The SSD Cookbook

[BoomerM3]

I'm thinking about adding a Crucial M4 64 Gb SSD to my recent build (ASUS P8Z68-V). I see so many questions, comments, explanations of the SSD, I wonder if it is ready for prime time.

I am looking for a cookbook document. Something we might call installation instructions. I don't want to 'try disconnecting all drives...' or 'try a different SATA port'. I want to get it to work the first time!

Has anyone seen something like this? Not at Crucial or ASUS. Other places?

Thanks.

 

[Old Hippie]

I see so many questions, comments, explanations of the SSD

And they've all been answered and discussed many times.

All you hafta do is read what's already been written.

 

[farscapesg1]

I'm thinking about adding a Crucial M4 64 Gb SSD to my recent build (ASUS P8Z68-V). I see so many questions, comments, explanations of the SSD, I wonder if it is ready for prime time.

I am looking for a cookbook document. Something we might call installation instructions. I don't want to 'try disconnecting all drives...' or 'try a different SATA port'. I want to get it to work the first time!

Has anyone seen something like this? Not at Crucial or ASUS. Other places?

Thanks.

Not to trash you.. but how long have you been working with computers? There is almost no "get it to work the first time" guarantee with any computer hardware. Things have gotten better, but back in the PCI/ISA only days just putting a sound card in the system could require you to move all your other cards around just to get the correct IRQ settings.

It's just part of the joy/pain of working on computers (depends on your view ). So far I've found hard drives/ssds to be one of the simplest upgrades. It's generally as simple as "connect drive to SATA port and power" and move on.

 

[BoomerM3]

Not to trash you guys, but a smart person tries to benefit from others' experience. New hardware and software keeps coming out and things change. Why would I want to experience every mistake personally when I could read how someone else solved the problem.

But, maybe that's not your method. The key word is SMART.

Yes, I've been doing PCs for a while - 30 years.

 

[Neb]

A smart person searches before posting. Old Hippie has it right

 

[Old Hippie]

Not to trash you guys, but a smart person tries to benefit from others' experience. New hardware and software keeps coming out and things change. Why would I want to experience every mistake personally when I could read how someone else solved the problem.

You have 30yrs experience and no nothing about SSDs or how to read/search/interperate current information?

Pretty sad but let's just say it's true.

A SMART person would do some research and start at the beginning.

Start here with the primer and then come back and read the first 5 pages of the Data Storage forum to "benefit from others' experience".

When you become a little SMARTER about SSDs come back with specific questions.

 

[Damar]

Disconnect old system drive
Plug in new SSD
Clean install Windows 7
Profit?

Thats about how hard it is. If you want to transfer data over get an external case for the old drive or hook it up to another connector internally.

 

[blahblahyoutoo]

Not to trash you guys, but a smart person tries to benefit from others' experience. New hardware and software keeps coming out and things change. Why would I want to experience every mistake personally when I could read how someone else solved the problem.

But, maybe that's not your method. The key word is SMART.

Yes, I've been doing PCs for a while - 30 years.

then you should know the current state of PC's and how easy adding a disk drive is to a system.
the drive tech may be different but the interface is the same.
the process of adding a SSD is the same as adding a SATA HDD.

 

[ghost6303]

Why would I want to experience every mistake personally when I could read how someone else solved the problem.

why would you start a brand new thread with questions that have already been asked, ad-nausium, when you can just read the previous threads like a smart person?

your misleading title brought me here, thinking that there was some sort of "cookbook" or document or interesting information that i havnt read yet. instead its another bait-and-switch asking simple questions that should either A) have been searched for or B) you should already have intimate knowledge of being as you have 30 years of experience. dont claim to be a physics professor and then ask how gravity works.

Yes, I've been doing PCs for a while - 30 years.

then you would be familiar with the internet. on here everyone has atleast a few PHD's, and have been working in whatever field they claim to be in for longer than they have been alive.

 

[danswartz]

Wow, betting we don't see him again

 

[GeorgeHR]

I don't build a lot of computers but I do shuffle parts around between 9 computers at work. Everything seems to work easily.

Except for SSDs.

