Greetings all. I have a bit of a dilemma. I’m in the market for a SSD but I’m using Win Vista which means that I’m missing out on TRIM support since Vista doesn’t support it. I’m not really keen on buying a Win 7 package just for TRIM because 1) I have a copy of Win Vista 2) I really don’t like Win 7. At all. However, I’ve recently worked on a PC equipped with an SSD and now that I’m working/gaming on my machine again, I can’t help but notice the overall “lack of snappiness” in comparison to the SSD system. I ran a system test/bench because I initially thought something was wrong with my system but no, turns out a SSD really makes a difference... I did some reading (some of which confused me TBH) and managed to find an online shop which isn’t too expensive. I’ve decided on a 64GB Corsair Nova after reading a few reviews (including the BT one obviously). Granted, the 128GB version was reviewed but I assume performance won’t suffer horribly... However, my problem is not so much which SSD to get, but more about the little detail I pointed out in point 2. I really dislike Windows 7. There’s numerous “issues” I have with it which is causing me to avoid it like the plague. However like I mentioned above, I reaally want an SSD in my machine. (See, I even used an extra ‘a’ and italics to place emphasis on the ‘really’) My question then after a long and boring explanation is this: How big a performance loss would I be looking at if I ran the manual garbage collection utility vs TRIM? Google isn’t telling me what I want to know. (Unless I was being blind which is always possible I suppose) I can live with 10% performance loss if it means I can stick to Vista (Yes, yes I know, Win 7 is supposed to be the Messiah of Windows users everywhere. Big whoop) but if the garbage collection utility it’s not going to offer consistent, long term speeds then I might as well stick to a mechanical disk. The alternative is for me to switch to Win 7. Which I seriously doubt will happen... Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Hi, I've had the experience of using my own SSD (an OCZ vertex built on the same indilinx controller as your drive) and used the GC utility to send the TRIM command manually to the drive which carries out the exact same duty, only downside is that it isn't carried out automatically as it would with W7. I found running it around once a month kept the drive well within it's quoted performance levels. Hope this helps. I'm completely overwhelmed by the fact you didn't like W7 and still prefer Vista. Which niggles in particular is it that bothers you?
Off-topic, but what's your gripe with Windows 7? Everywhere else, Vista is Microsoft's retarded ******* child and 7 is their college football star.
I didn't like Win 7 when I first installed it, but it was just me not liking change rather than anything wrong with Win7. I hated it's stupidly large start up button (not fixed with a custom theme). I hated the fact that I couldn't have applications open full-screen OVER the task bar (I now prefer it not doing that for obvious reasons) etc. There are ways to make it behave as you want it to, and there are shed loads of apps to customise it. Seriously though, 7 is so superior to Vista I don't even know where to start LOL Yes you can run GC manually to keep the drive in good shape, but you'll always be paranoid after deleting a load of files, or moving some stuff, or if Vista has been using a large swap file... you'll always wonder... "if I just run GC it will be faster"?. You'll spend all day cleaning your drive. My advice? Get Win7 64bit and say goodbye to your worries. What EXACTLY is better in Vista than Windows 7 out of interest? I'm dying to know. I still have a copy of Windows 95, but I ain't using that either I know you're probably thinking, "Oh God... I knew everyone would bang on about Vista", but it will start to seriously get in your way soon, as all older OSes do eventually. You can't stay with it forever, so as it's now reached the point where it's starting to compromise your performance and usage, I suggest it's time to really sit down and get to grips with Win7. I'm really struggling to see what Vista does so much better than 7 that you are prepared to take a 10% performance hit over it.
The automatic garbage collection that is built into the firmware on the indilinx drives, runs whenever the drive is idle and will clear the nand cells that contain any deleted files. This GC runs independently of the OS and for day to day tasks keeps the drive in good condition.
