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ssd alignment question

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soulwatch5

soulwatch5

Member
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Joined
Jun 16, 2010
Location
Burbank, CA
So finally jumping on the ssd bandwagon and had a question or two about it before I go ahead and switch out my main drive for the ssd.

So what I was planning on doing was just cloning my hd to the ssd but was then told that it was safer to just do a fresh install since cloning to ssd can cause alignment issues and/or other problems.

Alright fine but I'm a noob and started thinking what does it mean for an ssd to be alignined properly and why would cloning a drive mess it up? In fact why would a fresh install prevent alignment issues in the first place?

Yes I know these are probably things I should know already but I don't and since this forum is filled with so many smarter people than I, figured you guys could help me out.

Thanks in advance.
 
What kind of ssd do you have?, if you buy a Intel 520 or a Crucial m4 ssd, they come with a data transfer kid that will let you safety transfer your data from your old hdd to your ssd with no problem at all, i did that with my laptop, been working ok for the last 3 month, no problem at all.
 
Got an intel 520 ssd but bought oem from a member on this forum so no software was included. Probably can just download it from their site though I'm guessing.
 
Most major cloning software has been updated for SSDs to keep the alignment.

Alignment was a problem with XP. If you let XP create the partition to install windows it was not aligned correctly. This was fixed in Vista/7/8.

Another reason people say to do a fresh install is Vista/7/8 will recognize you have an SSD and change some settings. Cloning and then running Windows Experience Index should also change these settings.

You can verify the settings and alignment are correct using various tools. Intel SSD Toolbox will check the settings. I've used Diskpar to check the alignment and gparted to fix alignment, but there might be something newer/better out now.
 
Well I still just ended up reinstalling everything. Figured it was probably better for the long run. Had so much crap installed and and other things on the original drive that felt like the best thing was to start from scratch.

And OMG its like night and day with load times. I didn't have a bad setup for OS with 2 raptors drives in raid 0 but it cant touch this ssd. Like 10 seconds to load to windows now instead of a minute or two.
 
ASUS ROG said:
SSD are awesome, you may want to save money to buy another one so you can run them in raid 0
Click to expand...
MEH. Why? Boot times wont improve much, if at all, and whats the point of loading into a game faster only to have to wait to start (multiplayer). Not worth it to a lot of people really... not to mention greater chance of failure (mitigated by proper backups, but still) over one drive. Unless you work with large files frequently and require the throughput, I wouldnt suggest R0 SSD to most people.
 
ASUS ROG said:
SSD are awesome, you may want to save money to buy another one so you can run them in raid 0
Click to expand...

EarthDog said:
MEH. Why? Boot times wont improve much, if at all, and whats the point of loading into a game faster only to have to wait to start (multiplayer). Not worth it to a lot of people really... not to mention greater chance of failure (mitigated by proper backups, but still) over one drive. Unless you work with large files frequently and require the throughput, I wouldnt suggest R0 SSD to most people.
Click to expand...

+1 boot time is usually longer since you have to load the raid driver before you can boot into windows.

my boot time is faster on my vertex 4 than it was on my vertex 3's in raid 0 by a couple seconds and for what most people do 1 SSD is more than enough, so unless you are transferring large files like Earthdog said 1 ssd is the better route.
 
I;m using 2 Corsair force GT and it take under 10 second to boot into Window, more like 8 seconds, at first i have one ssd and it take me around 12 to 15 seconds to boot in to window.
I don't know what are you talking about bmwbaxter, my pc have been running faster ever since i upgrade to 2 ssd
 
It can be the same slightly less or add more. Depends on the board and the raid drivers you need to load. Really, its merely 'cool' for most people to have, not useful. Id MUCH rather plunk the money down for a better or 2nd GPU than R0 SSDs.
 
Id imagine he isnt counting the POST, where the RAID driver is loaded. ;)

The Vector takes a hair over 10s (IIRC) to get to windows, but the utility we use does not count POST either.
 
My os is window 7 pro 64bit, and with POST sometime it take 15 second, some time it take under 13, i have just turn off my pc and turn it back on, this time, it take 13.6 second according to the stop watch :) :)
 
Our point still remains... better spent on other things unless you can actually use the throughput. I mean if this tickles your heart, so be it. Just throwing other informed opinions out there about it. I also had R0 SSD's and chose to go back to one after a VERY short time.
 
But at you can see in my sig, or better yet, go to my page and take a look at my pc pic i have nothing ell to upgrade to my rig so i go with a second ssd, making my pc all around perfect :) :)
 
I did run into a problem but figured it out. Was only reading and writing at 250mb/s which is fast but i know the ssd drive is faster.

Changed out cables, flashed bios, checked bios setting but still wouldn't work in sata3. Read that my board had this problem and the fix was when flashing bios you have to make sure the DMI was cleared and then clear cmos before starting up. Now writes at like 450 and reads at 550 or at least that is what atto says.
 
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