Just purchased my first SSD and have a few questions.

Sh3rlock

Sh3rlock

Sh3rlock

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20 Nov 2006
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Hi guys,

After much consideration, I have just purchased my first SSD. A brand new OCZ agility 3 from the members market. It arrived this morning and I cannot wait to get it installed into my machine but before I do, I have some questions.

1) Is it as simply as plug and play?

2) Will a format during the Windows 7 install be sufficient?

3) I would like to use my current 1TB drive as my secondary. Will both drives being labelled C: cause an issue?

4) Should I update firmware before hand, is this easy to do?

Thanks in advance.
 
1) yes but go in the bios and change the mode to ACHI first

2) yes

3) you cant have too C: drives, unlug your old drive when installing windows and plug it back in aftwards and let it become the D:

4) not sure about that drives firmware, someone else can comment, but i imagine if there is a much newer firmware then yes upagred it
 
My main consern is that my 1TB drive has windows installed on it at the moment.

Can I just put the SSD drive in, install windows and format the secondary drive within the OS?
 
leave the 1tb unconnected when you install else you will end up using the bootsector on the hard drive and not creating a new on on the ssd.
 
NB Use Windows 'easy transfer' to get all accounts settings and documents from one setup to another.

1) Change storage to AHCI in BIOS (dunno why you wouldn't be using this in the first place though)
2) Unplug old HDD, Plug in new SSD to first sata port
3) Install W7 64 to SSD from DVD
4) Install all important system drivers (chipset, graphics, Intel RST).
5) Open RST in system tray and check that disk data cache is enabled
6) Disable file content indexing (optionally turn it off completely) for SSD and double-check that Windows has correctly disabled scheduled defrags for SSD
7) Run WEI
8) Plug old HDD back in and format it.
 
Last edited:
Damien. said:
Ok all set, thanks for the help all.

Next question.

How can I free up some space in Windows, to maximize the space on the SSD?
Click to expand...

Move the location of the temp directories by editing the environment variables. And obviously keep documents etc on a different drive. And all games too ofc. Don't move AppData as it slows down boot if it's on a slower drive :(

Nothing else I can think of that I do currently. Disable hibernate and sleep. Absolutely no need for them. Enjoy your SSD!
 
Not tried it myself yet but I would suggest moving your User folder to your old mechanical drive to save space, mine for example is 13GB which is a lot on a 60GB drive. I found this which shows you how to do it, it seems simple enough!
 
Thanks again guys.

I would like to install steam on the SSD as I am sure the speed will benefit in some games. I only play one or two at a time so I will just have to manage my installed games a lot better. That said, is there an app which I can use to force steam to use 2 folders? Ie; one on the ssd for my most played games and one on my mechanical for the games I dont play so often.

Also, I have moved my windows page file to the mechanical drive. Is this going to cause any issues? Doing this instantly free'd up 8GB on my SSD.
 
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