Moving Win7 to SSD after install

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Surly73

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 19, 2007
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So, I've seen lots of information about Win7 having specific optimizations for SSDs:

- garbage collection/TRIM
- partition alignment
- disabling Superfetch
- disabling defrag
- etc..etc...

What happens if you transition Win7 to SSD after it's already installed (ie. clone)

I'm looking to start deploying win7 sometime soon, although I'm not in a rush. On my main system, I'm thinking about getting an SSD sometime during the sales around the Holidays - I'm waiting for the prices to come down. I have enough expenses without being an early adopter.

In my case on my main system, I have a lot of software, customization, codecs, tools, Photoshop custom actions and add-ons, etc... going on. I don't take OS reinstalls lightly like some do around here. Typically I never have to re-install an OS in the years a system lives because I can manage to keep it clean enough that there's no reason to.

My plan was to look at going ahead with Win7 whenever I'm ready early in the fall, and trying to retain some multi-boot with my old OSs. I did this fine with Clonezilla and some other tools like Savepart when I went from XP to Vista. I use an 80GB C:, so I was going to get an 80GB SSD and simply clone my C: onto the SSD and make my old mechanical disk purely data (and legacy multi-boot OSs).

So:

- What happens when Win7 awakes one time to find it's on an SSD? Do all of the TRIM, defrag and Superfetch things alter behaviour at each boot?

- What's the best way to prepare the new partition to make sure alignment is right? Should I boot with Win7 boot media and only the SSD connected long enough to partition and format, then clone the existing OS into the partition which was prepared by win7 instead of letting Clonezilla/linux do the partition? Is this even a concern?

- When looking into Win7 + Truecrypt I saw a lot of comments about Win7 RTM now using multiple partitions (RC did not) - a small boot partition and the main body of the OS in another partition. This kind of behaviour is really going to screw me up, where I am specifically and manually controlling partitioning on my disks. Is this a concern or does Win7 only do this in "full auto" mode while limiting itself to a single partition if manual/advanced modes are used?


I'm really hoping to extract some hard info or start a discussion here. As I mentioned, re-installs are not something that's convenient for me to do in any way, shape or form - I have a lot more than a couple of favourite games going on with my system. Please resist "Just reinstall to be sure" replies :)
 
You may want to read through this thread here....

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1440297

The majority seem to favor a clean install to any SSD just to avoid potential issues that may crop up. I know it's not the answer you want, but if you clone to an SSD and everything goes wrong, thats of no help either.
 
Wow. I've been following both the OS and Data Storage forums on a regular basis but I've somehow missed that thread.

I guess the only value to this thread is to see if Microsoft themselves have weighed in on the issue, or if RTM operates any differently than RC, which was current at the time of the previous thread.

It's a thread that was right on target, but it seems that none of the contributors ACTUALLY know the answer :(
 
Surly73 said:
Wow. I've been following both the OS and Data Storage forums on a regular basis but I've somehow missed that thread.

I guess the only value to this thread is to see if Microsoft themselves have weighed in on the issue, or if RTM operates any differently than RC, which was current at the time of the previous thread.

It's a thread that was right on target, but it seems that none of the contributors ACTUALLY know the answer :(
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I got out of it too (I was the thread starter).

My SSD was purchased today. I'm just going to do a fresh install just to be safe. Hopefully I don't get any activation fuss from MS with my MSDNAA key.

Since win7 doesn't need codec packs, DVD software, Direct X, or too many drivers even, it really doesn't take that long anyway.
 
The only thing I would suggest is disabling the page file entirely for Windows 7, on SSDs. I have 12 GB of RAM and 80 GB worth of SSD space (actually 74 GiB), so Windows creates a 12 GiB page file, which takes up a significant chunk of my space. I have not run into page file issues thus far. I would recommend it.

You can leave the rest alone. Whoever told you to disable superfetch?
 
Cyrilix said:
The only thing I would suggest is disabling the page file entirely for Windows 7, on SSDs. I have 12 GB of RAM and 80 GB worth of SSD space (actually 74 GiB), so Windows creates a 12 GiB page file, which takes up a significant chunk of my space. I have not run into page file issues thus far. I would recommend it.

You can leave the rest alone. Whoever told you to disable superfetch?
Click to expand...

Win7 DOES this by itself, along with a number of other things (TRIM, defrag, superfetch, aligning partitions/filesystem etc...)

I'm not suggesting that anyone start tweaking win7, that's not the point of the thread. There's already about a hundred of those...
 
Surly73 said:
Win7 DOES this by itself, along with a number of other things (TRIM, defrag, superfetch, aligning partitions/filesystem etc...)

I'm not suggesting that anyone start tweaking win7, that's not the point of the thread. There's already about a hundred of those...
Click to expand...

