SSDs = Headache

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WorldExclusive

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There are way too many tweaks that needs to be done to optimize the performance of SSDs. I just got my first SSD and I do notice a huge difference in performance, but I've been spending the last few hours in forums and PM with users tweaking my SSD to run at optimum levels. Turn off this feature, install this driver, update this etc. For new users like myself, the installation process needs to be streamed-lined in future versions and operating systems. I've found SSD installation/optimization more complicated than overclocking.

Has anyone one else found tweaking your SSD too long of a process?
 
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With windows 7 you technically don't have to tweak anything.

You can disable sleep/hibernate.
Change pagefile size/etc.

But other than that.. not sure what you are doing.

What took me the longest was to move my user directories to my wd black.
Copy directories.
Then edit locations.
Done.

Only took a while since I made a few users.

None of this stuff was really new due to SSD, I had done most of these on all old system stoo.
 
AHCI was the first. Since I installed it as IDE, I couldn't enable AHCI in the BIOS anymore. I had to access the directory and change a number to enable AHCI in the BIOS without reinstalling windows. An OCZ rep walked me through that. Forum members tend to give directions in circles. Win7 does all of the hard work though like formatting etc. Then had update the AHCI driver. I had to read up on why most of the features like Indexing, defrag scheduling etc. had to be disabled.

How do you change pagefile size? And to what?
How do you copy and relocate the user directories?
 
I recommend relocating the Windows temp dirs to a mechanical drive. Saves a lot of writes when you install programs, use web browsers, etc. I used this guide and haven't had a single problem.
 
Only thing I had to do was set ahci in the bios and windows 7 did the rest. I had an ocz ssd it was a piece of crap it would randomly get slower, ocz lies about their numbers. I returned it to newegg, my kingston drive was faster in everything except the random test, and it was alot cheaper and now random slowness.
 
There are zero tweaks for Intel SSD apart disabling defrag as Intel recommends.
 
munkle said:
Only thing I had to do was set ahci in the bios and windows 7 did the rest. I had an ocz ssd it was a piece of crap it would randomly get slower, ocz lies about their numbers. I returned it to newegg, my kingston drive was faster in everything except the random test, and it was alot cheaper and now random slowness.
Click to expand...

I'm getting the advertised speeds after all of my research. SSDs will get slower as you add and erase programs.

Since I was new I wanted to know more than disable this and that, so it took me longet than the average person. I didn't know what the hell the people was talking about. It paid off since I'm get what I paid for now and it will last longer. There are tons of info at the OCZforums so there is a lot to read. If you don't know what you have, your SSD could end up to be a piece of crap. A few OCZ drives go dead after a few eeks or months so I'm trying to avoid that.
 
WorldExclusive said:
AHCI was the first. Since I installed it as IDE, I couldn't enable AHCI in the BIOS anymore. I had to access the directory and change a number to enable AHCI in the BIOS without reinstalling windows. An OCZ rep walked me through that. Forum members tend to give directions in circles. Win7 does all of the hard work though like formatting etc. Then had update the AHCI driver. I had to read up on why most of the features like Indexing, defrag scheduling etc. had to be disabled.

How do you change pagefile size? And to what?
How do you copy and relocate the user directories?
Click to expand...

That sucks.

Next time you buy a new toy do research FIRST.

That's like buying a sports car w/manual trans and not knowing how to drive a manual.

Seriously, I just built 3 new systems with SSD, my first ever systems with SSD. And I enabled ACHI right off the bat, did not update drivers, and they worked awesmoe. The tweaks I did were to make how I used them better, save space, etc, but were not "required".

imyourzero said:
I recommend relocating the Windows temp dirs to a mechanical drive. Saves a lot of writes when you install programs, use web browsers, etc. I used this guide and haven't had a single problem.
Click to expand...

Don't re-locate temp or cache folders to a slower drive.
SSD makes best usage of these for speed/access.
 
WorldExclusive said:
AHCI was the first. Since I installed it as IDE, I couldn't enable AHCI in the BIOS anymore. I had to access the directory and change a number to enable AHCI in the BIOS without reinstalling windows. An OCZ rep walked me through that. Forum members tend to give directions in circles. Win7 does all of the hard work though like formatting etc. Then had update the AHCI driver. I had to read up on why most of the features like Indexing, defrag scheduling etc. had to be disabled.

How do you change pagefile size? And to what?
How do you copy and relocate the user directories?
Click to expand...

Search my name we went over PageFile when I was looking into it regarding SSD.

I changed mine to a constant size in the end, but feel disabling it would be fine too. I never had it on my old system either.

Relocate user dirs = right click then change location ;) Just has to be done to each folder in the user directory separately.
 
once you do it a few times it really only takes a good 60 seconds to run through everything and get it all the way one desires though not absolutely necessary.

but as mentioned with win7, general users should be fine just leaving everything default if you don't feel like messing with things. as you said, you notice the major difference right out of the box. that's worth it right there on it's own. ;)
 
ToddW2 said:
Don't re-locate temp or cache folders to a slower drive.
SSD makes best usage of these for speed/access.
Click to expand...

I'd rather my programs take a little bit longer to install by throwing temp files on the mechanical drive than waste writes on my SSD. And there was a recent article showing how much browsers hit your drive with writes; the optimal scenario is to relocate the browser cache to RAM as it is both faster and more durable than your SSD.

