Raid 0, Page File and SSD's!

aries2580

aries2580

aries2580

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Hey everyone,

So a quick few questions.

Once my graphic card problems are sorted out, I was thinking about whacking the paging file, and temp folders on an old 160GB samsung SATA hard disk i have sitting about.
But reading my motherboards bios, I saw how easy it was to configure a raid 0 setup, and i'm toying with the idea of grabbing 2 Raptor drives.

So, If i was to do so, and i had my raptors in raid 0. Sticking the OS on them, but have the page file on my single 750 Samsung spinpoint.
Would this reduce performance? Would i be better getting two separate arrays?
One for the OS and apps, and the other for temp and swap file?

Then I was thinking, all this money might be better spent on a single SSD... But again i would want the swap file on a separate HD, so wold this reduce the performance of the SSD?
What if i had the page file on a raid 0 and the OS with apps on the ssd?


ALSO (sorry)
I have seen the tweaks to disable indexing with an ssd. But i use the search feature a lot in vista... So would it still be advised to disable it?
Disabling superfetch and prefetch, i though these were meant to speeed up a system?

Thanks all :)
 
if you got 4gb of ram or more page file can be ignored for the most part (just stick it on an HDD that you use for big files and other files its Very rarely used)

SSD from here Vertex and samsung, not here falcon

the search service does not need turning off, others in here may say turn it off
defrag superfetch and prefetchers should be off on SSDs, Due to the Speed of SSD superfetch and prefetchers was ment to Improve HDD performance but due to the speed of SSD both of them are not needed as things just load right away (i got an S128 corsair slow compared to other ssds but still very fast on access times and very cheap)

get an 128GB one as they should be able to fit every thing you need and get an Big drive for storing files backups and other things so they do not fill the SSD up, just make sure its only corsair, falcon, samsung, vertex, as they are the only ones that have cache on them

what set up do you have now
 
thanks for the reply. :)

My system atm,

Blackops x48
Q6600
4GB OCZ intel extreme RAM
RMA'd 4850 (2nd ati card to die on me.... Its nvidia from here on i think)
750 Samsung F1
160GB Samsung (not sure what model but I remember it only got 5.6 in the vista index score!)

*EDIT*

I was just using the 750GB for everything, then i remembered the old drive i had in the garage, googled a bit, and found that apparently whacking the page file onto the separate drive is a good idea if you have one. Also the temp files

But would the SSD performance not be reduced?

I know i Could fit nearly everything onto a 128 SSD, cause i vlite all my installs.

BUT now vista SP2 complains about it... FFS
 
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vlite not make much difference really on size as your only talking about maybe 1gb or so used space Turning off the hibernate file that is norm about the same size of your ram size will give you more space back then any thing els

hibernate system Never works on an gaming PC best turn it off (this command turns off hibernate and removes the file as well) its all so recommended you do an disk cleanup as well as i had 4gb floating around somewhere
as the powercfg.exe -h off

again you Have got 4gb of ram so page files is very rarely used unless your getting within 200MB ram left (set it to 500MB onto an HDD or turn it off compleatly as you have got 4gb of ram)

use the 750gb drive you have as an second drive so you can keep all your drivers backups and well any file really, every thing els can be left on the c: drive , that be Programs OS and games, any files you make best stick on the HDD

the recommendations are for the make the SSD run longer not faster as MLC SSDs have 10,000 erases per page each page is 512KB each but its split up into 4KB blocks (so its not so you got more then 10000 erase as it does not need to erase if there is an block free), you have to be constantly Writing lots of small files or big files all day (say 20-40GB an day or more) to kill an SSD very fast, most predict SSDs should last around 7-10 years under norm office/game use, Most of these recommendations are for JMicron drives as thay suffer from write issues due to have no cache

the samsung drives seem to need nothing special been done to use them just plug them in and go (but auto or Manuel Defrag Must be turned off , Superfetch and prefetchers should be off as thay are for spinning disks HDDs due to access times that SSDs are so Fast at doing)
as OCZ forums on what needs to be done some things are quite extreme like setting up an Ram drive for putting page files and temp files on
 
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leexgx said:
the search service does not need turning off, others in here may say turn it off
Click to expand...

I would definitely say to turn off Indexing as it's sole purpose is to make searching faster on mechanical drives, and as Leexgx keeps pointing out SSD's access times are of the order of 0.1ms - so searching is blisteringly fast anyway and hence Indexing is just a waste. My 2p worth!;)
 
FaceplantSi said:
I would definitely say to turn off Indexing as it's sole purpose is to make searching faster on mechanical drives, and as Leexgx keeps pointing out SSD's access times are of the order of 0.1ms - so searching is blisteringly fast anyway and hence Indexing is just a waste. My 2p worth!;)
Click to expand...

