Last min advice: IDE / AHCI

fornowagain · 22 Mar 2010 at 17:20

NutterzUK said:
If I format my drive, or partition it, is this bad for a SSD?

Nope.

NutterzUK · 22 Mar 2010 at 18:05

I made another copy of the DVD using DVDDecryptor rather than the windows 7 image thingy... I burnt it at 1x and now it's working!
(98% expanded as I write )

Essexraptor · 22 Mar 2010 at 18:58

aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh a bad iso copy....explained then....

NutterzUK · 22 Mar 2010 at 19:23

Wow... just wow.

My only problem now is to upgrade my mind and hands to work as fast as the computer. This is ridiculous. I click on something and before I've even though about the fact it should be up there infront of me.. it's there! It's like the computer is actually leading me rather than me leading the comp!

NutterzUK · 22 Mar 2010 at 19:25

According to Windows experience index, my computer is now held back by my OCZ Ram and i7 920....
Overclock time? lmao.

NutterzUK · 22 Mar 2010 at 19:36

Does this seem right?

Ziggy4 · 22 Mar 2010 at 20:52

Looking good there! Glad you got Windoze tamed. Yeah, I always burn copies at slow speed. Next time I'm going to try installing from USB drive to save wear and tear on the original disc, but that's another tale and OT.

Speeds could be a little better but depends which driver (and to a lesser extent, motherboard) you are using. MS drivers generally slower, and which Intel set works best varies from user to user. Try the new RST ones (9.6.0.1014) and if they are not good try the older Martix drivers (8.9.1023). In your own time though. Nothing wrong with those numbers and we are talking potentially marginal improvements in real world ops.

Wow... just wow.

My only problem now is to upgrade my mind and hands to work as fast as the computer

Yup, that about sums it up!

Ziggy4 · 22 Mar 2010 at 20:56

Quote:
Originally Posted by NutterzUK View Post
If I format my drive, or partition it, is this bad for a SSD?

Click to expand...

Nope.

Do not format an SSD. Only use quick format. A complete format writes to every cell, which contributes to wear and degrades performance. Whether or not the TRIM support in the latest Intel drivers takes appropriate action on the latter is unkown but I'd avoid any uneccessary, excessive writing.

NutterzUK · 22 Mar 2010 at 23:03

Thanks Ziggy!
I deleted the partitions and then told windows to install in the " unallocated space ". I guess Windows will have just sorted out the rest.
As for the intel drivers, I will give them a shot at some point but I also heard benchmarking the system a lot will slow it down,.. so without doing that lots, I don't know if I can really test it. Either way,.. it's kind of click and it's there speed... I cant see anything ever being faster.

NutterzUK · 22 Mar 2010 at 23:15

Also for anyone worrying about if 80gb is enough for a main drive...
I have used up 20gb, thats with windows 7, google chrome, Jcreator, JDK etc, T-Mobile broadband manager, DC++, and PKR ( poker ) all installed!
There is still 60GB left for games if I wanted to..!
Thats fine for installed things, all my music and films etc are on other drives.

fornowagain · 23 Mar 2010 at 00:12

Ziggy4 said:
Do not format an SSD. Only use quick format. A complete format writes to every cell, which contributes to wear and degrades performance. Whether or not the TRIM support in the latest Intel drivers takes appropriate action on the latter is unkown but I'd avoid any uneccessary, excessive writing.

1 in 10'000. Come on. Just treat it like a normal drive it'll outlive you.

MrH · 23 Mar 2010 at 00:25

I'm getting my Intel X25-M tomorrow too and this has answered many of my questions, can't wait!

AbsenceJam · 23 Mar 2010 at 01:14

Ziggy4 said:
Do not format an SSD. Only use quick format. A complete format writes to every cell, which contributes to wear and degrades performance. Whether or not the TRIM support in the latest Intel drivers takes appropriate action on the latter is unkown but I'd avoid any uneccessary, excessive writing.

A full format just does chkdsk. No writing is done.

Ziggy4 · 23 Mar 2010 at 01:53

A full format just does chkdsk. No writing is done.

Well, in all my decades of computing I never knew that. Learn somehting new every day!

fornowagain · 23 Mar 2010 at 02:17

AbsenceJam said:
A full format just does chkdsk. No writing is done.

Differences between a Quick format and a regular format during a "clean" installation of Windows XP

When you choose to run a regular format on a volume, files are removed from the volume that you are formatting and the hard disk is scanned for bad sectors. The scan for bad sectors is responsible for the majority of the time that it takes to format a volume.

Change in the behavior of the format command in Windows Vista

The format command behavior has changed in Windows Vista. By default in Windows Vista, the format command writes zeros to the whole disk when a full format is performed. In Windows XP and in earlier versions of the Windows operating system, the format command does not write zeros to the whole disk when a full format is performed.

Depends on OS, Vista/Win7 writes 0's.