this is the way I want to go. At least not now. Maybe when these things are priced more reasonable and they get the functionality of them more to par with standard HDD's I will change my mind.

There is a SSD Tweaker program that you can actually download and do all these things in 1 click I am a previous owner of vcraptor, then tried ssd and can't look back since then

I disagree with this list. There are several problems with it:

1. Some of the items have noting to do with SSDs.
2. Many of the steps cause you to loose functionality you might need even though you have an SSD.
3. Some can cause BSOD and other issues depending on your system setup.

Not to mention some of it is already done with the OS install..

I agree with the first 1-4.

The second 1-12...

1. HIBERNATION - This is a space saver only AFAIK.
1a. Short stroke the drive - Dont bother. You will need another HDD before it wears out.
2. Page file off - Leave it on and on the SSD. The reason behind disabling this was b/c of excessive writes. See #1a.
3. System Protection - This is a space saver only AFAIK. I have system restore disabled but I backup my drive every week.
4. Indexing I believe is already truned off on SSD's upon install. If you completely disable it, then the mechanical drives will not benefit from indexing which is what needs it.
5. Turn off recycle bin - What?!!! Why? Just flush it like you normally would.
6. Reliability monitor - Never heard of that one. Not sure why you would disable it either.
7. Never power off HDD - I would believe this one is good so they can TRIM or GC in its idle state and not power down.
8. Disable Superfetch - Not sure why this would be disabled. This takes your frequently used apps and places them into RAM. This is a read function only I believe.
9/10. No idea why one would do those things. I believe LSC is already enabled on Vista and 7. And I never heard of #10.
11. See #8.
12. I believe W7 already does this for you. Not sure about other OS's.

The third 1- ......

1. Yup.
2. Already installed with OS when you enable and install.
4. Write back Cache - Should be enabled already by W7.
5-8. Ok.

That list is actually from ocz forums posted by BG and they seem to be approved...

Also...
2-6. Reliability monitor - I think its just a space saver also.
3-4. Write back Cache - Write Caching on the device is already enabled by W7 but not "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device" which is the second option.

Its sort of from their forum... Its not an exact copy of the sticky thread but....might as well be.

yeah...

O'k. I have been doing more and more research on these drives and unfortunately I can only find reviews of these drives going back to 2007, 2008. Nothing really recent.

What I have been finding is.

1. These drives are VERY expensive for their capacities (duh)
2. These drives in fact do have a lifespan BUT that lifespan is comparable to traditional HDD's. Some exceeding traditional HDD's.
3. While earlier operating systems did pose a challenge to having an SSD, Windows 7 has in fact taken allot of the hassle out of setting up an SSD drive.

One thing worth mentioning, And I think is really cool, Is while traditional HDD's corrupt and lose your data, SSD drives move your data to non corrupt chips therefor saving your data from being lost.

But as I said, This information comes from articles that are a few years old. I have seen the storage capacity of these drives increasing while the prices are, slowly, dropping. Perhaps I jumped to conclusions before I took the time to really research them.

There are of course still limitations to these drives such as their reading and writing functionality. While these drives do read and write faster than a traditional HDD, That really only applies to small files. Large files such as DVD media takes longer to write and is comparable to traditional HDD's.

Having to "Host" a program or application on a traditional HDD to save space because of their limited storage capacity and functions such as defragging and deleting data are also more complicated compared to your traditional HDD.

All in all I would have to say these drives do offer an advantage over traditonal HDD's But until they work out how to better certain functions I would say your novice computer user should stay with a traditional HDD.

I'm not a computer expert but I'm not a novice either. I like things to be simple and straight forward. So I will be sticking to my traditional HDD for now.

If there are any facts I have missed please feel free to include them.

cougar214 said:

1. These drives are VERY expensive for their capacities (duh)
2. These drives in fact do have a lifespan BUT that lifespan is comparable to traditional HDD's. Some exceeding traditional HDD's.
3. While earlier operating systems did pose a challenge to having an SSD, Windows 7 has in fact taken allot of the hassle out of setting up an SSD drive.

