So I recently got a new Solid State drive when my old drive was about to crap out, but I’m not feeling particularly confident that it’s really set up correctly.
On the one hand, most of the things I read seemed to indicate that Windows 7 would know what to do with it, and I did go through the process of enabling AHCI mode in my BIOS and then using a reg fix to enable the AHCI driver in Win 7, but one tweak guide I read seems to suggest manual driver updating may be necessary.
Another guide I found seems to indicate that several other settings ought to be modified.
I already feel like I’m getting a significant performance boost over my old platter drive, but I’m wondering if I would be getting even better performance if I tried harder.
Can’t get much easier than that. It literally did all of the stuff I needed done and I just verified it quickly by hand to make sure it was changed right. Just remember to shift your temp folders off of your SSD drive (4 environment variables to change for that, 2 user 2 system) and keep your swap file on your SSD drive as it’s basically a 40:1 read:write ratio so you benefit the most of having it on there. I simply set mine to 6gb so I have a consistant size allocated so I won’t exceed capacity on my drive and take away space that the swap file might need as my drive is only 60gb.
Gotta say going SSD is like having a whole new computer, it’s crazy fast.
Yes, because god forbid you use a utility or reg edit to quickly adjust a couple of settings that aren’t guaranteed to be adjust automatically by windows.
Ok, I am paranoid. I bought the intel x-25M 120GB SSD yesterday. Plugged it into my PC via Sata, boot Windows 7 Ultimate from DVD and installed directly to it. However, I didn’t format or create new partition from the Windows installation menu. I just chose it and it continues to install. So, is the drive aligned properly then? This thread gave me the impression that there’s still some stuff I need to do. I was hoping Win 7 would take care of it.
Anyway, while the experience of SSD is snappy once Windows start running, I didn’t find a significant boot time improvement over Win 7 on spinny drives. I also heard that my spinny drives start turning during boot time and I wonder why is that - this could explain the lack of significant improvements during boot. Any advice?
Windows aligns the drive on install. The big thing is to make sure you have AHCI on as you’ll get a performance increase from it. The boot itself you really shouldn’t have much, if any, HDD access (I don’t really remember hearing my HDD going on a boot), but your times should be noticeably faster. Mine is about 20-30 seconds from the moment I power the machine on to the login prompt, previously it was closer to a minute or so.
I posted this in another thread but this is my checklist when I do a reinstall with an SSD. I also use a RAMDisk for my temporary internet files (256mb) since I have 8GB of ram and have it to spare.
Windows Install Pre-check:
Check AHCI mode in BIOS enabled
Check sleep mode in BIOS to S1 or S3 (S1 Preferred)
Check ACPI 2.0 mode in BIOS is enabled
Windows Install:
Turn off hibernation File - Run CMD as Admin - powercfg -h off
Turn off system protection/restore point in control panel for SSD drive
Turn off Reliability Monitor - Task Scheduled, Library, Microsoft, Windows, RAC, RACTASK disabled
Adjust Environment Temp variables
Set power state HDD power off to never
Run SSDTweaker
Regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\FileSystem set NtfsMemoryUsage to 2
Disable Superfetch in services
Install SATA/IDE Chipset Drivers
Reboot
Install everything else
Chrome FLAG for disk cache change etc
–disk-cache-dir=“F:\Chrome” --disk-cache-size=240000000 --enable-aero-peek-tabs
Windows Temp Changes:
D:\WindowsTemp%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Temp
D:\WindowsTemp\TEMP
Copy over vent settings.
Once everything is done do a consolidated defrag once and never defrag again
EDIT - There was one other thing I changed just recently and I’ll have to look it up, it has to do with the boot preloader which isn’t needed with the SSD. I can’t remember what it was off the top of my head though and apparently I forgot to add it to my list.
I just can’t help but wonder if the transfer of my dad’s Windows 7 install to his SSD went properly. He had three partitions on a single large platter-based disc and had to create backups of the first two and then restore them to the SSD. The restore program made a point of leaving a tiny gap at one point while restoring to newly formed partitions, so I think it might have been aligning. . . it was the latest version of Acronis, so I think it’s designed to handle SSDs. . . dad’s not sure if he turned AHCI on before the restore or after, though. . . would that necesssarily matter?
Some SSD app said the drive was aligned, but it didn’t really elucidate how it decided that or how accurate the prognosis was. . . etc. I dunno. He likes it a lot but feels like his speed isn’t quite what he was expecting.
For the install SATA/IDE drivers that’s for my chipset drivers for my note as I have a marvell controller on my board. Usually Windows 7 will pick it up, but I always download the latest version of it. Get the latest AHCI drivers for your board from either Intel or AMD. Windows will use their built in AHCI drivers and I’m not 100% sure if it’ll flag for you on a windows update to get the intel or amd ones based on your chipset. Always best to have the latest drivers on hand when you do a fresh install has been my motto for years.
Enable AHCI in bios and see if shit boots ok. Windows will generally try and recover from it, though I’m not sure off the top of my head if you have to re-align or not. I hear it’s rather hit or miss for people doing that. Some work fine, others have it crap out. You might have to have your install CD handy. The OCZ forums actually have a lot of good information on it about doing things like that.
Acronis seems to be the utility of choice for alignment from what I can see, I don’t see people talking about anything else other than that.
EDIT - Also if you get ATTO you can do a quick test to make sure you’re getting the kind of throughput that’s been advertised. You only need to do the basic test once to see how it’s going. Do not repeatedly benchmark your drives.
You also want to make sure you keep about 10% or more free space on the drive so the controllers can work their magic for optimal speeds. Garbage collecting no-one seems to really know when shit starts to happen, so you’ll see people recommending that you either sit on your BIOS screen one or two nights a week, or log out and be on the login screen so the low activity garbage collection kicks in. I’ve never seen a definitive answer on the OCZ forums from the makers of the drive. Personally I just logout and leave it on the login screen once a week.
Here’s the link to the OCZ ABC Guide of dealing with an SSD. You might find some information that you’re looking for in there.
I appreciate this. I enabled the ACHI in BIOS after Windows installation. Actually I followed the instructions here. Once Windows boot, it automatically install ACHI drivers and after that, it just works. Thank goodness. The Windows Experience Index reported 7.5 for me before turning on ACHI and 7.7 AFTER turning on. I am happy!
At the moment, since everything works fine, I am not going to mess with it until I monitor it longer and have the confidence with the drive.
Really take a look at the AHCI drivers for your chipset (be it Intel or AMD) as they will tend to offer better performance / tweaks than what the default windows driver will have. Though some toolboxes for your SSD might not work 100% with those drivers (OCZ for example w/ the Intel drivers).
EDIT - Apparently though it doesn’t seem to work with with the AMD drivers for some controllers. Sucks to be them? Also, TRIM does not work in raid, regardless.
Did I tell you that SSD is perhaps one of my best investment ever made on a PC? It rocks.
Anyway, just want to share that it is ok to put pagefile.sys and hibernate.sys on the SSD:
It does recommend putting the pagefile on SSD, as most operations on the pagefile are small random reads or fairly large sequential writes which don’t cause SSD problems. The hibernate.sys file, used when a Windows 7 system goes into and out of hibernation mode, is read and written sequentially and can be safely placed on an SSD device.