One needs to align the drive properly. (Windows 7 does that for you, but Windows XP does not.)

One should disable some of the usual Windows processes.

One should use SATA III and certain BIOS settings.

The only way to tell if everything is right is to benchmark. And adjust.

---

But it is all in other threads.

 

[blahblahyoutoo]

I don't build a lot of computers but I do shuffle parts around between 9 computers at work. Everything seems to work easily.

Except for SSDs.

One needs to align the drive properly. (Windows 7 does that for you, but Windows XP does not.)

One should disable some of the usual Windows processes.

One should use SATA III and certain BIOS settings.

The only way to tell if everything is right is to benchmark. And adjust.

---

But it is all in other threads.

one shouldn't be using SSD on XP unless you have a unit that does auto garbage collection.
controversial topic, but personally i have not disabled any windows services (Win7).
SATA3 for SATA3 drives, and SATA2 for SATA2 drives. not very complicated.
AHCI is the only BIOS setting that needs changing for max performance.

but you're right, there's a bit more work involved, but Win7 takes care of most of them.

 

[Old Hippie]

you have a unit that does auto garbage collection.

ALL SSDs have garbage collection.

SATA3 for SATA3 drives, and SATA2 for SATA2 drives.

The interface means nothing if the drive can't use it.

I'm thinking guys like you are the ones that make it confusing by not knowing what you're talking about. LOL!

 

[BoomerM3]

Old...

Do you practice being nasty - or are you just naturally good at it?

 

[Red Falcon]

The interface means nothing if the drive can't use it.

That's what she said.

ALL SSDs have garbage collection.

Correct, TRIM is a function of the OS, but garbage collection is a function of the SSD.

Do you practice being nasty - or are you just naturally good at it?

He's naturally good at it.

 

[Red Falcon]

one shouldn't be using SSD on XP unless you have a unit that does auto garbage collection.
controversial topic, but personally i have not disabled any windows services (Win7).
SATA3 for SATA3 drives, and SATA2 for SATA2 drives. not very complicated.

All SSDs have garbage collection.

Disabling processes is not a controversial topic, many people do it for various reasons.
I'm not sure why you would say it is.

Also, you can use a SATA-III drive in a SATA-II port, and vice versa. SATA-I through SATA-III are all backwards compatible.
But yes, if you have the specific ports, one should install them appropriately.

 

[Red Falcon]

You have 30yrs experience and no nothing about SSDs or how to read/search/interperate current information?

Pretty sad but let's just say it's true.

A SMART person would do some research and start at the beginning.

Start here with the primer and then come back and read the first 5 pages of the Data Storage forum to "benefit from others' experience".

When you become a little SMARTER about SSDs come back with specific questions.

+1 to this!

30 years of experience and he has no experience with any SSDs... wow.
Believe it or not, SSD technology has been around since the 1970's, but it's only recently become more popular circa 2008.

Still, BoomerM3, do some research!

I am looking for a cookbook document. Something we might call installation instructions. I don't want to 'try disconnecting all drives...' or 'try a different SATA port'. I want to get it to work the first time!

You have 30 years of experience, yet you want something you know nothing about to work correctly on the first try.
By 30 years of experience, do you mean you've simply owned a computer in that time and just did basic typing and web surfing?

I'm sorry, but how can you have such unrealistic expectations with so much experience?

 

[blahblahyoutoo]

All SSDs have garbage collection.

Disabling processes is not a controversial topic, many people do it for various reasons.
I'm not sure why you would say it is.

Also, you can use a SATA-III drive in a SATA-II port, and vice versa. SATA-I through SATA-III are all backwards compatible.
But yes, if you have the specific ports, one should install them appropriately.

controversial meaning i can find lots of people who will argue whether or not you should leave the service on or off.

 

[Red Falcon]

controversial meaning i can find lots of people who will argue whether or not you should leave the service on or off.

Show some links, this I have to see.

I'm not sure why disabling Windows services would be considered controversial, people do it all the time, though one should probably know what they are doing before going ahead with it. I'm talking about you OP.

 

[Impulse]

Old...

Do you practice being nasty - or are you just naturally good at it?