:D But if i turn indexing off... Can i still search for thing with the wee search bar in the start menu?
 
it would mean it needs to scan the drive for the files where as if its all ready been indexed before

its up to you if you want if off or on, try it (i left it on my self) Microsoft with windows 7 does not turn it off as well when SSDs are used (it does more then just search for files)
Windows 7 should turn off defrag, superfetch and prefetchers, Once an windows performance index has been performed (need to report to MS as prefetchers was not auto turned off allso defrag looks like it may not be off as well as per microsoft blog it should be off) http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

you have to understand going from an HDD to an SDD is not like going from DDR1 and DDR2 in real world you not see any difference, but with SSD is 100x faster at Accessing the Data then an HDD and the access speeds are that what makes it respond very fast and if its random access SSDs still fly where HDDs just go slow then,
once you got an SSD you not see any performance Improvement or Loss by turning off Defrag, prefetchers and superfetch and windows desktop search (Defrag must be off as it wear the SSD out) in SSD world your talking about an extra 1ms if that not within human perception,
Turning off superfetch, prefetchers and defrag is to extend the life of the SSD (page file can be turnd off or moved to and HDD if your finding your useing the page file a lot but you have to have like 1-2GB of ram for that to happen)

defrag is pointless on SSD as the SSD wear leveling makes the data fragmented any way, there are norm 16 flash cells on most SSDs to improve reading of the data the data is spread all over the cells so when it reads back it can hit as many cells as it can (so the fragmentation you see in windows is not what it looks like on the SSD as it uses LBA relocation to point to the block where the data is), Defrag will shorten the life of the SSD if ran a lot

Prefetchers are used so when windows first boots up it preloads up programs that you have opened in the past so thay are all ready in ram so when you open them thay start faster, with SSD thay are pointless as SSD access times are so low not needed, just wears the SSD out, as it needs to make the prefetch files

Superfetch was an interesting idea but on Vista it did not care if you was using the hard disk or not so in some cases it lowered HDD performance (more so on boot) and preload programs into ram so thay could be opened far faster (in some cases like video editing you should turn off superfetch for HDDs as it make it slow to load files as i found out trying to burn an DVD 8x when superfetch was droping my HDD to 8MB/s read speeds), SSDs do not need data Pre loading into ram as most SSDs have 200MB/s read (any SSD avg is 150MB/s on random 512KB/s blocks reads) and access speeds are so slow it load Right away even if something els is loading at the same time, even on my so called slow S128, i get an windows 7 Index score of 7.1 and thats good as HDDs i am quite sure are not going to be alowed in to go above 5.9 due to access speeds

Pagefile, If you have 4gb of ram or more its Very likely your going to be able to turn it off, its very rarely used if you have a lot of system ram and will not impact on system performance if you just stick it onto an HDD and make it 500MB as its likely only ever going to see 1-2MB in it (unless you get an BSOD then it may have bit more then that in it for reporting to MS about the crash)
 
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I just bought the vertex because of the help with ocz forums. Did all the tweaks and updates and use wiper about twice a month, or when I delete really large files. It was definately worth it.
 
forgot about the wiper tool and life of the SSD

Smaller the SSD the shorter life it have due to less pages to erase on the SSD get the Size of the SSD you need (recommend 128gb if you can go that high it)

if you want something thats cheap that works far faster then an HDD the Corsair S128 corsair S128 £171 Click me its only £172 for it the data rate is about the same as an norm HDD but its far far faster on access times then any HDD,
if you want to spend bit more for only 120MB/s more read speeds (200MB/s) for £100 more (£261) you can get the samsung SSD Samsung 128GB £261 click me
and for £70 more for the same thing OCZ vertex 128GB £333 click me

i had no problems with the samsung based SSD (corsair S128 that i own now), i do recommaned the samsung 128GB drive as its only £100 for a lot more read/write speed it also has 128MB of cache on it as well but Both Drives are fast jsut one has bit more read speed then the other real world unless your playing with lots of big files you be hard pressed to tell the difference but going from an HDD you would if you whent with the above 2 , you find that you fill the 64GB SSDs Quite often due to there small size

Wipe tool with vertex, samsung, corsair, falcon, should not be needed due to the cache on the SSD it self, it in no way improves Read performance, just Write speed that is improved an little even when all blocks need to be erased its Still far faster when what an HDD operates at, Only benchmarks will show the performance loss in real would agane human will not tell if the sped has droped
 
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leexgx said:
Only benchmarks will show the performance loss in real would agane human will not tell if the sped has droped
Click to expand...

