Windows 7 tweaks for SSD's

60GB Vertex, the intel is way out of my price league!

Of course I'm a big minority here since I'm measuring the extreme--difference between the Intel and OCZ Vertex is like 2 frames per second in Crysis :P

Now my next problem is the Vertex is sold out everywhere in Australia!!!!

Originally Posted by jasondean98

Now my next problem is the Vertex is sold out everywhere in Australia!!!!

I had same problem (I am from EU) - I bought it from USA (60GB Vertex was 209$ + 30$ for shippping - from eshop which is selling lots of stuff via Ebay).

Link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/OCZ-SSD-OCZSSD2-...742.m153.l1262

Intel X25-E with Jaunty is a 9 second boot for me.

Originally Posted by iceredwing

Here is a link to the ocz forum tweaks

Major pain in the ass. They should come up with some kind of install fix or smth. I would just disable indexing and defrag..

I found this "SSD Tweak Utility" on the OCZ forums

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=49779


"Lets you Tweak the following:

* Windows Indexing Service
* System Restore (Only XP)
* Use Large System Cache
* Ntfs Memory Usage
* Disable 8.3 Filenames
* Disable Date Stamping
* Disable Pagefile Use (Large RAM Systems)[
* Windows Prefetcher
* Windows Vista Superfetch"

http://members.westnet.com.au/elpamy...SSDTweaker.zip

I'll give it a go!

Originally Posted by hmz

Major pain in the ass. They should come up with some kind of install fix or smth. I would just disable indexing and defrag..

My windows 7 install did that for me, the tweaks only take a few minutes and will help with longevity.

Just got my 60GB Vertex, holy crap it's fast!!

The Core V2 was piss poor compared to this drive!

I looked at the OCZ forum link...

I'm not sure I am ready to follow any of it, because it looks like their very first tweak is flat out wrong. (If I'm understanding other sources correctly)

So here's what SuperFetch is:
Windows SuperFetch enables programs and files to load much faster than they would on Windows XP–based PCs.

When you're not actively using your computer, background tasks—including automatic backup programs and antivirus scans—run when they will least disturb you. These background tasks can take up system memory space that your programs had been using. On Windows XP–based PCs, this can slow progress to a crawl when you attempt to resume work.

SuperFetch monitors which applications you use the most and preloads these into your system memory so they'll be ready when you need them. Windows Vista also runs background programs, like disk defragmenting and Windows Defender, at low priority so that they can do their job but your work always comes first.
From: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...uperfetch.aspx

Then there's this forum post: http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/20050-post2.html which seems to suggest completely turning it off is bad.

So here's my take and understanding on it.

From the first item I linked to it notes this "These background tasks can take up system memory space that your programs had been using."

System memory? Not hard drive? I did a memory upgrade as I installed Win7RC at the same time I got my SSD. I have 8GB of ram, so worrying about conserving it, versus performance, performance is always coming first.

So what I understand is disabling SuperFetch can gain you some memory back, but it doesn't sound like it gains you performance or necessarily less writes to your hard drive either.

If I am understanding this incorrectly, however, please set me straight.

BTW I would be super careful in following other peoples guides, especially ones that are posted on forums from who knows who. I found this one: http://mydellmini.com/forum/windows-...ed-tweaks.html but it seems to have a lot of stuff wrong in it. A lot of these tweaks, while finding them from a Google search on SSD Windows 7 tweaks, seems to be specifically if you only have 1 drive and it's a SSD.

That guide talks about disabling index searching, disabling defrag, etc. The person isn't taking into account (if he was giving this guide for anybody with SSD) that disabling the services completely, keep them from functioning on regular hard drives as well. There are easy ways to use Windows 7 to disable defrag and indexing straight from the GUI on only your SSD drives.

Careful what you set, as you may soon find your regular hard drives functioning slower because you set a global setting for SSD, when your plattered hard drives are forced to use the same setting.

If anybody else finds useful guides for SSDs, please mention them. I hope this has helped somewhat.

I thought windows 7 didn't need tweaks for SSD. Doesn't it automatically disable superfetch, indexing, defrag, etc?

Found the answer here, so there should be no need to tweak windows 7.
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/200...rives-and.aspx

Does this mean a clean install of Windows 7 needs no tweaks at all?

Now I'm confused!

