Ok, after much chatting on here in the forum about the if's, but's and maybes of Solid State Drives I have eventually found out exactly what I needed to know.
The People in here that have helped me so far have been great, especially "mikeo"
, but I just had to hear what I wanted to know from the manufacturers mouth, and in my case that is/was OCZ.
______________________________________________________________
I sat on the phone talking to a senior tech support advisor guy in thier base in California, was on the phone for quite some time, so I got my main questions asked and answered
______________________________________________________________
Firstly I asked "can benchmarking/speedtesting harm your SSD" ?
The answer to that was "NO", not unless you are some kind of crazy nut who sits and benchmarks the SSD every single day repeatedly, he said in that case you could more than likely do damage, same as you would damage various computer components if you benchmarked them constantly.
So then I asked "what is the safe amount of benchmarks that you can do then basing it on approx 12 months" ?
The tech guy said "well maybe about 12 times, he said put it this way, how many people sit and want to benchmark thier old style mechanical sata drives all the time ? I said not many, he said exactly, he said its just one of these things because someone gets something new they want to test its speed, he said thats fair enough and will not do any harm at all as long as you are not crazy and sit benchmarking the SSD 24/7 etc, then your asking for trouble.
He also added that "you would really need to go out of your way to damage an SSD with benchmarking" and he refered back to a crazy person who would want to sit and benchmark 24/7, but said really, if you just install it, treat it as you would have like your old mechanical stata drives and just run the odd benchmark once in a while then no harm will come to the drive at all really.
_____________________________________________________________
Defragmenting :>
I asked him what happens if you standard defragment your SSD and/or do it quite a lot of times ?
He said not a lot really, he said the SSD would start to recover its self after the defrag and that there is no need to defrag the SSD at all (which quite a few people in here already stated).
Again he added "you would really need to go well out of your way like a crazy person defragging and benchmarking all the time to do any damage to an SSD were it damaged the drive permanently" and went on to say just treat it like a normal person would and trust the speeds on the specification sheet etc or even now and again have a benchmark and a defrag if it keeps you happy and your SSD will remain fine "just do not go crazy with it he kept saying".
______________________________________________________________
Installing Windows :>
I asked whats the best way to install windows onto an SSD ?
He said "If your firmware is up to date then just go ahead and install windows as normal, no need to even use the OCZ toolbox secure erase option, just pop the windows dvd disk into the dvd drive as normal, do a quick/fast format and install windows same as you always would have"
He went on to say, "however, if your SSD firmware is not the latest version then follow the instructions beforehand to update the firmware as per the instructions" (as no doubt most people already knew in here).
______________________________________________________________
Drivers :>
I asked him, what about your SSD RST driver, does that need to be the most recent or come from the motherboard manufacturers website etc ?
He said "NO, he said that your SSD will happily work with windows built in drivers but did say if you want to be a perfectionist and always have everything up to date then yes, go ahead and install the latest SSD RST drivers from your motherboard manufacturers website if it keeps you happy"
____________________________________________________________
Installing programmes onto the SSD or Old Mechanical sata drive :>
I told him that most people are devided on this subject, some think its fine to have nearly all programmes installed onto an older style mechanical sata drive and just have the shortcut to that programme on the windows desktop on the SSD so that they can save space on the SSD and also keep the SSD running faster too.
He said "that is a little bit of a myth, he said you are much better to have your programmes that you want to have running at fastest speed installed on the actual SSD drive rather than the old style sata drive, he said you will definitely lose a bit of speed using the programme from the old style sata drive and a shortcut on the SSD windows desktop especially if its a programme you want to run as responsive as possible, but did say other things like old backed up Items such as photo albums and things like that that will only guzzle space then yes keep them on the old backup drives"
But, he did admit "If your not restricted for space on your SSD then install everything and anything onto it and the amount of data installed wont really noticeably effect performance in speed either unless you wanted to go mad with the crazy benchmarking etc again, but in general you wont hardly notice any difference"
_______________________________________________________________
And Finally :>
I asked him if you feel you have done a little bit too much benchmarking and defragging etc on the SSD, would a fresh quick/fast format and install of windows return the drive back to as good as new.
He said "YES, it will turn the drive back to as good as new as it was when it came out of the box, UNless you have been a super crazy person who has benchmarked it an incredible amount of times etc" like what was mentioned before, and as for standard defragging that we now know the SSD doesnt require he said "All the defragging will do is basically slow the drive down a bit and then the drive will start to recover its self afterwards if you dont keep doing it all the time, basically the same applies to benchmarking too"
______________________________________________________________
So, that was official information from a OCZ senior tech support agent in California today on the telephone who seemed to know everything about the SSD's.
I hope this information will help some people like myself who had never had an SSD before and was unsure of quite a few things, well I thought it best to get the answers straight from the horses mouth so to speak and thats what prompted me to do this, not that I doubt anyones word on here or anything like that, I just wanted to know straight from the manufacturer, that was all, no harm in that is there ?
