SSD on Windows 7

G

greyx

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
503
Hello guys
I decided to move from XP to Windows 7,i i think it was a great choice. Anyway.
Everything is just fine,but i think i buy an SSD,and keep my 2 X WD 6400 AAKS for storage.
Now i have a few questions,for those who use SSD / Windows 7
Is there a "big" difference between SSD and HDD ? I don't mean the "copy / transfer" of big files. Only the small applications,like :
Opening programs,web surf ( not about net speed ) reboot,shut down,etc
The only think i don't like in Windows 7 is when i wanna surf in Internet. It's a bit slower than XP.
I repeat : i'm not talking about internet speed. My browser is very well configured / optimized / My network connection is really good.
But whatever,there is a small delay when i open Mozilla,compared to XP !!
Of course,that's not the reason for me, to buy an SSD. But if i do that,it's gonna be a bit different,with Mozilla ?
Thanks.
 
SSD are slower than hard drives, they are going to fade out....















































Seriously, this same questions is probably asked at least 20 times in here within the month of July... :eek:
 
I don't spend much time optimizing and tweaking after the initial build, I just like to use the computer. When Windows 7 came out last year, I bought a Supertalent FTM64GX25H SSD, and did all the recommended tweaks and setups then.

I got transfer speeds averaging 100MB/sec writes, and 220MB/sec reads. I use Firefox, and all alone over the past year, Firefox loads fast, almost instantly.

By June I noticed things seem slower, like some of my larger Corel drawings taking a long time to save. I bench-marked my drive, and found the speeds had deteriorated significantly, down to averaging 35MB/sec writes, and 90MB/sec reads. I checked my 300GB Velociraptor, and it was averaging 115MB/sec writes, and 110MB/sec reads, same as when it was new.

I decided to defrag, and that brought the speeds back up some, averaging 85MB/sec writes, and 165MB/sec reads, but I checked today, and I am down to 40MB/sec writes, and 80MB/sec reads, and am not so fired up on SSD's anymore. My Velociraptor seems to be quick, quiet, and consistent as always.

I am going to get one of the 600G Velociraptor's any week now, and pull this SSD to use as an MP3 drive for my car stereo.

Done with SSD's until someone writes an OS that don't fragment files.
 
@greyx: There's lots of threads about this very topic. I use my PC for general computing, photography, video, some gaming. The missus does lots of gaming. While I do photo and video, it isn't a "heavy multimedia" system by any stretch. My SSD has been the best upgrade I've ever done to my system. It boots fast, login is instant, program launches are instant. There's no more "grind period" after logging in when Windows Update is scanning the disk, then Firefox wants to apply add-on upgrades, then this and that. Nothing but instant response in all conditions from the SSD.

People who say general web users won't see a performance boost are simply wrong. I won't argue, however, that general web users may not want to spend the $$$, but everyone can notice a difference. The SSD has helped my "general computer use" more than it's helped my photography, for instance.

@Raybob: fragmentation degrades performance because mechanical HDDs need to seek all over the disk to load a file. SSDs have virtually no access time. My system has been running for 4 months on SSD with no degradation, and no tweaking. I have a properly aligned Win7 install, running AHCI non-RAID mode with TRIM enabled, and Win7 has properly done all of the tuning (no index service, defrag HDDs only, TRIM). It's still as fast as the day I installed it and fragmentation doesn't affect a thing.

If you are not properly aligned, do not have TRIM enabled (no AHCI, RAID mode etc...) or run the disk too full (say >80%) then you may see some degradation. Your defragmentation procedure may have just forced the SSD to re-level it's wear and do a bunch of bulk erases. You also caused a crap-load of wear.

I also run the Intel Optimization utility from time to time, as they suggest, but I have yet to see it do anything serious other than say "OK" after about 2 seconds. I guess since TRIM is properly functioning in the OS and the drive is still fairly young it doesn't see the need to do any erase/move procedures for wear or performance reasons.
 
Understood. But i wanted to have an idea about my HDD ( western digital 6400 AAKS ) and one SDD.
I know,you compared "hdd". But there is a lot of hard drives,models,tehnology and so on.
You mean, any SSD is faster than WD 6400 AAKS ?
I wanna spend about 250 euro for 1 SSD.
 
greyx said:
Understood. But i wanted to have an idea about my HDD ( western digital 6400 AAKS ) and one SDD.
I know,you compared "hdd". But there is a lot of hard drives,models,tehnology and so on.
You mean, any SSD is faster than WD 6400 AAKS ?
I wanna spend about 250 euro for 1 SSD.
Click to expand...