Yeah, because Trim doesn't (yet) work with SSDs raid arrays then most controllers (i think it's only the old JMicron & (some?) intel ones that don't) have GC... Now, whilst DaveMon is correct that GC will run when the drive is idle, the efficiency of this depends upon the controller & firmware - certainly with the OCZ Indilinx drives, a usual method was/is to boot the PC to the bios & leave overnight every so often as this ensured that the drive was actually idle, but apparently GC has been vastly improved with their SandForce based drives so that this isn't necessary. Otherwise, the best thing for a manual clean (as it should work on any SSD) providing you only have a single partition (NB the 100MB Win7 hidden partition is too small to really matter here - if you're using Win7 of course - the reason for this being that the cells are only assigned to a file/partition when they actually have data in & it can only make a file of the empty size of the partition) is AS-Clean - just remember to check the FF box as SSDs store 1s as the blank space rather than 0s... it works by creating a file of nothing but 1s that fills all of the space (only altering cells where the value <>1) & then deleting it. Oh, & whilst i think, you can also use the AS-Clean FF option for cleaning USB memory sticks, memory cards & some MP3/media players (i know it doesn't work on my Sony media player, but has worked on other things) to improve future write performance. & not checking the FF option 'could' be used for HDDs - though there are much better options out there if you want to try to ensure that data is not easily recoverable (write gains will be almost nonexistent).
In retrospect, I should have mentioned that I don't want (or even care) to get into a Vista vs. 7 debate, but since I didn't and because it sends me into a blind rage when someone mentions that they don't like something but can't give a reason, I'll humour you. HOWEVER please note that I made this thread to ask a question about potential SSD PERFORMANCE degradation so if you really want to start a debate/argument/flame war over the fact that I prefer Win Vista over Win 7, please PM me or ask me to make a new thread (or you can make one and ask/flame me on there) Apologies if I come across as rude or whatever, I’m just really tired of having to explain why I prefer Win Vista over Win 7 to people. **** That's what I was hoping for! That does make me feel a bit less nervous about spending a fair amount of money only to find out that I wasted a chunk of cash that could’ve been used elsewhere. While it’s true the TRIM has the “advantage” running automatically it’s an “advantage” that doesn’t bother me. I can always just set the GC utility as a scheduled task or something should the need arise As for the niggles, read on. That’s also one of the reason I wanted to go with an Indilinx based SSD. It seems it’s one of the “better” general purpose controllers for SSD’s. **** Regarding the issues, or “niggles” (heh, niggles is a funny word), that I have with Win 7, most comes down to personal preference, and the fact that alot of seemingly meaningless features that was present in Vista and XP have been removed from Win 7. Granted, most BT readers will no doubt tell me that I’m being stupid and to ignore said niggles, but for me and for what I do with my machine(s)both at home and the office these issues makes Win 7 a craptacular experience. I never understood that logic and I don’t think I ever will. How does removing features that most people find useful from Vista and essentially rebranding it as Win 7 make it better? (Oh, I know I’m gonna get flamed for that one) See list at the bottom. I liked Win 7 when I installed the RC about a year ago. I started to dislike it when I actually started to use it. The taskbar button wasn’t/isn’t an issue for me as I don’t install themes and when I’m gaming or working, I’m not looking at the button. I’m not sure about the fullscreen though, last time I checked when I pressed F11 in Firefox or IE it opened over the taskbar? Windows is almost always described (ignoranty at best and almost always in a Linux/Mac vs Windows flamewar) as slow and bloated by Linux/Mac enthusiast. How is installing (unnecessary) 3d party applications to get functions/features back that was removed for no good reason helping that image? How though? The only difference I see is improved boot times (meaningless IMO and normally only if Vista is running without at least SP1), a relaxed UAC (which isn’t necessarily good thing) and the removal of some useful programs/features (which isn’t a good thing at all) People are always telling me Win 7 is better than Vista but I’ve yet to see how Win 7 is actually better. Yes, we all saw the pretty performance graphs in the Vista vs 