Hope it helps you if you were unsure of a few things, and even though mines is an OCZ drive I am pretty sure these things apply to all SSD's
The People in here that have helped me so far have been great, especially "mikeo"
, but I just had to hear what I wanted to know from the manufacturers mouth, and in my case that is/was OCZ.______________________________________________________________
I sat on the phone talking to a senior tech support advisor guy in thier base in California, was on the phone for quite some time, so I got my main questions asked and answered
______________________________________________________________
Firstly I asked "can benchmarking/speedtesting harm your SSD" ?
The answer to that was "NO", not unless you are some kind of crazy nut who sits and benchmarks the SSD every single day repeatedly, he said in that case you could more than likely do damage, same as you would damage various computer components if you benchmarked them constantly.
So then I asked "what is the safe amount of benchmarks that you can do then basing it on approx 12 months" ?
The tech guy said "well maybe about 12 times, he said put it this way, how many people sit and want to benchmark thier old style mechanical sata drives all the time ? I said not many, he said exactly, he said its just one of these things because someone gets something new they want to test its speed, he said thats fair enough and will not do any harm at all as long as you are not crazy and sit benchmarking the SSD 24/7 etc, then your asking for trouble.
He also added that "you would really need to go out of your way to damage an SSD with benchmarking" and he refered back to a crazy person who would want to sit and benchmark 24/7, but said really, if you just install it, treat it as you would have like your old mechanical stata drives and just run the odd benchmark once in a while then no harm will come to the drive at all really.
_____________________________________________________________
Defragmenting :>
I asked him what happens if you standard defragment your SSD and/or do it quite a lot of times ?
He said not a lot really, he said the SSD would start to recover its self after the defrag and that there is no need to defrag the SSD at all (which quite a few people in here already stated).
Again he added "you would really need to go well out of your way like a crazy person defragging and benchmarking all the time to do any damage to an SSD were it damaged the drive permanently" and went on to say just treat it like a normal person would and trust the speeds on the specification sheet etc or even now and again have a benchmark and a defrag if it keeps you happy and your SSD will remain fine "just do not go crazy with it he kept saying".
______________________________________________________________
Installing Windows :>
I asked whats the best way to install windows onto an SSD ?
He said "If your firmware is up to date then just go ahead and install windows as normal, no need to even use the OCZ toolbox secure erase option, just pop the windows dvd disk into the dvd drive as normal, do a quick/fast format and install windows same as you always would have"
He went on to say, "however, if your SSD firmware is not the latest version then follow the instructions beforehand to update the firmware as per the instructions" (as no doubt most people already knew in here).
______________________________________________________________
Drivers :>
I asked him, what about your SSD RST driver, does that need to be the most recent or come from the motherboard manufacturers website etc ?
He said "NO, he said that your SSD will happily work with windows built in drivers but did say if you want to be a perfectionist and always have everything up to date then yes, go ahead and install the latest SSD RST drivers from your motherboard manufacturers website if it keeps you happy"
____________________________________________________________
Installing programmes onto the SSD or Old Mechanical sata drive :>
I told him that most people are devided on this subject, some think its fine to have nearly all programmes installed onto an older style mechanical sata drive and just have the shortcut to that programme on the windows desktop on the SSD so that they can save space on the SSD and also keep the SSD running faster too.
He said "that is a little bit of a myth, he said you are much better to have your programmes that you want to have running at fastest speed installed on the actual SSD drive rather than the old style sata drive, he said you will definitely lose a bit of speed using the programme from the old style sata drive and a shortcut on the SSD windows desktop especially if its a programme you want to run as responsive as possible, but did say other things like old backed up Items such as photo albums and things like that that will only guzzle space then yes keep them on the old backup drives"
But, he did admit "If your not restricted for space on your SSD then install everything and anything onto it and the amount of data installed wont really noticeably effect performance in speed either unless you wanted to go mad with the crazy benchmarking etc again, but in general you wont hardly notice any difference"
_______________________________________________________________
And Finally :>
I asked him if you feel you have done a little bit too much benchmarking and defragging etc on the SSD, would a fresh quick/fast format and install of windows return the drive back to as good as new.
He said "YES, it will turn the drive back to as good as new as it was when it came out of the box, UNless you have been a super crazy person who has benchmarked it an incredible amount of times etc" like what was mentioned before, and as for standard defragging that we now know the SSD doesnt require he said "All the defragging will do is basically slow the drive down a bit and then the drive will start to recover its self afterwards if you dont keep doing it all the time, basically the same applies to benchmarking too"
______________________________________________________________
So, that was official information from a OCZ senior tech support agent in California today on the telephone who seemed to know everything about the SSD's.
I hope this information will help some people like myself who had never had an SSD before and was unsure of quite a few things, well I thought it best to get the answers straight from the horses mouth so to speak and thats what prompted me to do this, not that I doubt anyones word on here or anything like that, I just wanted to know straight from the manufacturer, that was all, no harm in that is there ?
Hope it helps you if you were unsure of a few things, and even though mines is an OCZ drive I am pretty sure these things apply to all SSD's
