SSD performance tweaks

Dride

Dride

Dride

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Joined
18 Apr 2011
Posts
98
Hi Guys,

I have got a Samsung 840 SSD 250GB after my old C standard HDD died on me Sunday morning. With rushing to get my computer back up and running I went ahead and installed Win7 64bit, then all my drivers and programs. Now, I installed samsungs SSD software to optimize some settings but after reading around and from a friend I have learnt that there are a lot more settings that could be changed to make it run better. Like turn off defrag, drive indexing, system restore, page file, hibernation, prefetch and superfetch, windows write-cache buffer, clearpagefileatshutdown, etc, etc. Will I still be ok to make all these aditional changes with everything installed on my SSD?

I have experienced a few glitches and wondering if it is because I need to make these additional changes. (These are like screen flicker after being away from the computer, program freeze but can still move mouse and click other things, etc).

Any help would be good.

Cheers.
 
All I've ever done is to make sure Windows is actually recognising the SSD as a SSD (which will automatically disable defrag and a few other things) and disable hibernation to free up some space.
 
hi bremen,

Where would I go to see if it is recognising the SSD as a SSD? I'm hoping that it has otherwise from what I have been reading looks like ill have to reformat the drive and start again which I don't really want to have to do :/

I think I have already done the hibernation setting in the power settings.

Cheers
 
Cheers lukieboy,

I have one problem I didnt know about the ahci setting as i was rushing but my mobo is set to IDE but does have the AHCI option. Does that mean I have to format and start again?

Cheers.
 
You do want AHCI selected for the SSD. Google 'enable ahci windows 7' to find guides on how to enable it without having to reinstall Windows.

ACPI is something different, you don't need to worry about it.
 
Cheers bremen, yeh I found the guy, change the Regkey and then change it in BIOS....I'm about to do it now.

Ah ok, I will leave ACPI as it is then if I dont need to change it.

Cheers.
 
Right I did that and with my ASUS P6X58D-E Mobo I went into the Main/Storage Config/Config Sata as/ (I set this option to ACHI)

Then I went to Advanced/Onboard Device Config/Marvell 9128 Controller/ (I set this option to ACHI also)

Logged back in and it installed the drivers and restarted and now it looks to be on ACHI. Shame about the Marvell drivers but oh well.
 
Which SATA ports are you using?

The older Marvell controllers were pretty nasty. Performance is often better on the Intel ports even if they are theoretically slower (3Gb/s rather than 6Gb/s).
 
I am using the 6Gb/s Marvell controller ports. I have my normal HDD plugged into the other 6GB/s port aswell. Then my dvd drive into one of the Intel ports. What was wrong with the old controllers? Is it just a simple case of plugging it into another slot?
 
The had higher peak bandwith (sata 3) but poorer performance in usage to intel sata 2.

Yup, you may also need to change boot order.
 
The samsung software benchmark option shows its working fast. a lot faster than before I turned AHCI on. Wont using the 3gb/s slot make it read and write slower?
 
In all the tests I've seen the ICH10R ports (Intel) have come out slightly on top when compared to the Marvell 9128.

If the drive is performing as you'd expect it to, and you're happy, leave it as it is.
 
Hmm well if it will do no harm in swapping from the 6gb/s to the 3gb/s ports i could try it. Im currently getting 370 MB/s read and about 250 MB/s write (round about those figures, trying to remember from memory when I tested last night. Results from Samsung's software that comes with the drive) ..... Thats up from when I didn't have ACHI enabled. Question is would it be quicker in the 3gb/s intel ports?

Just been reading around and those speeds sound somewhat slow....So now I'm back to square one with a different problem of why is it so slow?!
 
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Ah that sucks, shame theres not one that doesn't use it.
Ok when I get home from work I will try it in the intel port. Is there any settings I will need to change? or just plug and play?
 
Ok cheers, I shall try that tonight and run a benchmark and see what I get. If that doesn't work is their any sata PCI-E cards that don't use the stupid Marvell controller?
 
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