Does the truth hurt? Frankly with that attitude I think Murphy's law AND the universe will probably conspire to make your upgrade hell... Sandforce may be involved in said plot too.

Seriously tho, ain't nothing to it... People disable certain things to save space or out of drive longevity paranoia, but with decent 120GB drives coming in under $200 you really don't have to worry about much besides picking a reliable one IMO. If you're not doing a clean install there's a few more things to take into account but since you haven't shared your plans or asked anything specific it's hard to say much w/o rewriting the last two years of posts on this here boards.

 

[Old Hippie]

Old...

Do you practice being nasty - or are you just naturally good at it?

LOL!

I've said nothing that wasn't true.

Many seem to feel they're special and should have the info spoon-fed rather than get their fingers dirty using the keyboard to do a little searching.

I never meant for this thread to go awry but after your statement of "30yrs experience" I knew there'd be trouble.

 

[Red Falcon]

controversial meaning i can find lots of people who will argue whether or not you should leave the service on or off.

Another thing, the only reason it would be controversial would be if you don't know what you're doing.

Those with the know don't consider anything to be controversial, only a different way of getting the job done.

I knew there'd be trouble.

Well yeah, you speak the truth, and your in this thread, of course!

 

[dunksandblazers]

I just installed an SSD and I wish there was one comprehensive guide that covers all the aspects. Long story short, it took me two weeks to get it right. I wish there was a guide that explained everything upfront. Also it is not just as easy as installing a SATA HDD because before you even start you have to switch from IDE mode to AHCI.

 

[Impulse]

You should be using AHCI even with regular drives anyway... What other difficulties did you encounter?

 

[dunksandblazers]

The problem I was having was that my SSD (OCZ Solid III) was not showing up in windows install. It kept telling me no drivers found... I tried everything including formatting the SSD in windows 7 and downloading my motherboard drivers. In the end I abandoned all hopes of installing windows on my SSD so I ended installing Ubuntu which took seconds. It was only after I installed Ubuntu did the drive show up in the Windows Installer. Can anyone tell me what I did wrong?

 

[Cerulean]

A smart person searches before posting. Old Hippie has it right

That partly defeats the purpose of forums. If you are sick and tired of the same question being asked, why don't you go and create an end-all thread to all SSD questions, either get it pinned or bookmarked... or, just not post in this thread or read the Data Storage Systems forum.

I love the concept of forums very much because we all have different learning styles, learning methods, learning mindsets, and different ways of approach doing that. My way of learning probably isn't a common kind, and despite Googling, sometimes I need an answer and response from someone that is concurrently actively human to respond back specially to my question so that I may in hope better understand a particular thing (even though a Google result might be 100% smack dab fully understandable and pwnage for you -- I do not always see it the same way and still have questions, misunderstandings, and unfilled blanks).

That's what I love about forums. You can discuss a subject, ask questions, and generally expect to receive responses tailored to your sentence wording and structural form, and get that response from humans that are presently on the front-lines or close by.

EDIT: FYI, I'm the kind that appears to want to be spoonfed when that's really not the case. I just have a different way of learning. I often need someone to show me (literally) an entire walkthrough with them doing it (vs just 'asking questions, getting the procedure written down, and THEN doing it for the first time' essentially blindly despite having notes and having done research).

You guys are apparently also not factoring in that based on his 30-years of experience (2011 - 30 = 1981) he came and grew up in a different era, neither do you know his age. Way to be human and understanding of the situation guys!! Yay for presumptions, jumping to conclusions, and beating by the bushes!

 

[Red Falcon]

The problem I was having was that my SSD (OCZ Solid III) was not showing up in windows install. It kept telling me no drivers found... I tried everything including formatting the SSD in windows 7 and downloading my motherboard drivers. In the end I abandoned all hopes of installing windows on my SSD so I ended installing Ubuntu which took seconds. It was only after I installed Ubuntu did the drive show up in the Windows Installer. Can anyone tell me what I did wrong?

Yeah, you didn't load the drivers for your SATA controller during the Win7 installation.
Sometimes it takes 3rd party drivers to make the controller work.

FYI, the Linux Kernel will normally have the drivers built in, hence why it 'just worked' for you.

