SSD install...

[The Cisco Kid]

All my components for my new build are in. I'm just curious if there is anything I should know before installing the SSD? Is there anything I need to do in the bios before installing windows 7? I think I read something about AHCI and changing something?

Sorry for such basic questions, but I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Thanks!

 

[SR45]

Prior to the install, make sure your Bios is set to default, no overclocking, to be on the safe side.

My motherboard does not have AHCI so someone else will have to weigh in on that one.

After hooking up the power cable and the SATA cable, I turned it on without the OS disk to see if the SSD showed up in the Bios, than I inserted the OS DVD into the tray and started the install.

Don't know which manufacture you are getting the SSD from but if its OCZ, they have a good forum to read up on if interested.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...Summit-Colossus-and-Z-Drive-with-Microsoft-OS


Some tweak the heck out of the SSD to get has much performance as possible, but I tend to just turn off the windows defrag program completely, make sure the drive is set for "Performance" turned off System Restore, and Indexing.

The speed of Write and Read on your SSD manufacture web site will differ some what on your system, so don't get all upset unless its really low.

TRIM on 1.5 version, if its a OCZ SSD, will work best when you "Log Off" the system for a few hours each week, not turning off the system completely. ( OK my mistake, its Garbage Collection that needs some idle time about each week )

Hope this helps a bit

EDIT: Now I see you have the Intel SSD so if they have a forum, go their and ask lots of questions from those that have your drive.

 

[C-rizzle]

With Windows 7 you have pretty much nothing to worry about. It should be a simple install. Win7 will partition & format your drive correctly (aligned), it has the AHCI /RAID drivers built in, etc. and it already knows what to do with SSD's. (ie: it disables defrag, will TRIM if your drive/firmware supports it, etc.)

Now if you were installing WinXP, I'd say you need a few things. Floppy for RAID/AHCI drivers at F6 prompt, maybe Win Vista CD to format your drive to the proper alignment, etc.

You may want to verify that you have the latest firmware on your SSD before you install Win 7.

What make/model SSD do you have?

Looking at your sig. it looks like you have the same drives as me. (see my sig)

 

[Impulse]

First update the SSD's firmware if necessary, you may or may not have to set your mobo's controller to IDE mode to do this, it varies. After you're done set it back to AHCI. Other than that there's not much else to do...

If you wanna facilitate future image backups of the drive I'd recommend formatting it manually prior to the OS install so Win7 doesn't create that system recovery partition. The main function of it is BitLocker anyway which most people don't use, the stuff that's stored inside it is otherwise stored on C:\ w/o it. You can always remove it later if it gives you trouble w/your image backup app tho, so it's not absolutely necessary (and recent versions of said programs can now read/backup the system recovery partition too, FWIW).

People will mention a lot of tweaks but frankly you shouldn't need to bother w/most of it if you have an Indillix-based drive or an Intel drive... Most of that stuff was either meant for WinXP or older SSD that weren't optimized for OS use. The main reason to mess w/any of it would be to squeeze every last GB out of the drive if you really need to (turning off Hibernation is the easiest, if you don't use it, and it'll net you about as many GBs as the amount of RAM you've got in the system, so a good 6GB for ya).

Turning off System Restore or Indexing... Meh, not necessary imo. If you've got other means of backup then by all means, do w/e w/SR, but indexing is still nice to have and you can configure the service to only index your HDD (ideally where you'd keep data files anyway). The defrag service should also not be touching your SSD while it continues to defrag your HDD, so you shouldn't need to touch that either if Win7 recognized it's on a SSD. Actual MS devs have reiterated much of this in the past.

If you wanna make sure TRIM is working you can DL CyrstalMark, tho it absolutely should be working if you have the latest firmware for your drive and you're not running RAID... ALSO, don't install the SATA drivers for your mobo, that will disable TRIM (no one, not even Intel, has TRIM-aware storage drivers just yet, so it only works w/the driver MS built into Win7 for now).

 

[The Cisco Kid]

Thanks so much everyone! Can't wait to get home to get this started. This information is extremely helpful .

Oh and this is my SSD - Intel 80GB 25m-G2 SSD.

Cisco

 

[Damar]

Thanks so much everyone! Can't wait to get home to get this started. This information is extremely helpful .

Oh and this is my SSD - Intel 80GB 25m-G2 SSD.

Cisco

Good choice. I loved mine before the rest of the PC died on me. Planning to try for a 160GB one so I can put the 80Gb one in my old laptop for a nice boost.