Are there any must-do settings for SSDs?

[EvilNick]

I just got my first SSD, a 840 EVO and it's great. 10 sec boots and snappy responses everywhere.

So far, all I've done as far as the SSD is concerned is to disabled scheduled defragmentation (plus also to not run any manual defrags on the SSD as it's not needed).

Are there any other settings that must be done? A lot of guides online mention things like disabling indexing, superfetch, pagefile, etc, but a lot of it seems like unfounded tweaks to me. If none of it is essential, I'll just leave it as is and enjoy the speed.

 

[drescherjm]

Are there any must-do settings for SSDs?

No. A modern OS will handle the needed settings.

A lot of guides online mention things like disabling indexing, superfetch, pagefile, etc, but a lot of it seems like unfounded tweaks to me.

You are correct. A lot of these tweaks were based on the myth that under normal usage a user would wear out a SSD quickly. Now after years of SSD usage we know this myth is totally busted these tweaks are completely unnecessary and many of these tweaks are counter productive. For example moving your page file to a spinner was a popular suggestion from these types of blogs..

 

[King Icewind]

Disable hibernate. Open Start > Accessories > Right click Command Prompt to open as Admin > type "powercfg -h off"

Get rid of your page file. Type "advanced system settings" in the and then Advanced > Performance Settings > Advanced > Change > Uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" and then turn it off for the drives you want.

Create a storage folder for Documents/Music/Pictures/Videos in your storage hard drive > Right click Documents/Music/Pictures/Videos > Press Include a Folder and find the storage folder you made > Set that folder as the save location

 

[EvilNick]

Thanks, sounds like we shouldn't overthink things.

KingIcewind: I have disabled hibernation which is something I prefer anyway, but I'm in the camp of letting Windows manage my page file. I guess I'll just see how it goes.

 

[ob1]

Let windows handle it if you have the space. I mean, the page file on the SSD performs really well and with a 120GB drive with Win8, office, BF4 beta and two games, I'm not even at 70GB used yet, sitting around 68ish...

 

[J Macker]

correct me if I'm wrong, but you should have also set the sata controller to AHCI in the bios before installing windows. This is needed for TRIM.

 

[evilsofa]

Disable hibernate. Open Start > Accessories > Right click Command Prompt to open as Admin > type "powercfg -h off"

Yes, certainly, unless it's a laptop and hibernate is actually wanted.

Get rid of your page file. Type "advanced system settings" in the and then Advanced > Performance Settings > Advanced > Change > Uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" and then turn it off for the drives you want.

No! SSDs are excellent for page file behavior. Turning off the page file may cause trouble with some applications (particularly picture and video editing apps), although making the assumption that there will be a pagefile and requiring one for an app to run is bad behavior that has decreased in recent years.

However, in this age where almost everyone has lots of RAM (4GB or more), you can minimize the size of the pagefile to 1GB or less. When you go to the pagefile setting above and reduce the pagefile, Windows 7 will tell you that it won't be able to do memory dumps if it is less than 700MB or some similar value, and I just use that minimum value; I don't know what it tells you for Windows 8.

Windows should have turned off Indexing on the SSD already because its seek times are so fast that Indexing is irrelevant, but you can check by just going to Computer, right-clicking the SSD, and choosing Properties. Same thing for the Windows Disk Defragmenter which Windows 7 should have turned off automatically, and in Win8 was renamed to something else entirely which will just issue the TRIM command to an SSD when used.

 

[EvilNick]

J Macker: Yep, I've always use AHCI and I noticed the Z87 mobo defaults to it anyway.

evilsofa: I just did a fresh install of Win7 Home Premium x64 and indexing/defrag were still enabled on my SSD. I turned off defrag, but I've left indexing on for now.

 

[bigdogchris]

I just got my first SSD, a 840 EVO and it's great. 10 sec boots and snappy responses everywhere.

So far, all I've done as far as the SSD is concerned is to disabled scheduled defragmentation (plus also to not run any manual defrags on the SSD as it's not needed).

Are there any other settings that must be done? A lot of guides online mention things like disabling indexing, superfetch, pagefile, etc, but a lot of it seems like unfounded tweaks to me. If none of it is essential, I'll just leave it as is and enjoy the speed.

It depends on the OS.

Every OS:

1. Enable AHCI mode in BIOS.
2. Disable Hibernation to save space (or reduce it to 50% if you have Windows 8, to allow fast boot).
3. Set Page File to use Min/Max to save space (min=500MB, max=<amount of memory>). This means the PF will be small at boot and only grow if you need it).
4. Over provision the SSD by 10%. This means reducing your partition and leaving 10% unallocated. This gives the SSD room to perform wear leveling and reduce write amplification.

Vista:

1. Disable Defragmentation for the SSD (uncheck from select drives box) (Automatic on 7)
2. Disable Superfetch (Automatic on 7, but takes a while to take affect)

The EVO comes with Magician Software to enable RAPID mode (increases performance). You can install that. There are also some tweaks that Samsung suggest setting that can be found in the Magician.

 

[AMD T-type]

correct me if I'm wrong, but you should have also set the sata controller to AHCI in the bios before installing windows. This is needed for TRIM.

Yes, this is probably the only true thing that one should be sure to do especially if using an older motherboard, make sure you are using AHCI.

 

[bigdogchris]

Yes, this is probably the only true thing that one should be sure to do especially if using an older motherboard, make sure you are using AHCI.

Whether the board is new or old, AHCI is still recommended. The difference is most newer boards default to AHCI or RAID (either will work).

 

[Ryleh]

Only thing I'd recommend is to being sure to clear as much space as possible. Disable hibernation, shrink the page file, and use WinToolkit/RT7Lite/etc# to shrink it prior to installation.

 

[EvilNick]

Thanks for the tips.

I'm a little curious why my Windows 7 installation did not automatically disable defrags and superfetch for me. Could this be due to having a secondary HDD connected as well?
Anyway, I'll set them accordingly and also check out the Samsung Magician software.

 

[x509]

Yes, certainly, unless it's a laptop and hibernate is actually wanted.


Windows should have turned off Indexing on the SSD already because its seek times are so fast that Indexing is irrelevant,

If you use Outlook, then you will want to have Indexing ON, at least for Outlook. Only way to search rapidly through folders of email, etc.

 

[evilsofa]

If you use Outlook, then you will want to have Indexing ON, at least for Outlook. Only way to search rapidly through folders of email, etc.

Ha, that's interesting. I do see there's a way to enable indexing only for Outlook.

There's also this thread, where people have all sorts of problems with Outlook 2010 searching, and a bunch of solutions are presented of varying complexity. Not being an Outlook user, I can't comment further.

 

[x509]

Ha, that's interesting. I do see there's a way to enable indexing only for Outlook.

There's also this thread, where people have all sorts of problems with Outlook 2010 searching, and a bunch of solutions are presented of varying complexity. Not being an Outlook user, I can't comment further.

I found that a lot of my issues with Outlook search disappeared when I migrated from Office 2010 to Office 2013, just saying.