7 comparisons showing that 7 is faster. I’ve certainly not noticed a big enough performance gain to magically make me switch to Win 7. Highly unlikely, I haven’t done a disk defrag since Win 98. If things get slow it’s normally an indication that my PCs are getting old and that it’s time to either give the old one away and buy a new one or give the old parts away and upgrade. I foolishly did that even after the disappointment that was the RC. I said hello to a lot of new worries. It’s not all bad though, I got a shiny new coaster for my tea cup. List at the bottom Believe it or not, last week I had to BEG one of my elderly clients to upgrade from Win 95C to XP. Thank *religious deity of your choosing* she’s one of my “bright” clients. I don’t even want to think what would happen if one of my “problem” clients decided to upgrade from Win 98 to Win 7 after hearing or seeing all the “The WOW starts now” ads. No wait, I can. 3 months of absolute hell. “Upgraded” him to Win Vista Ultimate 64 and you know what, I haven’t had one complaint or problem since then. Actually no, I’m lying, he did complain when I told him that I can’t find a copy of Win Vista for two of his friends. Another bonus is that he actually LIKES the Windows Mail better that Windows Live Mail, Incredimail, Thunderbird etc and how the default Windows Calender (which he likes) is actually separate from the default Windows Mail. And the fact that his desktop can display videos. He gave me a link for a rollercoaster one that I’m using now. Fun! While these things might seem trivial to some, most people don’t understand or want to understand why they have to spend ages downloading an email client when everyone Windows version they ever had came with one build in. Yes, ages. ADSL is rather expensive over here in sunny SA. And then were not even talking about fast ADSL. A 384k circuit with a 2GB cap that only hits about 45-50kb on a good day? 20GBP please. I’m thinking “Oh God...Why am I even trying to defend my decision to stay with Vista?” Vista had me hooked in less than 4 weeks. I’m still not caring for Win 7 after 8 months of near constant use. Honestly, if I still think Win 7 is shite after 8 months using it more won’t change my mind. Windows XP is pretty old now too, and yet most people I know and 85+% of my clients are still on it. Why stay with XP? Because it works. Do most users care about Win Vista or 7? Not even a little. Are they going to need to upgrade at some point in the future? Without a doubt. Am I switching to Win 7 because Win Vista is about 3 years old now? Not likely. I know that at some stage I’m going to have to switch from Vista to whatever is new at the time. And truthfully, I’m not looking forward to it. If the Win 8 rumours are true and Win 7 is any indication of where the Windows OS is going, I’m switching to Linux. I’m already running it or dual booting with it on all my other machines. Truth be told, the only reason I’m even running Windows on my PC at the house is because of games and the fact that I find it counterproductive to reboot into Linux just to check email or browse the internet. Sticking to a single OS makes more sense for me in this case. All the other PCs at the house is either running Linux, dual-booting with a version of Linux or running a virtual machine. Hell, even my router is running OpenWRT. I’m struggling to see what makes Win 7 so much better that you wouldn’t take a 10% performance hit. See list below. ***** The "list below" ***** The “improved” taskbar. Seriously, words cannot even come close to describing the hatred I have for this idiotic “new” bar. The lack of the quick launch area, while easy to enable for any tech savvy person was a really stupid move by MS. “WTF?” I hear you ask “That’s your complaint?” No, the countless clients I had complaining to me about the lack of this feature that MS apparently deemed “useless” is what I’m complaining about. How hard is it to add the option “Show Quick Launch” that was present since Win 95? On a related note, there is not option to “Move” a window. I’m using a dual monitor setup at the house and at the office. So is a bunch of my clients. People with laptops running presentations via a projector for example. For those of you running Win 7 with two or more monitors, try this simple test. Open a document on your secondary display. Disconnect your secondary display. Try to move the open document to your primary screen. It’s easy on all Windows versions dating back to Win 95. Right click the window you want to move, choose “Move” and using the arrow keys or mouse, simply move it where you want it and press enter or click. Apparently multi-monitor setups isn’t big over at Redmond. In fact, all the normal actions that you could perform when you right click