Was this directed to me?

You'll want to run an OS with TRIM and make sure TRIM is working - put your controllers in AHCI mode, don't run RAID, and install the latest drivers for your chipset.

You'll want to be sure your partition is properly aligned - Win7 will do this automatically, as will Vista I believe. Google is your friend here.

It's "best" if you do a fresh install of win7 on your SSD when you get it. I'm sure people have successfully cloned an HDD install of Win7 onto an SSD, but you can be "most sure" that Win7 will make all the right tuning choices if you use the SSD as your system drive right from the get go.

I've said before, I don't think you can go wrong with an Intel X25-M as an OS/System SSD. This forum is always about testing the latest and best, and debating differences that are sometimes very minute. Some of the lesser-known SSDs have some serious shortcomings like lack of TRIM support. Other differences are less important - like a bias towards fast sequential reads instead of fast random small IO. The Intel offering is a high quality product, tailored for small random IO (like OS/app drives), fully supports TRIM, and comes with a good cleanup utility to keep things working well. I'm extremely pleased with my Intel and it's been nothing but a stellar performer. Brand new offerings from other vendors are likely improving on Intel's baseline, but the X25-M G2 is still a very solid product. If you don't want to be kept awake at night trying to make the right choice - just buy an Intel.

I can't comment on the pricing in your local market.
 
Well, maybe my SSD is not so bad after all. I went ahead and cloned my SSD drive onto my old 300GB Velociraptor, and noticed it was slower that SSD was. I did defrag it, and that helped, then benchmarked the Velociraptor where it was before, averaging roughly 110mb/sec for reads and writes.

Then I went to Supertalent's forum, and read up, finding some new tools and firmware for my SSD. I downloaded an ISO, and flashed the drive to the latest rev, then checked and found the drive was not erased after all. (They said flashing it would delete everything, but it did not)

So I used another utility they posted, their version of the Trim utility, and ran that, then booted it back up. Windows booted very fast this time, and detected the firmware update as new hardware, requiring another reboot. After that I ran Atto and seen my speeds averaging 150MB/sec writes, and 220MB/sec reads. The reads are as fast as brand new, and the writes are 50% faster than they ever were.

So I download this other utility I seen recommended, called SSDlife.exe, which showed I have 89% life left on my SSD, which is almost 10 months old now, and has been defragged 2 times. I also showed it as having 2485 hours on the drive, which is about 207 12 hour days worth of computing.

I guess the SSD is not so bad after all, I just did not know how to deal with it, and was too early an adopter, for the Supertalent SSD.
 
250 euro is about 330 USD.
Someone adviced me do not buy SSD if i have now a good HDD.
I have now 2 x WD6400 AAKS.
 
greyx said:
250 euro is about 330 USD.
Someone adviced me do not buy SSD if i have now a good HDD.
I have now 2 x WD6400 AAKS.
Click to expand...

You think, is worth to get 1 SSD ?
Someone told me that i won't see much difference between WD 6400 AAKS and SSD ...
 
greyx said:
You think, is worth to get 1 SSD ?
Someone told me that i won't see much difference between WD 6400 AAKS and SSD ...
Click to expand...

The AAKS is a good HDD, but they can't compare to what decent SSDs are capable of. It's not so much the sequential speeds that help, but the lowering of latency. Most SSDs will have only 0.1ms seek time while your HDD will have 9-12ms, depending on where the information is stored on the platter. That means that small reads/writes are much, much faster. Since small random reads/writes are much more common than sequential transfers, you get a noticeable speed up.
 
What about the the small apps ? Like opening Mozilla,some video players,and that kind of programs ?
Reboot is faster, too ? Editing videos,music ?!
And the last question.
I use Acronis to backup my OS partition ( image partition ) and i keep the images in the D partition.
So, if i get 1 x SSD only for the C ( OS ) and when i recover the image from D to C ....which hard is working then ?? The SSD or the second ( D partiton - WD 6400 AAKS ) ???
 
Small apps(like Firefox and such) are much faster on the SSD. So is booting and shutting down. Editing media files will depend on processing power more than storage transfer speed, but they will be at the very least just as fast. But if you have a powerful system where the CPU is not the bottleneck, it will speed things up.

As for the backing up scenario, you'll be reading from the HDD and writing to the SSD, so you'll be limited by the speed of the HDD.
 
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Thanks a lot.
I'll get one SSD, but i have to google it, first.
I heard some rumours about the next Intel Gen 3 SSD ,and some people adviced me to wait a few months.
 
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