 

[farscapesg1]

That partly defeats the purpose of forums. If you are sick and tired of the same question being asked, why don't you go and create an end-all thread to all SSD questions, either get it pinned or bookmarked... or, just not post in this thread or read the Data Storage Systems forum.

I love the concept of forums very much because we all have different learning styles, learning methods, learning mindsets, and different ways of approach doing that. My way of learning probably isn't a common kind, and despite Googling, sometimes I need an answer and response from someone that is concurrently actively human to respond back specially to my question so that I may in hope better understand a particular thing (even though a Google result might be 100% smack dab fully understandable and pwnage for you -- I do not always see it the same way and still have questions, misunderstandings, and unfilled blanks).

That's what I love about forums. You can discuss a subject, ask questions, and generally expect to receive responses tailored to your sentence wording and structural form, and get that response from humans that are presently on the front-lines or close by.

EDIT: FYI, I'm the kind that appears to want to be spoonfed when that's really not the case. I just have a different way of learning. I often need someone to show me (literally) an entire walkthrough with them doing it (vs just 'asking questions, getting the procedure written down, and THEN doing it for the first time' essentially blindly despite having notes and having done research).

You guys are apparently also not factoring in that based on his 30-years of experience (2011 - 30 = 1981) he came and grew up in a different era, neither do you know his age. Way to be human and understanding of the situation guys!! Yay for presumptions, jumping to conclusions, and beating by the bushes!

That's fine, but I guess the appropriate answer to the OP question would have just been "no" since he was asking if there was a "cookbook" for installing SSD drives.

Unfortunately, I've seen too many cases in my career where several people have the extact same hardware.. and then that one guy still has issues even though he set up an identical system. There just isn't a "fool-proof" or "guaranteed to work the first time" in anything when it comes to computers. Too many variables (bios versions, firmware issues, hardware revisions, etc.

All you can really do is do some research before hand, ask some educated questions of the forum members (what do you run, any issues you've encountered, recommended brands/models, known problems with this drive and this controller, etc.) and then go for it. If you run into problems, then ask away and most of the forum members will be more than happy to help you stumble through the issues/pitfalls that you are encountering.

 

[Impulse]

I don't have an issue with any of that Cerulean, but the OP had absolutely no specific questions, beyond asking for an all inclusive walkthru... At it's most basic there isn't anything different to installing a SSD than a HHD, and anything beyond the basics depends on personal preference, specific SSD models/sizes, etc...

 

[Impulse]

The problem I was having was that my SSD (OCZ Solid III) was not showing up in windows install. It kept telling me no drivers found... I tried everything including formatting the SSD in windows 7 and downloading my motherboard drivers. In the end I abandoned all hopes of installing windows on my SSD so I ended installing Ubuntu which took seconds. It was only after I installed Ubuntu did the drive show up in the Windows Installer. Can anyone tell me what I did wrong?

Probably would've happened with any other drive too... It's probably a driver issue (already explained above) but I've seen it happen on laptops due to several different BIOS settings that shouldn't really affect that (but sometimes do), such as boot order etc.

 

[dunksandblazers]

I thought it might be the boot order and i tried changing that but still didnt work.
I tried installing it on my desktop with the windows install CD as well as a USB 2.0 drive and even a USB 3.0 drive (which I latter found out will not work because windows 7 doesnt have the necessary drivers to install from USB3)
then I put the ssd in my laptop and tried the CD and USB install to no avail.

The showed up in winodws 7 so I formatted just to see if that would work. No.
I finally decided to install Ubuntu on it to see if that would work and it did. It was only after I installed Ubuntu did the windows install work. Should I have initially used Parted Magic or gpart to format the ssd before attempting to install windows?

 

[dunksandblazers]

An SSD Cookbook would be extremely useful. At the very least it could be a basic troubleshooting guide that lists the most common problems so people could avoid making the same mistakes.

 

[Red Falcon]

Should I have initially used Parted Magic or gpart to format the ssd before attempting to install windows?

No, you should do what I told you to above.

SSDs are not that difficult, but when you are obviously skipping steps on the installation, it's no surprise that it isn't working.