Forgot to ask, Do you guys install all your programs to your SSD or a different drive i.e. Velociraptor in my case?

i got an corsair S128 SSD and works very well the numbers are nothing like whats below in the link posted but still 2-5x faster on access times (latency) on read and Writes)

the point off the ssd is for speed improvement, Put OS and programs and games onto the SSD, any files patches, big files or any files store them on an HDD (500GB or so HDD)

yes never buy an JMicron SSD thay are basicly poor mans drives and have crap write performance (and the 2x version was more of an stop cap that did not fix any thing)

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/954/6/

first one is JMicron SSD (ocz core/v2/apex, g.skill titan)
second one is the Corsair P256 (samsung second gen)
3rd one is the Vertex drive (the random write access times seem way to high)

Any SSD you buy that is samsung based controller (corsair or samsung SSD). be it first gen as well or any maker that uses Indilinx controller (falcon and vertex same drive) it will be an fully responsive pc no matter what type of SSD it is listed above (RAID is not needed with SSDs only thing you improve is data read/write speeds unless your messing with 10 gb files or video editing unlikey to need the speed)

easy way to pic out the bad SSDs from good if it has cache on it it will be good
If it has no cache on it it will suck depending if RAID 0 is not used or motherboard used (if RAID is used with Writeback option turnd on it hides the Writing problems on JMicron)

I put all program installs on my X25-M 160, any media, pictures etc is all on my **2TB WD RE4-GP. About the best combo you can do without going to the X25-E series which makes even me cringe.

** The $35~ higher price of the RE4-GP is so worth it. This thing is a beast and worth every penny, much like the X25 series.

Hmm, I installed an OCZ Vertex in my PC today and did a clean install of Win7 RC, but for some reason, it didn't automatically disable Defrag, Superfetch and Prefetch

I find it hard to believe that the Vertex doesn't meet the performance threshold.

I heard that it may not detect some SSDs.

Wonder if windows 7 has an option that allows you to tell it your disk is an SSD?

Does anyone know if windows 7 will detect intel SSDs?

If the spindle RPM = 0 then it is classified as a solid state storage device.

Originally Posted by Galvin

I thought windows 7 didn't need tweaks for SSD. Doesn't it automatically disable superfetch, indexing, defrag, etc?

Found the answer here, so there should be no need to tweak windows 7.
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/200...rives-and.aspx

That's interesting, apparently Windows 7's default behavior incorporates some of the many tweaks people recommend for SSDs but not all, and according to that guide many of the things people often recommend are flat out wrong.

Look at what it says about the page file and hibernate file for instance, it seems to suggest a SSD should have no issue with either (and neither is disabled or placed on a 2dary drive by default under Windows 7, which personally I would've done intuitively, at 'least for the page file). The drive indexer isn't disabled by default for SSDs either, yet Superfetch is (which some people do recommend but I think that was born mostly out of the older slow-write SSDs w/JMicron controllers, etc).

Anyway, that doesn't seem to make any sense to me, isn't Superfetch just reading from the hard drive and writing to memory? How would it slow down your system or shorten the lifespan of the drive using it with an SSD? RAM's still a faster way of loading commonly used apps, why would they disable that?

I'm confused...

In fact, the only thing that FAQ seems to agree on w/everyone else is that defragging isn't necessary on SSDs (obviously). I'd imagine that whether the indexer runs on SSDs or not is a moot point, as most people will continue to keep data files on a 2dary HDD and that's what you really want indexed if you're using Windows' Search, but I dunno about Superfetch, hibernate, and the page file.

Originally Posted by Impulse

Anyway, that doesn't seem to make any sense to me, isn't Superfetch just reading from the hard drive and writing to memory? How would it slow down your system or shorten the lifespan of the drive using it with an SSD? RAM's still a faster way of loading commonly used apps, why would they disable that?

I'm confused...

In fact, the only thing that FAQ seems to agree on w/everyone else is that defragging isn't necessary on SSDs (obviously). I'd imagine that whether the indexer runs on SSDs or not is a moot point, as most people will continue to keep data files on a 2dary HDD and that's what you really want indexed if you're using Windows' Search, but I dunno about Superfetch, hibernate, and the page file.

You really don't need superfetch or index with the SSD, you conserve RAM and CPU ticks....