First time SSD user / install, anything I need to know?

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The-Tmann

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First time SSD owner,
Got a G2 80g, anything I should know prior to or during install?
WinXP or Win7?
 
I would install Win7 64 bit if you have the choice. Make sure you use the AHCI drivers and enable AHCI in your BIOS.
 
AHCI isn't required or needed. IDE mode will work just fine.
 
For some SSDs, enabling AHCI gives a little better performance.
 
danman said:
AHCI isn't required or needed. IDE mode will work just fine.
Click to expand...

And yet Intel specifically says on it's SSD page.....

Is the Intel SSD a drop-in replacement for SATA Hard Disk drives?
Yes. The Intel SSD a drop-in replacement provides rugged, reliable performance at lower power. Intel SSDs support the ATA-7 command sets and the SATA II command extensions. AHCI must be supported and enabled by both the system BIOS and OS (May require F6 installation of compatible windows storage driver like IMSM. Note: Vista AHCI support is native)
Click to expand...

For a modern PC, there is no reason not to enable it by default.
 
Disabl automatic defragging on your SSD, it just wastes write cycles, the controller most likely fragments your data anyways.
 
KillaChaos said:
Disabl automatic defragging on your SSD, it just wastes write cycles, the controller most likely fragments your data anyways.
Click to expand...

W7 will do that on it's own. XP/Vista will not.

I to say get W7. It's SSD aware and the only way to go in my book.
 
Win7 + AHCI will take care of all the optimizations you need. The only other things I'd advise are -

- make sure you have the latest firmware on the drive (02HD). This needs to be done before you install and needs booting from a cd/usb
- install the Intel RST drivers
- disable hibernation
- make a separate 20-25GB partition for the Os, and the rest for data.
- move your profile folders onto the data partition

This is not to help speed up, but so you can easily image and restore the os without affecting data.
 
25GB for Win7 is not enough. I wouldn't split the SSD into parts though..
 
I'm currently thinking long and hard about getting a SSD for my OS/core program drive, and was hoping to find a more thorough list of things to keep in mind in this thread. I worry about things like drive longevity and ways to maximize that.

Are current drives any less/more reliable than disc drives? I usually put the page file for my system on my data drive (separate from OS drive) but I take it I should keep it on the SSD? I usually install games and certain programs to a different drive than my OS drive, as well, which may or may not be something I need to continue doing depending on the size of the drive I hypothetically get.

Also, this would be for a long haul computer... something I'd be using a ton over the next 3 years without many upgrades. Is there any reason why a SSD wouldn't be fit for that?
 
danman said:
AHCI isn't required or needed. IDE mode will work just fine.
Click to expand...

I thought AHCI was required for TRIM. The other option is to run the Intel Toolbox every so often but like Limahl said, modern systems should be in AHCI mode.
 
Nope, TRIM will run with IDE or AHCI. It works off of NTFS delete notifications. All AHCI gives you is hot plugging and NCQ.
 
danman said:
Nope, TRIM will run with IDE or AHCI. It works off of NTFS delete notifications. All AHCI gives you is hot plugging and NCQ.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up. I've seen conflicting info about the subject on other sites/forums. Good to know!
 
hmz said:
25GB for Win7 is not enough. I wouldn't split the SSD into parts though..
Click to expand...

Yes it is, once you disable hibernation. My install only took up 14GB before I started install my other applications. I agree that it doesn't make since to partition the drive, just adds complexity for no gain.
 
You don't *have* to use Win7.

If you want to use WinXP (like me) all you have to do is make sure your sectors are aligned and set to 4K (probably NTFS) formatting. Most people forget to pre-align before formatting, it will still work, it just won't be at maximum speed. Disable AHCI if you are running XP.

Windows 7 automagically aligns SSDs, so it takes all of the manual work out.
 
That's only part of the picture. With XP you also won't have TRIM support so you'll need to make sure to run a utility from the drive vendor to emulate that process manually.

If you've got the choice of Win7, Win7 all the way. You're doing yourself a disservice to do a new build with XP IMO. Win7 does a lot more than just alignment to tune for SSDs.
 
Yeah, I just have an icon on the screen to run wiper.exe in XP for the equivalent of TRIM.

I prefer it that way as you can force cleanup when you want to instead of letting the drive decide. I should probably create some sort of batch file where it will empty the recycle bin and do wiper.exe on a single click.

Its not like its a big deal, its only a matter of a few seconds every week or month. Its heaven compared to a conventional disk defrag.
 
KillaChaos said:
Disabl automatic defragging on your SSD, it just wastes write cycles, the controller most likely fragments your data anyways.
Click to expand...

how do you make sure this is done?

I went into 'task scheduler' and under defrag i just deleted the task. Is that all that needs to be done?
 
Imaulle said:
how do you make sure this is done?

I went into 'task scheduler' and under defrag i just deleted the task. Is that all that needs to be done?
Click to expand...

That's exactly the wrong way to do it. (And it's been talked about several times in the last week in this forum).

In 7 you go into the defragmenter, then into the schedule, and check WHICH DISKS are included in the schedule. Make sure your SSD isn't selected (and it won't be, by default, without screwing around with things)

In Vista I'm trying to remember what the scheduler looks like. It's either similar to 7 or you set a schedule on each device. Make sure your SSD doesn't have a schedule.
 
okay thank you!


one last questions...


I've read that it's best to have the SATA in AHCI mode?


in my bios I can only set one mode for all of the drives. right now it's on RAID because I do have a 2TB raid 0 array that I keep my media on. Will this have any effect on the SSD? I can't find a way to have the SSD on AHCI and the 2 hdd on raid


thanks!
 
You should be OK if you install the Intel RST drivers (9.6.x.x). They allow the SSD to run in AHCI mode and for TRIM to function on any SSDs that support that command and aren't part of an array.
 
okay I've installed iata96enu.exe


how do I make sure that TRIM is on through Win 7 x64?
 
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