Storage How to set up my SSD. Some help please?

Hey again guys,

Having recently recieved my 240GB Agility 3 from these very forums I want to get it set up as soon as possible.

Now I know to do a clean install as windows sets some certain settings during the install for SSD but what else do I need to do?

What do I need to set/change/remove once I am in windows and also how do I do it?

I know there is some stuff about hibernation and page file but how/what do I need to do to these?

Any tips/tricks and help would be really appreciated.

Oh and it is going in my gaming rig in my sig!

Regards
Matt

 

PocketDemon will probably post soon enough. But turning off Defrag for the SSD is recommended. Run Windows Experience and page filing set to minimum 800mb and leave max at what is set too?! Umm and as regards hibernation i can't remember right now lol

 

Hey Matt, check the defragment scheduler in Win 7 is disabled for the SSD. It 'should' be disabled for the drive on install automatically but I found after checking mine that it was still enabled... Thanks MS

 

Few things:

Enable AHCI Mode - Set msahci in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlset / Services to 0, fire up the BIOS and set the SATA mode to AHCI.

Turn on Write Caching - Device Manager -> SSD -> Properties -> Policies.

Unless you use it, turn Hibernation off - Run cmd as admin and enter powercfg -h off

 

Jeeez that was quick

Thank you guys. Im sure pocketdaemon will aswell haha.

Do i need to go to registry and change to AHCI mode if I have done the windows install with the bios set to AHCI mode? Or will it already be done?

 

If you've already installed it in AHCI, it will already be done

 

Check this out:

http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide-2/

 

Other than Secure Erasing the thing (so you're starting with a 100% fresh SSD) & checking the f/w revision first off...

...& then remembering to (temporarily) disconnect the HDDs & only do a quick format when installing the OS...

...everything 'should' be here.


Yeah, & if you're in ahci or raid mode in the bios when installing the OS then you can't apply that reg 'tweak' - simply as the setting will already be that.



Oh, & that SSDReview guide is really old hat in places...

No one (sensible) turns off the pagefile on the SSD...

System Restore is choice - i always turned it off on prior to owning SSDs as it was b useless.

All of the prefetch stuff should be sorted by running wei.

Disabling the recycle bin - mmmmm... so when you accidentally delete that important document???

indexing is choice - there's no huge gain on a SSD itself, but disabling it completely would be a damn nusiance when searching huge quantities of files on other drives.

Etc, etc...

[Edit]

Quick addition - whilst, tbh, it was largely old hat when it was written (by late 2009 you had both trim & GC on most SSDs), many of the 'tweaks' in that guide are about reducing writes...

...however, whilst it is worthwhile not being foolish with writes, by early 2010 (well before May 2010 when that guide was written) then those 'in the know' had moved beyond this - not least as it was clear that, esp with trim &/or GC, SSDs were much more robust than had been believed... ...but also that, as one of the big advantages to SSDs is writing small(er) random files, to disable so much of it led to a worse performing system overall.


Additionally, i'd completely forgotten to mention that you need to ensure that 'if' you are going to be letting the computer sleep, you need to make sure that you choose a sleep mode in the bios that allows the SSD to remain powered so that GC can do its thing.

Normally, S1 is the easiest to choose (& S3 doesn't provide any power), but a google search will turn up exact descriptions of all of them.

 

Thank you I knew pocket daemon would come to the rescue haha! Can I quickly ask, how do you securely erase it and check the fw version (first part of your post?)

 

To SE then i'd use the method in 4 here...

[NB -

1. i've assumed that it's a 2nd hand SSD - if it's brand new then you don't need this instantly... ...but is handy to have to use before any reinstallations

2. & it should work on any SATA SSD - well, i've been using the original parted magic for SEing V Turbos as well, so it's clearly not only for the SFs... The OCZ version should just add a couple of OCZ specific things rather than cripple it.]


...& for the f/w i use the Windows toolbox here (if you've got an alt machine it's easier then the method in the first link for f/w updating imho).

 

I'd also recommend changing the default folder destinations for things like 'Downloads', torrents and whatnot to a regular HDD. I stuck my pagefile on a regular HDD too as, anecdotally, the system seems faster with it this way. That said there are dozens of threads/posts on the subject so it's up to you.

Enjoy your new drive!

 

Forgetting the pagefile thing (which will not give any kind of performance boost by moving to a HDD as they're simply much slower for what's normally written to & (esp) read from it), isn't this kind of what i said in the post (of mine) i'd linked to?

"...i do not recommend moving all of the user folders off - you can just select ones which will only need a low priority (ie your music folders & whatnot...) - as this is too draconian as there's some stuff in there that will really gain from being on a SSD.

Similarly, there is no gain to storing your ripped CD collection or whatever on there as a HDD is more than fast enough.

- do not use a SSD as a temp folder for anything that's going to hammer it with writes unnecessarily - easy example being p2p software..."


[Edit]

Re the pagefile in Win7, whilst it's a dated article in parts as it pre-dates lots of the implementation of GC, Microsoft relate that -

"Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?

Yes. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well.

In looking at telemetry data from thousands of traces and focusing on pagefile reads and writes, we find that

•Pagefile.sys reads outnumber pagefile.sys writes by about 40 to 1,

•Pagefile.sys read sizes are typically quite small, with 67% less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% less than 16 KB.

•Pagefile.sys writes are relatively large, with 62% greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% being exactly 1 MB in size.

In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favorable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD."

&, any testing will show you that 4-16K random reads (which are ~88% of the total pagefile reads based on MS' data) are much faster on a SSD than a HDD.


Now, back in 2009, there was a far huger concern about SSD longevity & performance - not least as trim & GC were only just being implemented on most consumer SSDs (& weren't as tried & tested with both or advanced with GC) & far fewer people had a trim enabled OS - so the general advice had been to move it (& most other writes) onto a HDD...

...but this, as said earlier, is just old hat.