Installing SSD on Win 8 for first time

[MattsterMH]

I have only installed an OS on an HDD before, but I am about to install Win 8 on my first ever SSD (on a laptop, came without any storage so I ordered an SSD).

Is the process exactly the same? I plan on booting from USB to install Windows.

After Windows is installed do I need to take any further measures to ensure everything is optimized?

 

[c627627]

Laptops have hidden partitions where your laptop system images are stored. If you are just installing Windows from scratch this shouldn't matter.

Not your concern, but people usually need to make sure their SSD is formatted under Windows Vista/7/8 and never formatted under Windows XP or earlier.


Anyone reading this who is not sure how their SSD was ever formatted, this is the way to check under DOS:

diskpart
list disk
select disk #
list partition

Offset should be 1024 KB or any number that can be multiplied with a whole number to get 4096.

 

[EarthDog]

You install it just the same. As far as process or optimization, once you install windows, install the chipset drivers, and GPU drivers. Reboot, then run WEI (Windows Experience Index - in 8.1 its a tool). That will 'set up' the PC for an SSD and disable what needs to be disabled for the drive (for example, defrag). That is it. There are space savings things you can do as well such as having a properly sized page file (I manually set it to 2GB with 4GB of system ram or above) as well as, if you do not use system restore or hibernation to disable those.

 

[Woomack]

Since laptop came without any storage then you simply run Win8 installer and all will be optimized without any additional settings etc. I think that Win8 is already disabling defrag and some other things when it recognizes SSD in system.
Later install manufacturer's AHCI driver to provide higher performance.

 

[MattsterMH]

Since laptop came without any storage then you simply run Win8 installer and all will be optimized without any additional settings etc. I think that Win8 is already disabling defrag and some other things when it recognizes SSD in system.
Later install manufacturer's AHCI driver to provide higher performance.

Install th AHCI driver after all the other drivers are installed? What exactly does it do?

 

[EarthDog]

The only time I have ever had to 'install' AHCI drivers is when you copy an OS that started in IDE mode and needs to move to AHCI (which is done in windows with a registry change).

I have never installed AHCI drivers on a modern (read W7+) OS...

 

[c627627]

Yeah, Woomack, what do you mean 'install' AHCI drivers?
AHCI is ON by default in BIOS on modern systems prior to Windows installation?

 

[Val155]

The windows experience index doesn't exist anymore, so how do we disable defrag for ssd's

 

[c627627]

* Start Menu > Control Panel > [View by: Category] > System and Security > Under Administrative Tools, click on Defragment and optimize your drives then wait a minute to see the Optimize Drives window >

Turn off optimization, it shouldn't be on, but turn it off if it is.

 

[Val155]

Got it! I had to turn it off as it was automatically scheduled for weekly

 

[EarthDog]

I'm not terribly familiar with w8/8.1 But did you disable it for ALL drives or just the ssd? You only want to disable it on your ssd.

I also mentioned that WEI is now a tool you need to download.

 

[LoganG]

I don't think you need to download anything to get your WEI, just run the command line entry and view the XML document, it may not have the nifty graphical interface but you get the scores still.

Edit: Like so http://www.cnet.com/how-to/find-your-windows-experience-index-scores-in-windows-8-1/

 

[c627627]

The sole purpose of those scores is marketing, to make you feel inadequate and go out and buy new hardware, often unnecessarily so.

The scores are primarily aimed at vanity-filled less educated computer users. They bare no relevance on how 'good' your computer is.

 

[EarthDog]

The sole purpose of those scores is marketing, to make you feel inadequate and go out and buy new hardware, often unnecessarily so.

The scores are primarily aimed at vanity-filled less educated computer users. They bare no relevance on how 'good' your computer is.

Agree.

A byproduct, so to speak, of what it does do, is ID the hardware you have in your system. In some cases, like with SSD's, it makes changes such as disabling defrag on the drive.

 

[Val155]

All I have is a 250GB SSD right now, no other hard drive other than a USB thumb drive. So that is why I turned if off completely.

 

[Val155]

Also, what happens if I never changed the boot order from when I built my rig? Right now the DVD drive is first, followed by my SSD. I'm afraid to mess with the bios anymore because I was experiencing an endless automatic repair loop at restart/boot that I had to do a fresh install for to fix. Any harm with keeping things the way they are? It's an Asus Z97A board.

 

[LoganG]

If the DVD drive is 1st it will attempt to boot to any media in the dvd drive before moving to the SSD

 

[Val155]

Ok. I also noticed, that after Win 8.1 was installed, it added an UEFI DVD drive in the boot priority listing. Why is that?

 

[wingman99]

Its just saying its part of the new bios.

 

[Val155]

Its just saying its part of the new bios.

What do u mean?