Associate
- Joined
- 18 Sep 2008
- Posts
- 122
*WORK IN PROGRESS, bassed on my personal computer experience and my purcahse of a 64gb m255 Crucial SSD and windows 7*
Introduction:
If your reading this you are most likely in the thought process of buying an SSD or someone who has already taken the plunge into these wonderful devices. Like many other users you are wondering about these huge worries about drive life, read write performance, optimization and the like. In order to get the best out of your SSD there are a few settings that can be altered an changed.
Rest easy however SSDs are much faster than HDD (including 10,000RPM drives) and thus the real world performance is not massivly effected by these minor tweaks. But your on OcUK forums, therefore benches and pushing hardware to the limit is part and parcel, therefore on with the guide
Which SSD?:
Through research the current (oct 29th 2009) best drives for price/performance are the Crucial m255 series and the Intel x25-Mainstream. These come in sizes from 64gb to 256gb and soon to be over 300 if intel get these drives released.
What drives to look for have been covered in other threads and may be included in this thread at a later date, regardless for gaming performance any of the crucial or intel x25-ms are going to fit the bill
*But the prices are crazy!!!*
Apple just bought all the worlds NAND flash, deal with it
Windows just released there largest software update ever
The Global economy means that the £ to $ is variable at the current time
These are three events we can't control, sit tight and the price will come down
Setup:
So you ordered the SSD its nice and shiny and you want to set it up. Some people will tell you that you need a 3.5" to 2.5" drive bay converter, and this is true to some extent. In reality the SSD is so light and so small that it is perfectly fine to sit loose in your case. I have seen sticky tape use and my SSD sits on top of my HDD, its location does not matter.
1. Refer to your MOBO manual for the best sata port to use. Really, just plug it into slot 1
2. Disconnect all other sata storage devices
3. Boot up pc go to MOBO bios and set the storage to ACHI
4. Insert OS disk
Windows 7
1. Install now and select keyboard and language
2. When it comes to install method select CUSTOM INSTALL
*THIS IS A DISK FORMAT OPTION BACK UP ALL DATA* - just encase
3. Install should now take place, the PC will restart a few times, if your boot priority is CD first then ignore the boot from CD option and let the setup continue
4. Congrats your OS should now be installed
Windows 7 (applies to vista) - Performance tweaks
Virtual Memory -
Some swear by this method, others say avoid at all costs. In the case of 4gb on vista 64 bit I disabled my VM
Defragment -
Start > Control Panel > Administrative tools > Services
Locate Disk Defragmenter and stop this service.
Alternatively should you have HDD as well Computer > "Properties" of any drive > Tools > Defragment Now
This brings up the overview where you can set scheduling and when certain drives should be Defragmented. For the SSD go ahead and change it to never, go the the schedule and click off "Run on a schedule"
Superfetch
Start > Control Panel > Administrative tools > Services
Properties > Disable
Windows Search
Start > Control Panel > Administrative tools > Services
Properties disable
You can still use task bar search ect with this disabled. We disable this to improve SSD performance
TRIM - is it even on?
If you run an administrative command prompt and type:
fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify
if it returns 0 then it is on in Windows
TRIM will only work with drives that have firmware that supports it and will only work on RAID configurations where the controller supports it. Right now the latest drivers for your AHCI controller should be by intel (assuming intel mobo) and this will allow trim to work
Device manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
Find your AHCI controller > go to its properties and update the driver
System restore
This is the only performance tweak i have not done. It simply is to turn of System restore on your SSD. Anyone with an SSD should have a backup drive of some description and should meticulously backup data as this is still new tech and driver updates don't always spell good news
*UNFINISHED (the next step of the guide i am currently doing on my pc, check back for details)***
Introduction:
If your reading this you are most likely in the thought process of buying an SSD or someone who has already taken the plunge into these wonderful devices. Like many other users you are wondering about these huge worries about drive life, read write performance, optimization and the like. In order to get the best out of your SSD there are a few settings that can be altered an changed.
Rest easy however SSDs are much faster than HDD (including 10,000RPM drives) and thus the real world performance is not massivly effected by these minor tweaks. But your on OcUK forums, therefore benches and pushing hardware to the limit is part and parcel, therefore on with the guide
Which SSD?:
Through research the current (oct 29th 2009) best drives for price/performance are the Crucial m255 series and the Intel x25-Mainstream. These come in sizes from 64gb to 256gb and soon to be over 300 if intel get these drives released.
What drives to look for have been covered in other threads and may be included in this thread at a later date, regardless for gaming performance any of the crucial or intel x25-ms are going to fit the bill
*But the prices are crazy!!!*
Apple just bought all the worlds NAND flash, deal with it
Windows just released there largest software update ever
The Global economy means that the £ to $ is variable at the current time
These are three events we can't control, sit tight and the price will come down
Setup:
So you ordered the SSD its nice and shiny and you want to set it up. Some people will tell you that you need a 3.5" to 2.5" drive bay converter, and this is true to some extent. In reality the SSD is so light and so small that it is perfectly fine to sit loose in your case. I have seen sticky tape use and my SSD sits on top of my HDD, its location does not matter.
1. Refer to your MOBO manual for the best sata port to use. Really, just plug it into slot 1
2. Disconnect all other sata storage devices
3. Boot up pc go to MOBO bios and set the storage to ACHI
4. Insert OS disk
Windows 7
1. Install now and select keyboard and language
2. When it comes to install method select CUSTOM INSTALL
*THIS IS A DISK FORMAT OPTION BACK UP ALL DATA* - just encase

3. Install should now take place, the PC will restart a few times, if your boot priority is CD first then ignore the boot from CD option and let the setup continue
4. Congrats your OS should now be installed
Windows 7 (applies to vista) - Performance tweaks
Virtual Memory -
Some swear by this method, others say avoid at all costs. In the case of 4gb on vista 64 bit I disabled my VM
Defragment -
Start > Control Panel > Administrative tools > Services
Locate Disk Defragmenter and stop this service.
Alternatively should you have HDD as well Computer > "Properties" of any drive > Tools > Defragment Now
This brings up the overview where you can set scheduling and when certain drives should be Defragmented. For the SSD go ahead and change it to never, go the the schedule and click off "Run on a schedule"
Superfetch
Start > Control Panel > Administrative tools > Services
Properties > Disable
Windows Search
Start > Control Panel > Administrative tools > Services
Properties disable
You can still use task bar search ect with this disabled. We disable this to improve SSD performance
TRIM - is it even on?
If you run an administrative command prompt and type:
fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify
if it returns 0 then it is on in Windows
TRIM will only work with drives that have firmware that supports it and will only work on RAID configurations where the controller supports it. Right now the latest drivers for your AHCI controller should be by intel (assuming intel mobo) and this will allow trim to work
Device manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
Find your AHCI controller > go to its properties and update the driver
System restore
This is the only performance tweak i have not done. It simply is to turn of System restore on your SSD. Anyone with an SSD should have a backup drive of some description and should meticulously backup data as this is still new tech and driver updates don't always spell good news
*UNFINISHED (the next step of the guide i am currently doing on my pc, check back for details)***