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quadratic posted:You don't need to do anything special. Just run Disk Management and partition and format it normally. Ok thanks! I thought I had remembered needing to do something special when I got the SSD a few years ago, but apparently not.
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Aug 24, 2012 16:34
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Factory Factory posted:Install Windows normally. On that note, I just got a new SSD and want to make it my Windows drive. This is a stupid question, but is it as simple as booting from my windows 7 dvd, wherein it copies over the relevant user folders/installed software pathing information and the like? I just don't know whether I need a separate backup or if it's a more complex process.
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Aug 24, 2012 16:34
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Copying an existing installation is a significantly different beast. I was just talking about a fresh installation of Windows (which you would then update, install software on, etc. like a new computer). Every time I post my preferred method of migration (shrink the system partition to smaller than the destination SSD, then use HDclone or make and restore a system image backup using the Windows Backup and Restore Center), someone tells me I'm the dumb, so I'll let someone else go over how to migrate in detail.
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Aug 24, 2012 17:45
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Factory Factory posted:Copying an existing installation is a significantly different beast. I was just talking about a fresh installation of Windows (which you would then update, install software on, etc. like a new computer). I just bought the 830 that came with Norton Ghost and the USB dongle and called it a day. Like 4 clicks and 2 hours later the drive was cloned and I could just swap it. That has to be the easiest way.
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Aug 24, 2012 22:29
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When I cloned my Vertex 2 to my Crucial M4, it took literally ten minutes.  Then again, that didn't work out so well and I had to wipe the M4 and reinstall Windows 7. 
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Aug 24, 2012 22:42
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Velius posted:On that note, I just got a new SSD and want to make it my Windows drive. This is a stupid question, but is it as simple as booting from my windows 7 dvd, wherein it copies over the relevant user folders/installed software pathing information and the like? A little confused about what you are asking. You currently have Windows installed on a spinner (non-SSD) and you are adding an SSD to the system and want a fresh install? If that's the case, your SSD is blank and you simply boot from your Windows 7 DVD, format the ssd, and install a fresh Windows 7 to that disk, then your spinner becomes d: , e: , whatever and still has all your files on it. Make sure your bios is set to boot from the SSD (hard drive boot order). If you want to keep your existing Windows installation you use a utility like Ghost or Acronis to copy from your spinner to your SSD, then you set the BIOS to boot from the SSD. Installing Windows on top of itself (without formatting) is called a repair and I wouldn't recommend it.
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Aug 24, 2012 22:47
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Should I be looking for any specific drive if I wanted an SSD for a computer that has to run Windows XP? From what I've read, XP doesn't really support TRIM, but some drives have software to basically do the same thing. Should I look specifically for a drive with that, or is there something more universal I can use on any drive?
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Aug 25, 2012 07:37
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Lowclock posted:Should I be looking for any specific drive if I wanted an SSD for a computer that has to run Windows XP? From what I've read, XP doesn't really support TRIM, but some drives have software to basically do the same thing. Should I look specifically for a drive with that, or is there something more universal I can use on any drive?
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Aug 25, 2012 07:40
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I wish I could just run 7, but it's some old lovely legacy serial port software setup that doesn't work right on anything newer than XP. I've tried.
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Aug 25, 2012 07:46
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Lowclock posted:I wish I could just run 7, but it's some old lovely legacy serial port software setup that doesn't work right on anything newer than XP. I've tried. Could you use a Windows XP virtual machine for the legacy stuff?
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Aug 25, 2012 07:55
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If you look at the test data, the Samsung 830 can cope quite well without TRIM. You lose the ability to TRIM on demand, obviously, but unless you're actively hammering the drive every minute it's on, it can keep up admirably. Which makes sense considering Samsung's SSD relationship with Apple and OSX, which for quite some time had no viable TRIM command whatsoever.
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Aug 25, 2012 08:00
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DrDork posted:If you look at the test data, the Samsung 830 can cope quite well without TRIM. You lose the ability to TRIM on demand, obviously, but unless you're actively hammering the drive every minute it's on, it can keep up admirably. Which makes sense considering Samsung's SSD relationship with Apple and OSX, which for quite some time had no viable TRIM command whatsoever. I don't think that's the case. According to AnandTech's review and testing of garbagey performance, the Samsung 830 is solidly a lower-tier drive in a non-TRIM environment. It doesn't do much real-time garbage collection, so if the drive isn't given much idle time, it won't do much GC and its performance will drop to crap. Not as bad as the Samsung 470, but still a huge decrease. For a consumer system, there will be long periods of idle time for GC to work when, say, web browsing, sure. But on a work system, that might not be the case. Now since this is some lovely legacy serial port software single-purpose machine, maybe this will never matter. But if it's a worry at all, it's worth it to stick with drives that have more aggressive garbage collection.
