SSD advice

AndyOcUK

AndyOcUK

AndyOcUK

Soldato
Joined
15 Feb 2006
Posts
3,421
Location
Staffordshire
ok folks

New to SSDs and need some advice on set up and running.
Main questions I have are:

1 - Do i turn off or move the page file off the SSD to another physical drive
2 - I hear defragging knackers SSD's - Do I need to disable any defrag services for the SSD boot drive? If so how?

Current Specs:

800D
R2E
i7 970 @ 4.2GHz
6GB Dominator GT 2000MHz C7
GTX 480
Win 7 Home Premium 64 Bit.

Current boot/ OS/ Games and Programs are on a pair of WD Veloci's (150GB each) in striped RAID array.

Looking at using SSD for OS, Office 2010 and Nod32.

Raptor RAID for Games and other programs

Big Fat HDD for films and tunes.

thx in advance :)
 
I was under the impression it was better to have the page file on another drive, but id guess it depends on the size of your SSD. When i had a 32Gb one with Windows, Office and all my drivers and utilities i had about 8Gb free so wouldnt have much at all with pagefile on there as well.
 
With a new install using win 7 on a SSD i am under the impression windows detects its going onto an SSD and disables defrag on that drive and possibly makes some other optimisations.

Also when i got my c300 i found a freeware program that altered several OS settings in 1 click rather than doing it manually to optimise windows for use with an SSD.

With regards to the page file, atm i have mine disabled with only 4gb ram and i've never had a problem but afaik 8gb is recommended before disabling the page file.
 
MeatLoaf said:
I was under the impression it was better to have the page file on another drive.......
Click to expand...

Thats what I'd heard. I was under the impression that loads of writes/ re-writes drastically reduces the life of SSD's, thus why putting the pagefile elswhere is a good idea?.

HardwareGeek said:
With a new install using win 7 on a SSD i am under the impression windows detects its going onto an SSD and disables defrag on that drive and possibly makes some other optimisations.

Also when i got my c300 i found a freeware program that altered several OS settings in 1 click rather than doing it manually to optimise windows for use with an SSD..
Click to expand...

I'd not heard that about windows. Do you have a link/ name for the program you mention?

The SSD is a Corsair 32GB so it will literally have just win 7 64bit, office, windows updates etc and NOD32 antivirus.

I was planning to use my 2 X WD Velociraptor in 300GB RAID 0 (Stripe) array for Games, all other programs and the page file. This is currently what the Velocis are used for in the same RAID configuration but with Win 7 64 on there as the boot drive too.

Thanks for the replies so far folks :)
 
Taken from the SSD sticky up top...

clocka said:
For example, Intel's X25-M SSD's are MLC, and they are rated to last for 100GB of writes every day, for 5 years. No home user would write 100GB to an SSD every day, so an Intel SSD is likely to last 10-15+ years, by which time, technology will have advanced anyway.
Click to expand...

I see no reason why most SSD's manufactured these days would have a hugely different lifespan. From what I see people worry about them too much. They're best treated as a regular hard drive, except for the whole defragging thing. If you get an SSD and clean install Windows 7, it applies all its SSD enchancements automatically, such as TRIM and disabling auto defrags
 
Im getting my first SSD Monday and Im going to treat it like any other HDD. The only tweaking Im doing is turn off the indexing and defrag and if I bugger it, well so be it. I think if SSD were so fragile, they wouldn't be released with a 3yr warranty.
 
The only rule worth to follow is, never use defrag. The others are kind optional. If you buy Intel then use the Intel SSD toolbox every week, that can be automatically set. If you buy other brands, make sure to stay idle for at least 60 minutes per day for the garbage collection to work.
 
Invertigo said:
Taken from the SSD sticky up top...



I see no reason why most SSD's manufactured these days would have a hugely different lifespan. From what I see people worry about them too much. They're best treated as a regular hard drive, except for the whole defragging thing. If you get an SSD and clean install Windows 7, it applies all its SSD enchancements automatically, such as TRIM and disabling auto defrags
Click to expand...

