New Win7 install on SSD

Tomsk

Tomsk

Tomsk

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
5,236
Location
Overground, underground..
I'm about to build my new PC. It'll be running 2x120GB SSD in RAID 0 with a few other (rotary) HDs and have 16GB of RAM.

The PC is unlikely to be used for games. DVD and eventually Blu-Ray ripping are the most likely PC intensive tasks.

What's the best way of setting up Win7 for performance and longevity of the SSD?

From what I've read:
1. reduce system restore size
2. disable hibernation (or move it to another HD)
3. set up a RAMDISK for temporary internet files
4. stop indexing on C:
5. move applications (program files & program file(x86)) to another HD

Is that OK and is there anything else I can do?

Or should I just have a standard vanilla install and assume that by the time the SSDs die, there will be cheaper, faster and bigger ones to replace them?
 
Tomsk said:
Or should I just have a standard vanilla install and assume that by the time the SSDs die, there will be cheaper, faster and bigger ones to replace them?
Click to expand...
Yup... in particular, don't bother trying to artificially limit the number of writes by moving stuff elsewhere, it sort of defeats the object of the exercise. You could maximise the longevity of your SSD by taking it out of the PC and putting it in a drawer, but then you'd be unlikely to see any of the performance benefits you've paid for.

If you don't use hibernation, then disabling it to save some space is probably a good idea. Otherwise, just use the drive as normal, it'll be obsolete long before it wears out.

One exception would be your DVD/Blu-ray rips - probably stating the obvious, but using an SSD as a target would be a bit pointless, as the optical drive would be the bottleneck in any case
 
Last edited:
Thanks.
A simple plain vanilla install then, although with 16GB of RAM I'll probably set up a RAMDISK for temp. internet files.
 
Last edited:
CaptainCrash said:
Yup... in particular, don't bother trying to artificially limit the number of writes by moving stuff elsewhere, it sort of defeats the object of the exercise. You could maximise the longevity of your SSD by taking it out of the PC and putting it in a drawer, but then you'd be unlikely to see any of the performance benefits you've paid for.

If you don't use hibernation, then disabling it to save some space is probably a good idea. Otherwise, just use the drive as normal, it'll be obsolete long before it wears out.

One exception would be your DVD/Blu-ray rips - probably stating the obvious, but using an SSD as a target would be a bit pointless, as the optical drive would be the bottleneck in any case
Click to expand...

Yay music to my ears :)

Even ripping BluRays regularly they can still take some hammer, I have a pair of M225 256GB drives I've been doing this to for about 3 years now and still 89% life if you believe SSD Life :)

Tomsk said:
Thanks.
A simple plain vanilla install then, although with 16GB of RAM I'll probably set up a RAMDISK for temp. internet files.
Click to expand...

With Windows 7 you might want to adjust your page file down, as it will be approx. 32GB page file by default :eek: If you run Windows 8 it's defaults are a lot less, 32GB RAM = 4GB-7.5GB Pagefile by default :)
 
ChileanLlama said:
With Windows 7 you might want to adjust your page file down, as it will be approx. 32GB page file by default :eek: If you run Windows 8 it's defaults are a lot less, 32GB RAM = 4GB-7.5GB Pagefile by default :)
Click to expand...

Thanks. I didn't realise Win7 defaulted to double RAM size for the pagefile.

I have a second pair of 60GB SSDs as well. Maybe I'll put the page file on those. ;)
 
CaptainCrash said:
One exception would be your DVD/Blu-ray rips - probably stating the obvious, but using an SSD as a target would be a bit pointless, as the optical drive would be the bottleneck in any case
Click to expand...

Agree with this, but if you rip them to your SSD, then any subsquent encoding etc will be a lot quicker than if working off mechanical drives.
 
Banzai_Joe said:
Agree with this, but if you rip them to your SSD, then any subsquent encoding etc will be a lot quicker than if working off mechanical drives.
Click to expand...
I think most video encoding operations would still be CPU-limited, but if you're simply editing without re-encoding then yes, you should see some handy speeds, as long as you have an SSD as both source and destination. :)
 
ChileanLlama said:
Yay music to my ears :)

With Windows 7 you might want to adjust your page file down, as it will be approx. 32GB page file by default :eek: If you run Windows 8 it's defaults are a lot less, 32GB RAM = 4GB-7.5GB Pagefile by default :)
Click to expand...

how do you change that ? and whats a recommend ammount .. dont have ssd .... btw waht does it do , sorry for sounding thick lol
 
Go into Control Panel->System. Then select Advanced System Settings from the left hand pane, find the Advanced tab and you should see Performance. Click on the Settings button.

Choose the Advanced tab, and under Virtual Memory select Change.

The pagefile is what Windows uses for virtual memory, in very simplistic terms, if an application needs more memory than you have in your machine then it will start using Virtual memory. It's obviously much slower than real memory.

There's always a lot of discussion about what is best, my recommendation would be to leave it as the default settings suggested by Windows, unless it is claiming a massive amount, which is never likely to be used, such as with Tomsk's set up.
 
Yep sure, if you don't need the space and 4GB isn't a lot, I'd just leave it as it is.

You can get some problems with programs falling over, or out of memory if you don't have any virtual memory - but like I say just leave it as it is and you'll be fine :)
 
ChileanLlama said:
Yep sure, if you don't need the space and 4GB isn't a lot, I'd just leave it as it is.

You can get some problems with programs falling over, or out of memory if you don't have any virtual memory - but like I say just leave it as it is and you'll be fine :)
Click to expand...

explain ? as far as I am aware my 1024 mb on ssd page file has been fine and not caused any issues thus far
The last thing you want to do is move programs and games off a ssd on to a slower drive that would negate the point of having a ssd.
 
Last edited:
C64 said:
explain ? as far as I am aware my 1024 mb on ssd page file has been fine and not caused any issues thus far
The last thing you want to do is move programs and games off a ssd on to a slower drive that would negate the point of having a ssd.
Click to expand...

What's to explain? I've not suggested moving anything off an SSD, just reducing a pagefile where a lot of RAM is installed as the default is large.

If you want a smaller pagefile than the default size then that's up to you, there's plenty of threads debating pagefile sizes, but that depends on the individual and what they use their PC for. One size doesn't fit all, but if in doubt stick with the default sizes - MS know more about this than most of us.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom