SSD recommendation for use with windows xp

Mad Professor

Mad Professor

Mad Professor

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Good day all.

As per the title I am looking for a SSD hard drive that would be suitable for use with windows xp.

I know that using SSD with xp is not ideal, but I have no choice but to use windows xp home or pro 32bit.

The hardware in the computer is fully windows 7 compatible, but the main software that is used in not 64bit or windows 7 compatible.

I have tried the software in question on windows 7 32bit in windows xp compatibilty mode, it will load and run, but becomes very slow to the point where the program will just crash, or stop responding.

So unto this software is updated to run on windows 7 out of the box, I am forced to use windows xp home or pro 32bit.

I am looking for a SSD drive around 64-128GB, does not need to be super fast, but needs to be very reliable.

Can you please advice.

Thanks for your time.

Best Regards.
 
What about running the software in a virtual machine? I don't have experience with this but it might be worth looking into as XP is old now :p

The Crucial M4 is often recommended as being fast and reliable :)
 
beejjacobs said:
What about running the software in a virtual machine? I don't have experience with this but it might be worth looking into as XP is old now :p

The Crucial M4 is often recommended as being fast and reliable :)
Click to expand...

+1 to this.

I use XP mode in Win 7 Pro to run legacy programs that refuses to install on 7. It's basically just a virtual XP 32 bit. You can use other VM software that should work just as well. That way you can then use 7 as your main OS, then run virtual XP when you need to run the software. Will also allow the TRIM feature to be active to keep the SSD in top shape.

The Crucial M4 gets my vote, my 64gb is still going strong after a year with no slowdowns, and Crucial gives amazing support on it too.
 
If you really have to use XP then i would go with and SSD with a Sandforce control as they are less reliant on TRIM to maintain performance.
 
Or an SSD that comes with software to perform on demand. Only two makes I know of are Intel using Toolbox (not sure if works for the newer Sandforce controller models) and Samsung using Magician (might be model specific).
 
are you allowed to tell us what this particular software is?

no need to if u can't... just that someone here may have or be running it in a virtual version of 32 bit XP... that's all :)

EDIT shoot up the exact make and model Dimps... just so the OP can see if he can source one :)
 
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KINGSTON SNVP325S264GB
Manufacturer Kingston
Product Family SSDNow
Interface SATA-2
Form Factor 2.5-inch
Heads 16
Cylinders 16383
SATA type SATA-II 3.0Gb/s
Device type Fixed
ATA Standard ATA8-ACS
LBA Size 48-bit LBA
Power On Count 2694 times
Power On Time 498.7 days
Speed, Expressed in Revolutions Per Minute (rpm) Not used (SSD Drive)
Features S.M.A.R.T., APM, TRIM, SSD
Transfer Mode SATA II
Interface SATA
Capacity 63GB
Real size 64,023,257,088 bytes
RAID Type None
 
The corsair performance pro and plextor pxm3 have background garbage collection so perfect for xp and raid arrays. It's also a very fast drive, i'm very happy with mine.

drives that are capable of restoring their parameters without TRIM are great for those applications where TRIM simply doesn’t work at all. Namely, they are strongly recommended for RAID arrays or operating systems that don’t support TRIM command, such as Windows XP, FreeBSD with ZFS or Mac OS X
Click to expand...

iometer.png


read more here

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/marvell-ssd_7.html
 
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Thanks for all your replies.

As for the softare in question I don't know much about it, all I know is it talks to a PCI interface card.

Regarding trim, when is trim needed more, when you read/write large chucks of data, or when you read/write lots of little data?

As said before I am not looking for outright speed, it just needs to be reliable.

Just want to be able to get the computer from cold, into windows, and start the programs needed as quick as possible, once eveything is loaded, speed is no longer an issue.

Thanks for your time.
 
Just think of TRIM as defrag for SSDs. It basically cleans the drive cells after you have deleted something, so it can write immediately (instead of clean then write) the next time you come to write to that cell.

Normal use you'll see a drive without GC and TRIM slow down after about a year, maybe longer - and it will still be quicker than a hard drive.

Take a look at the chart above and choose one that has good GC (Garbage Collection - does the same thing as TRIM but does it at drive level, instead of through the OS, and is usually not as efficient/quick as it relies on drive idle times).
 
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