Good info - never new win 7 did that :)

Phil2008 said:
Im getting my first SSD Monday and Im going to treat it like any other HDD. The only tweaking Im doing is turn off the indexing and defrag and if I bugger it, well so be it. I think if SSD were so fragile, they wouldn't be released with a 3yr warranty.
Click to expand...

Good point :)

Metroid said:
The only rule worth to follow is, never use defrag. The others are kind optional. If you buy Intel then use the Intel SSD toolbox every week, that can be automatically set. If you buy other brands, make sure to stay idle for at least 60 minutes per day for the garbage collection to work.
Click to expand...

More good info :)

Thanks for the input guys - really glad I asked all this. Been a watercooling, overclocking hardware nut for years, but having the raptors (which are pretty damn pokey), SSD upgrades just haven't been an urgency.

Thanks for the help :)
 
hi mate


just buy an ssd that fits your needs


install windows and you are away. there isnt anything to worry about. windows sorts it out for you.

you can do checks to ensure windows has marked the drive down as an ssd and is acting accordingly, but every time i have bothered, it has. defragging disabled etc.

just install and enjoy
 
First of all, sorry to hijack the thread but there's not much point making another one.

I've held off on getting an SSD because of the price and also all of the faffing around that still seemed to have been required a year ago. However, I'm thinking of getting the Vertex 2E Bigfoot 120GB SSD (my current Windows 7 x64 installation is 70GB excluding the page file so a 90GB wouldn't be enough for me). What do I need to know or do to get this SSD running optimally? I've currently heard about the following from various places:

- Windows 7 sorts out all SSD stuff during install but make sure hibernation and defrag are off.
- TRIM isn't actually that effective so the user should log out of Windows for an hour a week to enable garbage collection. Is there a better way to do this? Can the PC just be left on but idle rather than being logged out?
- Intel drivers are better than Microsoft ones. Does this refer to chipset drivers? If so, I already have this (Matrix Storage Manager Driver and Chipset Driver).
- Leave the page file on the SSD. I usually make it a fixed size (currently 9GB) to prevent fragmentation...presumably I can leave it as "Windows managed" on an SSD?

Lastly, is there any utility that would have to be run once a week/month/whatever with the Vertex 2E SSDs?

Thanks for any help dudes.
 
rjkoneill said:
hi mate


just buy an ssd that fits your needs


install windows and you are away. there isnt anything to worry about. windows sorts it out for you.

you can do checks to ensure windows has marked the drive down as an ssd and is acting accordingly, but every time i have bothered, it has. defragging disabled etc.

just install and enjoy
Click to expand...

Hi mate

Installed win 7 64 last night

still only getting 5.9 in windows score (same as the veloci RAID)
 
DragonQ said:
First of all, sorry to hijack the thread but there's not much point making another one.

I've held off on getting an SSD because of the price and also all of the faffing around that still seemed to have been required a year ago. However, I'm thinking of getting the Vertex 2E Bigfoot 120GB SSD (my current Windows 7 x64 installation is 70GB excluding the page file so a 90GB wouldn't be enough for me). What do I need to know or do to get this SSD running optimally? I've currently heard about the following from various places:

- Windows 7 sorts out all SSD stuff during install but make sure hibernation and defrag are off.
- TRIM isn't actually that effective so the user should log out of Windows for an hour a week to enable garbage collection. Is there a better way to do this? Can the PC just be left on but idle rather than being logged out?
- Intel drivers are better than Microsoft ones. Does this refer to chipset drivers? If so, I already have this (Matrix Storage Manager Driver and Chipset Driver).
- Leave the page file on the SSD. I usually make it a fixed size (currently 9GB) to prevent fragmentation...presumably I can leave it as "Windows managed" on an SSD?

Lastly, is there any utility that would have to be run once a week/month/whatever with the Vertex 2E SSDs?

Thanks for any help dudes.
Click to expand...

This it what Im going todo.. Before I install windows change it to ACHI in the bios. Once windows is installed, make sure defrag and indexing is turned off for the drive, and then just use it like you would any other drive... I think these loads of tweaks ppl do to make the drive "apparently" last longer, are prob doing more harm then good.

About trm and garbage collection, just let the drive and windows sort that out, cos Im guessing windows is left idel at some point every day? So that should be enough.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom