SSD drives -- what to do now that you have one.

I don't know what to do. I have read lots of tutorials and guides, but I am not at all sure I want to go tweaking what I don't know about.

Some basics then, hopefully from those of you who adopted early. This is in reference to Intel x25-M GenII drives on an ICH chip that is on the compatible hardware list.

Is AHCI needed? Does the RST driver from Intel make a difference. Will TRIM work without the AHCI driver? Does M$ AHCI driver always show up in device manager as such (I am pretty certain I am not AHCI enabled, but have never seen it listed as such. Bios says no, does this mean trim does not work)? Does the Intel toolbox thing really do anything other than update the firmware (which mine is current).

If you need AHCI, doesn't that have to be enabled before an install? Can you enable AHCI and then put an image on the drive (like Macrium)?

Anyone have experience with how prefect and superfectch actually work (win7). What about inedexing? I understand SSDs are fast, but not as fast as RAM, which seems sort of illogical not to use it since it is so fast (the RAM that is).

What about the caching on the disc (from device manager options on the disc).

This drive is wicked fast, that is evident. But, not to the point that I would have bought it over a new Raptor 300gb really. I must be missing something. Anyone with any experience with these things care to share some infos?

Sul.

 

Read speeds are definitely fast, but write speeds are a different story..

I have a tiny netbook one, and it certainly isn't fast imo.

 

Sully, this is not exactly what you are asking for, but i have found this forum an invaluable resource about my SSD [ *not* Intel x25-M], especially stickies and guides.

Enabling AHCI (after install, in my case, when I found out it was suggested) made a definite difference in the tests I have run

 

Thanks, I will check that out.

Last night I figured out how to enable AHCI via the registry. I did some speed tests and found that the M$ AHCI driver is much better than not using it, but that indeed the Intel RST driver is even better yet. I don't pay a lot of attention to a 3% increase in things, but the Intel driver is noticably faster. Perhaps those tweak tools might work even better, but really I am interested in making sure the TRIM and other features are working correctly.

Sul.

 

Do not install windows on one, you can use it for gaming or storing but not Windows at least that's what i've read.
Windows writes and moves files too often it will shorten it's life fast

 

I did install the OS on it. What have you seen on an expected lifespan and how much shortened they can become? I thought the idea was to get the OS on this technology because you use the OS more than anything, thus speed results.

Sul.

 

You can try a search on Google, Windows even has a mode for SSD's.
You can use it for gaming, transferring files and other things

 

Sully the TweakTown’s Solid State Drive Optimization Guide is the best place to start.

Panagiotis

 

Thanks.

I had seen that one, but was not so sure I wanted to use that tool they mention before I get some more infos. Which is why I posted this, to see what those who might have them would say about them.

Much appreciated.

Sul.

 

When they first came out, yeah write speeds were slow, and one could say too many read/writes will shorten its life.

However, times have changed....for a while now. Newer models have awesome write speed, and their usable life is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than any of us keep a computer around for.

No need to bite fingernails worrying about things, use it like a regular hard drive, and experience great performance and reliability. Especially useful for laptops with their bumps which can hamper the life of standard spindle drives (even with motion sensing head parking utilities)

 

incorrect, the recommended usage at the moment (due to the storage/cost ratio) is to put your OS + programs on the SSD and data on another HD. Windows 7 is even optimized for SSDs.

a concern with first generation SSDs, the new ones (approx since second half 2009) have TRIM enabled which solves the issue

 

I was reading up on k sizes that SSD drives utilize best. 4k seems to be the best. Is there any benefit to changing the cluster size on these drives then?

And further, if you set your cluster size at default, and make an image with something like macrium, then use partition wizard or such tool to change the cluster size to 4k, then restore the image, is the cluster size kept or changed? I would imagine it is kept, but don't really know the answer to that question.

If I am reading all of this correct, best utilization of space and speed is if all files/objects are split into 4k clusters.

Sul.