WinXP on a SSD - Why not?

GoogalyMoogaly · 22 Sep 2011 at 10:34

Hi all,

I was just wondering if there's any reason, other than lack of TRIM support, for not installing WinXP on an SSD?
I know some people run SSDs in RAID which I believe disables TRIM support, so it can't be that crucial can it?

How important is TRIM? What does TRIM actually do?

Thanks.

DragonQ · 22 Sep 2011 at 10:58

TRIM helps the SSD's garbage collection work much more efficiently. Without it, your drive will slow down over time.

The other issue with Windows XP and Vista is that it doesn't automatically align the SSD to 4k sector boundaries, without which you'd see dramatic performance decreases. You could do this manually though.

The other problem of course is that Windows XP is 10 years old and sucks.

GoogalyMoogaly · 22 Sep 2011 at 11:37

What about using some software that does a manual TRIM?
Does anyone know of any good software for doing this? OCZ offer a tool that does User-Initiated Garbage Collection, is this the same thing? (I've got an OCZ Vertex drive by the way).
Does anyone use any user-initiated TRIM software they could recommend?

TFC · 22 Sep 2011 at 11:40

Why on earth would you want to use XP?, it was good in its day but compared to 7 it is positively stoneage

beejjacobs · 22 Sep 2011 at 11:47

you'd probably be surprised at the speed increase of Windows 7 over XP without an SSD even.

Tomcat825 · 22 Sep 2011 at 12:45

He hasn't said what situation he's in to be using XP over 7.

Our company is still on XP as it's not financially viable to upgrade to 7 for no real reason. XP works, why waste a lot of money upgrading not only all the workstation OS, but also the servers OS' too.

skyripper · 22 Sep 2011 at 13:14

GoogalyMoogaly said:
What about using some software that does a manual TRIM?
Does anyone know of any good software for doing this? OCZ offer a tool that does User-Initiated Garbage Collection, is this the same thing? (I've got an OCZ Vertex drive by the way).
Does anyone use any user-initiated TRIM software they could recommend?

It is.

I have used it fine on Vista. Just cos Win7 does this automagically, doesnt mean you cant do it on XP or other OSs.

GoogalyMoogaly · 22 Sep 2011 at 13:17

I've also got a Win7 PC too. I was originally gonna put the SSD in that one, but then I upgraded the motherboard and the new one supports SATAIII, so I bought an M4 for that one. So I have the 120GB OCZ Vertex left over. I was gonna sell it but despite the fact it's never been used it's still quite old so understandably isn't worth too much now.
So I either sell it for a big loss or try to get some use out of it.
The reason I still have XP on the PC is because it's my 'legacy' system for those few games, etc. that Win7 can't run stably. Also, having used Win7 I'm not sure I can justify spending £100 or more to upgrade to it (I don't like change

).

Bane · 22 Sep 2011 at 16:35

DragonQ said:
The other issue with Windows XP and Vista is that it doesn't automatically align the SSD to 4k sector boundaries, without which you'd see dramatic performance decreases. You could do this manually though.

Vista does automatically offset partition with a 1024K alignment. Or mind did anyway using SP1 media.