 

[Red Falcon]

An SSD Cookbook would be extremely useful. At the very least it could be a basic troubleshooting guide that lists the most common problems so people could avoid making the same mistakes.

I'm sorry, but if you know how to install a HDD, you know how to install a SSD.

The only thing left outside of using a Windows Vista/7 environment, would be how to enable TRIM.

Why is everyone making this so hard? It's a single SSD on SATA, it doesn't get any easier than that.

 

[dunksandblazers]

Yeah, you didn't load the drivers for your SATA controller during the Win7 installation.
Sometimes it takes 3rd party drivers to make the controller work.

FYI, the Linux Kernel will normally have the drivers built in, hence why it 'just worked' for you.

Wouldn't the SATA drivers be on the motherboard CD. I put in the motherboard CD and it still said it could not find drivers. I even created ripped an ISO of the motherboard CD and put it on the USB I was installing windows from.

Let's say I get another SSD and want to avoid this problem in the future where do I get these drivers from? I checked the ssd manufacturer's (OCZ) website/forum as well which was useless.

 

[Red Falcon]

Wouldn't the SATA drivers be on the motherboard CD. I put in the motherboard CD and it still said it could not find drivers. I even created ripped an ISO of the motherboard CD and put it on the USB I was installing windows from.

Let's say I get another SSD and want to avoid this problem in the future where do I get these drivers from? I checked the ssd manufacturer's (OCZ) website/forum as well which was useless.

You needed the SATA controller drivers.
This is not what you stated above, you stated that you installed the "motherboard" drivers, which I am assuming are the chipset drivers. Chipset /= SATA controller.

Also, you don't need drivers for the SSD itself, only the SATA controller.

Look at the specs on your mobo, find which SATA ports are operated by which controller, be it an Intel, AMD, or Marvell, and install the correct drivers during the OS installation, assuming Windows.

Another thing, make sure the SATA port(s) and controller you are using is enabled, and since you got it to work with Ubuntu Linux, I'm guessing they are already enabled.

 

[Met-AL]

Show some links, this I have to see.

I'm not sure why disabling Windows services would be considered controversial, people do it all the time, though one should probably know what they are doing before going ahead with it. I'm talking about you OP.

LOL Are you kidding me? This place used to be full of debates on the subject of disabling services. It got to be worse than the video card debates. Head over to the OS forum and search for "Black Viper" and enjoy the reading.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1464761
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=949295
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=948726
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=988739
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=124239
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=913036
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=892729
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=878887

 

[Red Falcon]

LOL Are you kidding me? This place used to be full of debates on the subject of disabling services. It got to be worse than the video card debates. Head over to the OS forum and search for "Black Viper" and enjoy the reading.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1464761
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=949295
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=948726
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=988739
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=124239
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=913036
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=892729
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=878887

LOL, I'll make sure to check them out, thanks for the links.

Haha, after reading through a few of those, it seems like Black Viper doesn't really know what he's talking about.
If the user knows which services to enable/disable, then all is well.
I would never recommend anyone to follow a pre-configured services installation, that's just stupid imo.

 

[[LYL]Homer]

You should be using AHCI even with regular drives anyway... What other difficulties did you encounter?

On a Win7 build with Core i3/5/7 just enable AHCI in the BIOS and install like normal (no extra drivers required). On a clean install Win7 knows not to defrag your SSD.

In WinXP some motherboards have AHCI capability and some don't, I've had WinXP SSD installs that were a giant PITA.

As for them being ready for prime-time, I just installed my 18th and 19th SSD's in two systems I built this past weekend. I don't build systems with HDD's for the OS anymore, it just takes too long. The first few were first-gen 80gb Intels about 2.5 years ago and I've never had a problem with them, or any other SSD for that matter.

BoomerM3, the big question I have for you - is a 64-bit OS ready for prime-time yet?

 

[blahblahyoutoo]

Show some links, this I have to see.

I'm not sure why disabling Windows services would be considered controversial, people do it all the time, though one should probably know what they are doing before going ahead with it. I'm talking about you OP.

on or off for the following, and lets see how many people will agree/disagree.

indexing
prefetching
write caching
system restore