What? Disable the page file? That it doesn't do. I checked my disk space and after install without many applications, it was at 55 GB and I freaked.
 
Actually this engineering log recommends putting the page file on an SSD: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

Now it doesn't really talk about situations where you wouldn't even need a page file but there's some debate if disabling it is such a great idea from I've seen. At any rate I'm hoping to get a 250 GB SSD for my tablet next month, get the official multi-touch drivers and really enjoy this puppy. I have some pretty high expectations and hope not to be disappointed.
 
GUYS:

Do not turn this into another thread of unnecessary over-tweaking of Win7 due to either the inability to leave things alone, or paranoia about SSDs.

This is a thread about cloning onto an SSD without a re-install, and whether Win7 activates it's special SSD features in that scenario.

@Cyrillix: I was referring to Win7 disabling Superfetch by itself, not the pagefile.
 
Surly73 said:
GUYS:

Do not turn this into another thread of unnecessary over-tweaking of Win7 due to either the inability to leave things alone, or paranoia about SSDs.

This is a thread about cloning onto an SSD without a re-install, and whether Win7 activates it's special SSD features in that scenario.

@Cyrillix: I was referring to Win7 disabling Superfetch by itself, not the pagefile.
Click to expand...

AGREED!

The only thing that is up in the air is whether Win7 recognizes an SSD if you restore a win7 image to it, or only during the install process. No one seems to know.
 
Cyrilix said:
The only thing I would suggest is disabling the page file entirely for Windows 7, on SSDs.
Click to expand...

Do not disable the page file, ever. Shrink it to a fixed size of 512mb if you must, but don't disable it. Having no page file can cause all sorts of strangeness, even if you have an ample supply of RAM.
 
Unknown-One said:
Do not disable the page file, ever. Shrink it to a fixed size of 512mb if you must, but don't disable it. Having no page file can cause all sorts of strangeness, even if you have an ample supply of RAM.
Click to expand...

Hi Unknown-One... my last post in this thread, since I seem to be hijacking it, but such advice has to be considered with respect to pros and cons.

Pros: I get 15-20% extra valuable valuable disk space.
Cons: Potential problems, but I haven't seen any yet, or maybe I have, and I just don't know it.

Which route to take? Weigh the pros and cons. I'm not suggesting that everyone do this on every drive, but if you have a 60 GB or 80 GB SSD and a huge amount of RAM (12 GB+), it's definitely an option. Sorry Surly for ruining your thread.
 
Would a 1GB static page file on any given machine really cause massive amounts of problems for anyone?

No, it wouldn't, so if you absolutely must tinker around with it make a 1GB static page file, then leave it alone.
 
Unknown-One said:
Do not disable the page file, ever. Shrink it to a fixed size of 512mb if you must, but don't disable it. Having no page file can cause all sorts of strangeness, even if you have an ample supply of RAM.
Click to expand...

Best advice ever. Whatever you do, do NOT turn off page file altogether. You can spare 512mb of disk space.
 
Jon55 said:
Best advice ever. Whatever you do, do NOT turn off page file altogether. You can spare 512mb of disk space.
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Yet many of us have the pagefile turned off with zero problems, so personal choice. It's easy enough to turn back on if there's ever an issue.

Also, Win7 didn't seem to autodetect my Intel SSD's when it was installed, since none of the tweaks that are supposed to automatically happen like Superfetch off were done. http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx
 
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heatlesssun said:
But its not recommended officially so it may work just fine, but if it doesn't don't complain.
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If it doesn't, then it's easy enough to turn the pagefile back on. With plenty of ram it's an interesting experiment to see if that ever happens. Both Vista and Win7 seem to be very smart about pagefile use, if there's plenty of ram then the pagefile doesn't seem to get used much, which implies there's really not a downside to using it. I've always got plenty of free ram, so I'm interested in seeing if disabling the pagefile ever causes me an issue, and so far it hasn't.
 
Wouldn't having a small pagefile vs. no pagefile lead to a bit of thrashing if multiple applications wish to bring out pages?
 
Cyrilix said:
The only thing I would suggest is disabling the page file entirely for Windows 7, on SSDs. I have 12 GB of RAM and 80 GB worth of SSD space (actually 74 GiB), so Windows creates a 12 GiB page file, which takes up a significant chunk of my space. I have not run into page file issues thus far. I would recommend it.

You can leave the rest alone. Whoever told you to disable superfetch?
Click to expand...

Win7 supposedly disables Superfetch on SSD, I say supposedly because I've never gotten a straight answer on it but it should be disabled by default along w/the defrag tool according to a Q&A with a dev that MS themselves published recently... OTOH Win7 does not create a 12GB page file just because you have 12GB of RAM, dunno where you got that notion.

