Just installed M225.. What next?

.Griff. · 25 Jan 2010 at 12:06

Sorry if this is the run of the mill boring question but it would mean a lot to me if you could just put my mind at rest.

I received my Crucial M225 this morning and after upgrading the firmware to 1916 I've installed Windows 7 x64. I've disabled defrag and disabled system restore but that's as far as I've gone.

Before I install all the relevant drivers and get all my software back on is there anything else I need to setup/change relating to the SSD? Do I need to do anything regarding TRIM? Is there a benchmark I can run to ensure the SSD is runnign properly before I proceed further?

Thanks in advance.

Darren1967 · 25 Jan 2010 at 13:26

You have Windows 7 so if you're using non-RAID drivers then TRIM is automatically enabled (i.e. you don't have to do anything). With the 1916 firmware, garbage collection is also included so even if TRIM didn't work then GC would run periodically when your machine idles.

If you want to check TRIM is enabled then just open a Command Prompt (cmd.exe) with Administrator rights and type in the following:

fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

If it returns a 0 then TRIM is enabled.

As for benchmarks, the best one for checking sequential read/write speeds is ATTO Disk Benchmark. The best one overall though is AS SSD as this benchmarks the random read/write speeds too and gives an overall score for your drive. Generally you should be getting around 160 - 220 with AS SSD for the 128 GB drive depending on which drivers you're using and which mode you're running the drive in (IDE or AHCI). AHCI with the default Microsoft ones seems to give me the best results with a Windows Index Experience score of 7.3 and an AS SSD rating of 199. With IDE and the Intel drivers I get 6.9 and 168 respectively.

Be careful though, running those benchmarks can cause excessive wear and tear on the drives so once you're happy everything is working OK then stop running them!

By the way, Windows 7 should automatically disable disk defragmentation for SSDs but it'll leave the service running if you have other HDDs installed. Also Superfetch won't run for the SSD if your W.E.I. rating is higher than 6.0 (or it might be 7.0...) so, again, you don't need to disable it. Basically, Windows 7 is SSD aware so it'll disable services that would otherwise wear them down. You can tell if this automatic sensing is working by trying to use ReadyBoost on a USB memory stick... on my PC it is disabled because the system drive is rated fast enough.

.Griff. · 25 Jan 2010 at 13:29

Thanks for the reply Darren. I think you've covered everything I needed to know.

.Griff. · 25 Jan 2010 at 15:10

Should I move the page file onto my D drive (300gig Sata HD) or leave it on drive C (My SSD) ?

Darren1967 · 25 Jan 2010 at 16:09

If you have lots of memory (more than 4 GB) then leave it on C: but set the minimum to 16 MB and the maximum to either 512 MB or 1024 MB. That way Windows 7 will only increase the page file size when necessary reducing wear and tear on the SSD. You could even do what I do and put a small variable page file on C: and a larger fixed one on D:. Having the page file on C: is faster than putting it on any mechanic drive but my best advice is to try both methods and see which you prefer.

The Crucial SSD comes with a five year warranty so if you should wear it out before then (unlikely unless you write 50 GB to it every day for the next five years!) then you're covered for a replacement anyway.