My First SSD installed - Questions and How does it look?

Spike_UK · 1 Sep 2010 at 20:44

Finally took the plunge and picked up two OZC 60gb Vertex2 this week.

I've decided against Raid0 at the moment. I don't like the idea of not having TRIM. Plus even in a Raid0 I would most likely still partition it into two 60gb drives, one for OS and one for Games (I like them seperate). Am I missing out on extra speed by not running the striped?

It took me a while to get Windows 7 on the first one. It would only let me install to it if every other drive was disconnected from the PC, which from reading around seems to be fairly common.

All is looking good though. Windows 7 seems to fire up quicker than before. World of Warcraft loads up very nicely (under 20 seconds from Character Screen to fully loaded in Dalaran), but as it's my first I have no idea what I'm doing really. I've run CrystalDiskMark but if I'm honest, I have no idea if this is a good result or not. It does look a little slower than I was expecting, but I have no real idea.

I'm using the onboard SATA ports on a ASUS M4A89TD Pro. I've got all SATA ports (1-6) set to RAID, with the SSD's in Port 1 and 2. In ports 3+4 I have two Seagate Barracudas in a Raid1 for my Main Storage and then in port 5 I have a further Barracuda unraided for random junk.

Also, I wanted to have a quick look to see what Fireware is on the drives, but neither CrystalDiskInfo or SSD Update from OCZ will detect the drives. Not sure why

Spike_UK · 1 Sep 2010 at 21:00

On my board I haven't got many options.

It's either...

Port 1-6 as Raid
Port 1-6 as AHCI
Port 1-6 as IDE
Port 1-4 as Raid, Port 5-6 IDE
Port 1-4 as ACHI, Port 5-6 IDE

I need Raid for the two Barracudas, but in doing that I can't have AHCI as well.

Spike_UK · 1 Sep 2010 at 21:08

I think the ATTO result looks better. A lot more comforting than the other one.

Spike_UK · 1 Sep 2010 at 21:20

Looks good. I have no idea if that's optimum speed though, if you know what I mean.
Real world speed feels good though, which if the important thing I guess

Is there a way I can tell that Windows 7 Auto TRIM is working?

Spike_UK · 1 Sep 2010 at 23:13

Good good, I'm not going mad then. I feel a bit more relaxed about the results now.

I'm assuming as I'm not Raided but the SSD's are plugged into Raid eneabled ports that I'm still getting semi AHCI so TRIM is working. Is that right?

Is it worth going Raid0? They're already lightning fast really.

Spike_UK · 2 Sep 2010 at 07:33

Holy crap! I didn't think it was that big a jump!

Excuse my ignorance though, but what do you mean by "extended the OP"?

Spike_UK · 2 Sep 2010 at 10:25

So anything you leave unprovisioned will be used as reserved nand?

Creating a 100, 105 or 110gb array instead of the full 120gb for example?

Spike_UK · 2 Sep 2010 at 23:17

I've created a 110gb array which when installed Win7 I've partitioned 40%/60% OS/Games (I like having all games seperate).

That should do the trick shouldn't it?