Wrong. I can tell a huge difference when installing a large game if I ran the wiper tool first.

And it does slightly increase read speeds, but that increase may not be able to be noticed with the human eye. There is another thread on here where I posted screen shots of before and after with the wiper tool. Proof is there.

Also as far as the life of an ssd is concerned (write wear) you could add/delete 20gb a day for twenty years and still not wear out a 30gb ssd even.

EDIT: Also by the time these "wear" down, I'm expecting the prices to fall out, and to be able to cheaply replace what I have now.
 
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Ninja Please! said:
Wrong. I can tell a huge difference when installing a large game if I ran the wiper tool first.

And it does slightly increase read speeds, but that increase may not be able to be noticed with the human eye. There is another thread on here where I posted screen shots of before and after with the wiper tool. Proof is there.

Also as far as the life of an ssd is concerned (write wear) you could add/delete 20gb a day for twenty years and still not wear out a 30gb ssd even.
Click to expand...

What exactly is the wiper tool?
 
aries2580 said:
What exactly is the wiper tool?
Click to expand...

when you delete a file on an ssd, it doesn't get erased, but rather it gets marked for deletion. It won't be deleted physically until it is written over. In ssd world that means it will have to be deleted when you are trying to save anything on it therefore making the process longer than if they were already clean and not written on (like when brand new).

The wiper tool will actually delete all the files marked for deletion when you run the utility (which takes all of 5 secs to run) so that way you will have speeds just as fast as they were on day one. I run wiper about twice a month or after I delete a large file like a game etc. With only having 60gb, I have deleted and installed enough games to tell you I can physically notice a difference when installing something large, if the speeds are slower than they could/should be.

I dream of the day I can afford a 500gb ssd...:cool:
 
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In addition to what Ninja! has said, the Wiper tool (which is a manually run application to run the TRIM command) can only be run on OCZ Vertex's with Firmware v1.10 - it isn't supported on older firmware revisions. Not sure if it works on other makes or if it's OCZ specific... maybe someone else can enlighten us on that score?

TRIM support is reportedly going to be included in Win7 final release when that arrives. The Wiper tool can be run on single Vertex's, but not on RAID arrays yet (there are supposed to be TRIM capable RAID drivers in development) and there have been some issues with running it on a 64bit OS - so make sure you have a good image of your drive before you start just in case it all goes horribly wrong!
 
Yeah it has been a while since I have been on the ocz site to see if they have made any ground on the trim supporting raid arrays.

EDIT: I just now remembered how insane raiding ssd's like the vertex are and realized they are so fast, wiper is probably redundant, especially if you have 3 ssd's in a raid0 setup, I'm looking at you faceplantSi...;)
 
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Ninja Please! said:
EDIT: I just now remembered how insane raiding ssd's like the vertex are and realized they are so fast, wiper is probably redundant, especially if you have 3 ssd's in a raid0 setup, I'm looking at you faceplantSi...;)
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure about it being redundant on a RAID array - I reloaded to Win7 a week or so ago due to an i7 upgrade, and for a week or so beforehand I noticed a very small slowdown but only in certain things, like opening Explorer for example - there was a seconds pause before the drives appeared... TBH I'm not sure what was the cause because I reloaded anyway and couldn't be bothered to try testing with a Vista reload on the original hardware - It could also very likely have been my Sammy F1's in power-down state that caused the delay, who knows! Anyway with Win7 and an i7 rig they are still stunning - I feel like a kid at Christmas every time I boot my rig - especially after a days work using PC's that are all still running mechanical HDD's.... yawn!
 
i wouldn't touch vlite with a barge pole now, when it's being updated it's great, but it's been ages since nuhi did anything with it.

using it on Vista SP2 is daft imo
 
bledd. said:
i wouldn't touch vlite with a barge pole now, when it's being updated it's great, but it's been ages since nuhi did anything with it.

using it on Vista SP2 is daft imo
Click to expand...

The only things I would use vlite for were to remove all the preinstalled drivers apart from the intel storage controller.
Maybe tweak a few services and automate the install...

Surely if that is all i did, it would be fine to delete the reg key that vlite puts there, and update?
 
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