Click to expand...

This is true. But, the lifespan of an SSD is a bit of an unknown. In theory it should be significantly longer than that of an HDD, but since they are so new we do not really have any real world data on what the lifespan of SSDs are, and what their main causes for failure are.

cougar214 said:

There are of course still limitations to these drives such as their reading and writing functionality. While these drives do read and write faster than a traditional HDD, That really only applies to small files. Large files such as DVD media takes longer to write and is comparable to traditional HDD's.

Click to expand...

This is not true. A new high-end SSD, like, say, the Vertex 2, is 2-3 times faster at writing large files than an HDD. It is true for low-end and older SSD but not anymore. You information is a couple years out of date.

cougar214 said:

Having to "Host" a program or application on a traditional HDD to save space because of their limited storage capacity and functions such as defragging and deleting data are also more complicated compared to your traditional HDD.

Click to expand...

This, I don't get. The point of an SSD is to have your programs on it. Admittedly, with a small SSD you have to be picky as to which programs you put on it. While, internally the deleting and defragmenting of data on an SSD is a complicate setup, it should have no bearing on the use of the SSD from the users perspective as long as the SSD maker and OS/driver tems have done their jobs properly.

^^^this. Put your favorite programs and OS on the SSD. Very fast. I to was a non believer in SSD, until I got one. I picked up mine (128gb WD) for $200. It's not the fastest SSD out there, and Even still I am astounded at the performance. It is easily the single best upgrade per dollar I have made...ever.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but it's just not that complicated. If using Windows 7, set ACHI in BIOS, install OS, use like you would any other drive. Am I missing something? all the rest of the stuff mentioned seems to be space saving tweaks. Hibernation, restore, recycle bin size, page file....etc.

I run no page file, I never do with any type drive. I always turn off System restore, if things get so bad I can't fix it in safe mode I'll just reformat. I simply turn off my computer when done using it so hibernation is not an issue.

I'm just saying, an SSD is not that difficult to deal with and WAY worth the money. I thought they were overpriced...till I got one.

My current space usage putting my games on D: drive and my data (music, pictures, workstuff) on E:. Even the programs installed to the regular hard drive feel faster, probably due to the registry entries still being on the SSd.



Here my Raptor vs. my SSD benchy. and remember, as far as SSDs go, mine is not the fastest.

Mr Alpha, As I clearly said in my post, The information I got is a few years old and I couldn't find anything more up to date. I was trying to clear up a few facts about these drives. As you can imagine it isn't easy to do with out of date info.

Your right about the lifespan being unproven because of how new these drives still are. I can only tell you what I find on the net. Don't shoot the messenger.Lol

From what I can see putting programs and applications on another HDD is primarily because of the small size of these SSD drives.

On a side note. Can someone tell me where to go to check my mo/bo to see if it in fact will run an SSD drive? I have a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R.

cougar214 said:

On a side note. Can someone tell me where to go to check my mo/bo to see if it in fact will run an SSD drive? I have a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R.

Click to expand...

Technically any motherboard with a SATA controller will run an SSD, but there are big differences in performance. The best currently is an Intel southbridge (the ICH10 being the newest) and Intel AHCI drivers. Which is exactly what you have.

Sweet. Thanks Mr Alpha. I just want to know I can run an SSD drive in the future if I choose to.

With all the info I'm finding on the net, Some of which contradicting other info, I think I may save up and buy myself a small SSD drive and just test it myself and see what happens.

IMTF should get their new 25nm flash on the market in Q4, which mean the SSDs $/GB should drop in half around Christmas. If you can wait that long you might not have to get too small a SSD.

Another question for you Mr Alpha is which drive should i go with? Should I get an SLC or an MLC?

MLC is more than good enough for desktop usage and reliability. The frimware of most SLC drives is tuned for server usage, and so even though the flash itself is faster, the drive can be slower in desktop scenarios.

O'k thanks. What I was thinking of doing was running an 80 gig SSD as my primary while using my 160 gig for programs and using my 500 gig for dvd's, games, and other really large files.

Does that sound like the best way to go?