New SSD--how to install programs to D drive

The issue with SSDs is they all need overprovisioning space. This is used during the garbage collection phase and is needed to properly maintain the best performance of the drive.

The problem is... some drive manufacturers have that space built-in but it's not part of the allocatable space on the device (you can use the whole offered drive). With others, it IS part of the allocatable space (basically they use "currently unused space" for this function). And it's difficult to determine how each drive manufacturer does it. So, not knowing otherwise, techies usually recommend that 5-7% of your device's space remain unused for this function, if possible. If that type of space gets really low, your drive performance will go right into the sewer as far as write operations are concerned... that's the area most affected.

 

SSD overprovisioning... for example.

Samsung sells you SSDs with so much storage on them. It also offers you a tool called "Samsung Magician" that allows the drive owner to provision his SSD anyway he'd like. If you use this tool to "set aside" a guaranteed amount of overprovisioning space, the tool will automatically configure the drive and when finshed, your drive's allocatable space will be smaller.

That's only one manufacturer out of lots.

 

Ok, thanks for the info, Froggie!
Acadia

EDIT: this reminds me, AlexH., your drive probably has a built-in TRIM utility: USE IT!!

 

Just noticed you have a 128gB SSD drive. Base drives usually offer you the following...

Base = 128gB, 0% factory OP (over provisioning)
Base = 120gB, 7% factory OP
Base = 100gB, 28 % factory OP (these are usually ENTERPRISE use drives)

The other OP space usually available to the SSD for garbage collection is the difference between the DECIMAL # of gigabytes and the equivalent BINARY size... it's usually about 7.4%. Based on the above table, you've got about 7.4% of OP space, which is usually more than adequate for a typical home user. If your system's application mix (# of running apps at a given time) is more business-like, you may need to save a li'l space on the disk to expand the amount available for OP. The SSD's garbage collection function will use any space it can find to do the job.

 

Alex,

Try this. Control Panel, Administrative Tools, System Information. In the System Summary, what is the BIOS Mode? Legacy or UEFI?

 

Acadia-can you point me to a link or tell me how to use it (and explain why)? I've heard of TRIM, but I don't know anything about it.

 

The answer is "legacy". Is that good or bad?

 

Legacy is MBR. That's good. UEFI is good too.

I use both systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

 

Alex, go to the website of whatever brand of SSD you have, they should explain all of that to you. If you click on your "All programs" in your lower left hand corner, you should see some sort of Utility showing, look for the name of your SSD company. You may also have an icon in your System Tray.
Good luck,
Acadia

 

It looks as if I have a Crucial brand SSD:

128GB Crucial MX100 CT128MX100SSD1 SATA3 SSD

I see nothing on/in my "All Programs" and nothing in my system tray. I'll go check out their website for information on TRIM. Thanks.

P.S. I might know why I don't find any programs for my SSD. I found this article on the Crucial website: http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/TRIM-and-SSD-performance-why-is-it-important/ta-p/100276

It appears that I may not need TRIM because Crucial's have "Active Garbage Collection"?

 

Alex,

Your Win8 OS will take care of TRIM. There is nothing special for you to do. Check that TRIM is turned on with (from an Admin command prompt)...

fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

It should say = 0

 

It does say 0. Thanks again Brian!

 

Oh, wow, if Win8 automatically takes care of TRIM then you are good to go. I do not use Win8 and did not know that Win8 has TRIM. Like Brian said, just make sure that it is enabled.
Acadia

 

It's fully functional and is actually used, not only in TRIMming the SYSTEM drive dynamically, it'a also used in what's now called "Disk Optimization"... it uses TRIM for SSDs and DEFRAG for HDDs during this process.

 

Oh, wow, MS actually did something right again, they've been nailing it right on every other Operating System.

But seriously, this is good. The future is SSD, actually that is wrong, the present is already here, so kudos to MS for welcoming this new technology, well semi-new, on their new OS.
Acadia