the window is gone. Thanks MS. Another taskbar related qualm is the fact that you can’t add a second toolbar (or more) anywhere else other than the taskbar. In all other versions of Windows you’d simply drag the folder or icon to the side of the screen if you wanted a toolbar there. Want to have a taskbar at the top of your screen? Not in Win 7, sorry. You’ll have to install a 3d party application for a simple toolbar. Yay, another useless and unnecessary application that needs to run at startup that can potentialy cause problems! Speaking of “bars”, WTF happened to the normal Menu Bar in MS Paint and Wordpad? Seriously, ribbons? For Paint and Wordpad? Next up, networking. Or for me and quite a significant number of clients and friends, notworking. For example sharing a folder and dragging something in there. Getting to the bit were you can tell Windows what to share is perhaps a little simpler in Win 7. Actually get it to share, not so much. I have a number of shared folders on my Vista machine at the house. I want to drop something in there because I’m needing to copy it to another machine. On Vista, I simply drag it into the shared folder, access said folder from a different machine and copy the file or folder over. Win 7 however doesn’t work like this from my experience with it. Drag the file to the shared folder. Access the folder from a different machine. If you can. Let’s assume that no-one connected or disconnected their laptop or PSP or cellphone via WiFi while were walking over to the other machine, because as soon as something connects or disconnects from the network, Win 7 throws a hissy fit and changes from private network back to a public one. Or it might not just not see the other machines anymore and you’d have to restart. Or it might throw the DHCP settings away and force you to assign a fixed IP which might also cause it to switch from private to public network. Or it might continue to work like nothing happened. I think it depends on the alignment of planets or something. Finally! You can access the folder with your files. Hang on, there’s only 3 files in here? I copied 10! Go back to the machine sharing the folder and re-share the folder. Go back and try to copy the file(s) again. What, can’t see the machine anymore? Try restarting. “********!” I hear you shouting “I’ve never had these issues before!” Probably not, but that doesn’t mean someone else didn’t. As much fun as I’m having in typing this wall of text, I think I’m going to have to stop now. Sure, I can tell you why I hate Win 7 for a few more pages but you know what? I’m spending my evening typing about WINDOWS 7 which I don’t like and probably never will while I could be playing games or going over to friends for a drink! Actually, a drink sounds pretty good right about now. PS I'm serious about the red bit at the top of this post. If you want to have a debate over why you think, know, or think you know why I'm wrong, start a new thread or PM me!
Hi, can i ask why an SSD will be so great because i know that the performance is far superior to traditional hard disks but is the xtra performance really worth the price, for me i could get a new graphics card or something. But this may seem completely stupid to you but i don't mind waiting an xtra few seconds for windows to load. P.S. Had vista and no problems with it
+1 I compare Windows Vista with Battlefield Bad Company 2....... I can't imagine those 2 in the same Hard Drive
Completely agree with the OP, I don't like Windows 7 either. I resent the fact that the UI is a mess and that it is barely any quicker than Vista in real-world tests. It may "feel" faster, but it isn't worth the £180 MS want to replace my copy of Vista Ultimate. It certainly didn't feel any quicker when I installed it on my machine. CPC benchmark score was nearly identical too. Vista and 7 are identical twins, but the parents are letting their favouritism show.
Without making a massive post, vista has a number of security vunerablitys, unstable, eats up ram like a fat kid eating doughnuts. the features removed are not important features, you said features from xp where removed in the process too, what features i came from xp to windows 7 and only noticed upgrades, took me a little while to get used to it but its fantastic. i suppose the next thing your going tell us is that you prefered windows ME over windows xp? its not a debate over which is better its a clear cut fact laid out infront of you windows 7 fixxed the countless problems they had with vista, if im not mistaken they have dropped or are dropping vista support, but stil offer windows xp support (this im not sure about friend told me unsure if he is right or wrong). But honestly tell me what features that you use, that have been removed in windows 7?