Just wondering, what's the benefit of relocating the user dirs?
 
user directories store My documents and things like that, usually first place download and media end up. some programs automatically save information there also... space saver more then anything.
 
No it was easy. I didn't have to do anything different than on a standard drive. I've had AHCI enabled for a long time now since it increases performance of even mechanical SATA drives.

With the way the sizes will increase and the prices will go down, I can see myself keeping my current 80gb Intel SSD for more than a couple years. Even with all the temp files, page files, etc on the SSD; I won't come even close to the write limit of the drive.
 
drescherjm said:
Does ntfs still default to update access times for every folder you touch?
http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/50/
Click to expand...
By default is is disabled since Vista. You can enabled it via that setting if you want.

MetricGnome said:
Disable System Restore and Disk Defraggmenter in Win 7--thats it.
Click to expand...
Disk Defraggmenter disables itself on SSDs with Windows 7.

System Restore/Previous Versions is an awesome feature which most people should leave on.
 
For a clean install of Win7, there's really nothing special you need to do, IMHO. You don't really even need AHCI, though it helps performance a bit. But TRIM still works in IDE mode. I like to use AHCI even on mechanical drives, so to me this is not some special tweak that is SSD-specific.

Another issue that is not specific to SSDs is this: Putting your user directories on a different drive has *always* been a good practice, so I recommend it even for a rig with all mechanical drives (maybe even *especially* for mechanical drives). Have the OS and swapfile separate from your work areas really cuts down on thrashing the read heads when you're doing anything disk intensive. Plus it simplifies many backup and recovery tasks when your OS drive is pretty much "expendable" (i.e. can be wiped and reinstalled without losing anything irreplaceable).
 
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imyourzero said:
I'd rather my programs take a little bit longer to install by throwing temp files on the mechanical drive than waste writes on my SSD. And there was a recent article showing how much browsers hit your drive with writes; the optimal scenario is to relocate the browser cache to RAM as it is both faster and more durable than your SSD.

Just wondering, what's the benefit of relocating the user dirs?
Click to expand...

While I won't argue that a ram disk is faster than an SSD keeping them on the SSD is not going to kill it.

My system is showing 9.25gb/day in the SSD Tool Box. It is averaging lower and lower day by day since at the start is when most data is written due to installs,updates ,etc.

I use the internet 8-14hrs a day browsing sites, tons of tabs, programming in other apps, writing files, re-writing, uploading, email running on a sepearte monitor all day, checking every 5mins, photo work for my sites, etc.

I would guess 90% of people won't be using the system as much as me.

Gamers may completely use it differently, but as far as 'internet cache' goes it would be hard to find people who use it more.

So, again, I have no problem keeping EVERYTHING fast and keeping the TMP / CACHE on my SSD.

A ram disk for browser cache may be nifty if I add another 6gb though int he future :D
 
Post #1: SSD's require too much work to make optimal.

Posts #2-#22: Here are the one million things you can do to make them faster.

this thread is too funny
 
It's no different than any other hobby.

Normal people:
Buy new car. Drive car. Enjoy car.

Geeks:
Buy new car.
Notice that new car is much faster and smoother than old car.
Feel dissatisfied because someone else got their car to go even faster and smoother.
Comb forums for advice (half of it bad). Spend the next six months obsessing over every performance mod. Buy new K&N exhaust system, rechip the engine control computer, etc.
Complain that this new car is way too much trouble.
 
Trepidati0n said:
Post #1: SSD's require too much work to make optimal.

Posts #2-#22: Here are the one million things you can do to make them faster.

this thread is too funny
Click to expand...

Tis' true but many are still getting up to speed.

I've been using SSDs for @ 1.5 years and many of these researched "installiation facts" and tips are over a year old and aren't revelant to the newer units but few seem to look at the articles' dates and take them as current.

Combine this with the usual internet bullshit and inexperienced users and you get threads such as this one.

In other words business as usual! :D
 
Most of the tweaks were meant for stupid JMicron SSDs which 'stuttered' on write access. So all these tweaks just lower the times Windows writes to the SSD.

On a decent SSD, all you need to do is set your controller to AHCI and install Windows. One additional step may be underprovisioning; leaving more spare space to the SSD by creating a smaller partition instead, leaving the rest unused.

Other than that; Windows 7 should do all other things like disabling defrag automatically. If you think SSD needs a lot of tweaks, you should know HDDs needed a LOT of tweaks to became as fast as today, as well. And many of those tweaks or design choices are lowering performance on SSDs today.
 
sub.mesa said:
On a decent SSD, all you need to do is set your controller to AHCI and install Windows...

Other than that; Windows 7 should do all other things like disabling defrag automatically.
Click to expand...

That's right!
Set to AHCI (applies to any SATA drive IMO)
Install Windows
done

Disable hibernation is a good idea (SSDs boot crazy fast anyway) to save space but that's optional. Ditto with making the pagefile a smaller size. Both of these are small-drive specific (not SSD specific).

That's pretty much it. Indexing, defrag disabling, etc is done by Win7.

Moving user directories to a seperate drive helps reduce clean up maintenance on a small drive or partition - is not necessary (but nice) - again, not SSD specific but small drive specific.

I haven't even updated by Agility to the newer firmwares to get TRIM and such - there is some risk of problems with it - I just run the wiper once in a great while right now.
 
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