It will create a pretty large hibernate file based on the amount of RAM you've got tho (since it has to save the state of RAM to the HD, depending on your sleep/hibernate settings), I think you got those two things mixed up. The page file is usually dynamic, and on that same Q&A they actually point out that there's nothing wrong with leaving it alone and operating on the SSD, chances are it would usually be rather small w/12GB of RAM anyway. Link to the article in question - Engineering Win7: Support and Q&A for SSD

Besides disabling Superfetch and other partition precautions, the only special measure Win7 seems to take by default (if it actually detects an SSD) is disabling the defragger. It doesn't deem it necessary to mess w/the hibernate file, swap file, etc. Obviously users w/lots of RAM might wanna disable hibernate and/or move the page file to another drive if they're overly concerned w/write cycles, I wouldn't mess around w/tweaking it's size or disabling it tho, Win7 does it fine by itself.


Anyway, back on topic... I've been looking into ways to image Win7 properly as well, not because I want to migrate an existing install but because I like being able to create and restore image backups of my OS drive anyway (helps a lot w/OC testing), and I've got an 80GB X25-M on the way right now. The only sure-fire way to get partition alignment right that I've seen is to run the setup (or run diskpart from the setup disk) and then deploy an image unto the pre-made partition. The problem is finding a program that does that properly and seamlessly w/o re-partitioning or messing w/the existing partition (I've heard Drive Image XL works alright).

From what I've seen it doesn't really matter if you've allowed Win7 to create it's own recovery partition because any sub-sequent partitions are automatically aligned if the first one is properly aligned. I have no idea if Win7 would recognize it's been shifted unto an SSD and disable Superfetch and the defragger at that point but it shouldn't be all that hard to check that manually... TRIM support even isn't working yet with the default Intel chipset drivers so that can surely be enabled at a later date regardless.
 
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To try and keep the thread a lil' bit more on topic (there's enough pointless discussion of the swap file on dozens of other threads people!), I'm gonna share some interesting links/threads I've come across with regards to SSD partition alignment and imaging Win7... You'll have to forgive me if you've already seen it and/or were involved in those threads, some might still find it useful. I might try making a FAQ once my SSD is here and I can test all of this first-hand.

If you're not familiar with Vista/Win7, you can read up here to figure out how to check whether defragging and Superfetch are disabled/enabled. Sidenote: Even tho MS states that Win7 should disable Superfetch by default on SSD, I still don't understand why, if anyone has a clear answer for it I would love to hear it (in PM if necessary to keep this on-track)... AFAIK Superfetch just reads off the SSD in order to load stuff unto RAM no? Why would it matter?

Some forum members share their experience on restoring their image to a drive while attempting to maintain alignment here. Metaluna states on post #35 he used DriveImage to restore the image after creating a partition, only issue was repairing the MBR w/the setup disc after doing that apparently. He managed this with both Vista x64 and Win7 x64, and used Diskpart afterwards to verify alignment (it's on your OS disc, more info at the OCZ boards here, here and further down). In that [H]Forum thread there's also some details about DriveImage not being able to go from a larger drive to a smaller drive, which might complicate things for the OP if he intends to migrate an existing install (altho I guess you can always shrink the partition beforehand, tho you're adding even more variables into the mix at that point).

Finally, if you haven't used diskpart, here's a very good guide on the OCZ boars that covers using it to create properly offset partitions as well as using it simply to check the current alignment. It points out some pertinent details already mentioned in the thread (like sub-sequent partitions after the first one usually being aligned when created afterwards, etc.). Btw, I believe if you install Win7 into an existing partition then it doesn't create that extra recovery partition, but I've always installed it to a bare drive so I can't say for sure (might've been a peculiarity of the RC as well).

Oh and a lil' idiot-proof article on using symbolic links to manage your game installs on a small-ish SSD. For everyone worried about the size of their Steam folder on their <80GB SSD but not wanting to move the whole shebang (including some of the more demanding games) to a regular HDD.

Man my SSD can't get here soon enough... I just had to order it on a Thursday before a holiday weekend, ugh. :p
 
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@Impulse: thank you!

I can't read all of your links right this second, but thanks for taking the time to post (on topic) and provide back up....
 
I haven't read up a whole lot on the larger Vertex drives, but I imagine if anything it should be just as fast as the 120GB drive if not a lil' faster... And that's as valid a choice as any of the Intel drives. Seems kinda overpriced to me tho, at more than 2x of what the 120GB version costs...

P.S. Make your own darn thread. ;)
 
Didn't mean to crap your thread, just didn't want to start a new one on a similar subject!;)

SSD's are priced these days where 2x the capacity is usually more then 2x the price from what I've seen. Since this is going in a laptop I simply wanted all the capacity I could afford and find.
 
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