Source? They all have a number of vulnerabilities - 7 is no different, but 7 does allow you to dumb-down UAC very easily to make it even more insecure. And by the way, it caches RAM, giving it back if you need it. Its not eating it - free RAM is a waste of resources. Also, it isn't unstable - it is actually very stable and for me hasn't crashed for years. You can still buy Vista at retail, your friend is wrong.
After working on a system equipped with a SSD for more than a month and then switching back to my machine with its mechanical disk, the performance difference is almost unbelievable. For me yes, I think it’s worth it. Obviously this isn’t the case with everyone but I’m prepared to pay for the performance difference between SSD and mechanical disk. Booting times doesn’t bother me too much. I switch the machine on when I get up, go make a cup of tea and when I come back it’s ready. When I leave the office/house and I’m done with the system, I switch it off. My (gaming) PC isn’t the fastest there is obviously (see sig), but I think (and after some reading I’m 99% certain) that a SSD will offer a distinct and tangible real-world performance boost. Until someone has worked on a system that uses an SSD, I don’t think they’ll understand just how big a performance difference there is. ***** I can't imagine why you'd want to install games on your OS drive and not on a dedicated games HDD unless you're using an SSD? On a more serious note ***** While I obviously agree with your post and don’t count it as a debate as such, bear in mind that threads have gone down in flames over a lot less. If there’s going to be 2 people who prefer Win Vista over Win 7 (God forbid) then I can only imagine that, should this thread head towards a fiery death, it’ll happen twice as fast... ***** Sause plz! Do you have a link to a reputable source or article to support your claims? The fact that you think the removed features are useless doesn’t make them useless. I’m not sure why or how you came to the conclusion that I’d prefer Win ME over Win XP. I believe I mentioned some of my issues with Win 7 in my previous post. I’m referring to the one with the red text at the top. ***** If a mod is reading this, can you please lock this thread? I have received an answer to the question I asked in the OP. If anyone still wants to shout at me afterwards, please do it in a new thread or PM me. Thank you.
If you are still interested in SSD performance. Since SSDs can't reliably write to a filled block without deleting everything in it first. An extra delete operation must be done before anything can be written. Thats 2 operations instead of 1, which can result up to half performance for writing in a filled block. TRIM or Garbage collection basically deletes information in those blocks thus recovering performance. Of course this is only write performance. Read is not impacted at all. If you are using an SSD midly like an OS or game drive where you would install stuff and then leave it. Then the SSD won't see much write operations at all. TRIM would be better than a manufacturer garbage collection tool because it is run more often but they both do the same thing. If you are not shuffing data around in your SSD. Running garbage collection once a week is pretty much good enough. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seems like lots of complaints about windows 7. I think people just need a little help. because it is different. 1. The lack of quick launch. The entire task bar IS a quicklaunch, click the icons you set and you just launched something. Middle click it and launch another. Its easy. 2. Can't fullscreen over start menu????? I swear you can't do it in vista either. Anyway Alt+Enter is the default shortcut for full screen so is F11. 3. Share folders and printers are locked by default, you have to set security settings. Remove the extra security and you are fine.
Care to share, i dont give a monkeys about the OS debate but i am interested to know how much performance is gained using win7 over vista.
Thanks! There won't be alot of writing to the SSD. Just the OS and maybe 2 or 3 games. All my important stuff is kept on seperate disks already. Wasn't asking about Vista vs 7 performance per se, but since english isn't my first language, I might have misunderstood that last bit. Sorry! There doesn't seem to be a very noticable performance hit when you run the manual GC utility once or twice a month in conjunction with the build in GC algorithm vs TRIM. I also stumbled across 2 or 3 other similar discussions, I'll dig through my hitory and see if I can find the links for you.
Are you a kind of soothsayer ? Because that is the truth I persist to say that Vista and BBC2 can shotdown the world if they work together
I think in a way most people have avoided/missed the original question, just looking back over the whole thread