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Aug 25, 2012 08:21
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fletcher posted:Could you use a Windows XP virtual machine for the legacy stuff? E: I was thinking. Could I just boot from a windows 7 live CD or external drive or something and have that do garbage collection/TRIM whatever like once a month? I don't use it terribly often, but it would be nice for it to be faster when I do. Lowclock fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Aug 25, 2012 |
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Aug 25, 2012 08:23
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Just picked up a Crucial M4 128GB and I'm getting ready to reinstall Windows on it. Anything I should know that isn't already covered in the OP?
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Aug 25, 2012 15:19
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Lowclock posted:Well it already runs some hacky emulation software that cooperates with a SCO Unix VM. Last time I tried it with 7 > Unix, and 7 > XP > Unix, I couldn't get either to work. I guess if you're willing to run a random semi-janky tool on a production machine, sure. But if you're using the system that infrequently, I don't think there will be a problem at all.
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Aug 25, 2012 15:28
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Factory Factory posted:I don't think that's the case. According to AnandTech's review and testing of garbagey performance, the Samsung 830 is solidly a lower-tier drive in a non-TRIM environment. It doesn't do much real-time garbage collection, so if the drive isn't given much idle time, it won't do much GC and its performance will drop to crap. Not as bad as the Samsung 470, but still a huge decrease.
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Aug 25, 2012 18:29
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It's not a production machine or anything, just a laptop I use for car stuff and a little programming, video watching, and web browsing. I guess I will try again and see if maybe Win 8 and a new version of VMware might be able to fix the problems I was having before, and if not, I'll just use that tool or something when/if it becomes an issue. Thanks. E: VVV Ok cool I'll just do 7 and newer VMware then. Lowclock fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Aug 25, 2012 |
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Aug 25, 2012 18:30
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Lowclock posted:I guess I will try again and see if maybe Win 8 and a new version of VMware might be able to fix the problems I was having before, and if not, I'll just use that tool or something when/if it becomes an issue. Thanks.
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Aug 25, 2012 18:31
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OP has been updated, buying advice shifted to basically "buy a Samsung 830, and if that looks too expensive get a Mushkin Enhanced Chronos." Nothing else is really any cheaper than the Samsung 830 anymore, not even the Chronos Deluxe. Has someone already written a one-stop drive cloning post I should quote/link to? I know it's been covered a few times, not sure if we have one post answering pretty much everything though.
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Aug 26, 2012 15:35
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Alereon posted:OP has been updated, buying advice shifted to basically "buy a Samsung 830, and if that looks too expensive get a Mushkin Enhanced Chronos." Nothing else is really any cheaper than the Samsung 830 anymore, not even the Chronos Deluxe. Has someone already written a one-stop drive cloning post I should quote/link to? I know it's been covered a few times, not sure if we have one post answering pretty much everything though. Thanks for the OP and thread. I'm a SSD noob building my first new system since 2005, so please be gentle. Does the Samsung 830 support TRIM? The newegg and samsung webpages did not list it in the specifications. I'll be installing Win 7 and unsure TRIM is a software or hardware support spec. Also, is 256GB necessary if all I'll be doing is installing the OS on the SSD or can I get away with a 120/128GB? Is the larger size worth the transparent cache for the HDD I'm going to use for programs and storage? Edit: Thanks for clearing this up below, Alereon. Evil SpongeBob fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Aug 26, 2012 |
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Aug 26, 2012 16:32
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Yes, all SSDs currently on the market* support TRIM, especially any listed in the OP. TRIM support requires a compatible SSD, SATA controller, controller driver, and operating system. As a practical matter, it will "just work" with current hardware and Windows 7 as long as you plug your SSD into the correct SATA port on the motherboard (check the manual, you need to use a port provided by the chipset!) I would strongly recommend a 240/256GB drive, as I don't think 120/128GB provides enough space, especially long-term. It would probably work if you don't game or are okay with spending a lot of time shuffling files around, but I think that would get frustrating. With current pricing and the fact that 240/256GB drives are faster, I'd just get the larger drive. I haven't updated the SSD caching portion of the OP yet, but I don't think it's particularly worth it anymore because of the lowered costs of SSDs. When it's only 2.5X the price to go from a 60GB SSD caching setup to just using a 256GB SSD, that changes the economics a lot. * = Though there are some old-as-dirt SSDs that still show up on sale for some reason, which is one of the reasons we recommend avoiding SATA300 SSDs (though, to complicate matters, there are some modern SATA600 SSDs that are forced to SATA300 for lower-end markets). Alereon fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Aug 26, 2012 |
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Aug 26, 2012 17:04
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Are 512GB drives faster still, or is there a plateau by then?
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Aug 26, 2012 17:09
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TomWaitsForNoMan posted:Are 512GB drives faster still, or is there a plateau by then?
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Aug 26, 2012 17:11
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Alereon posted:Performance drops back down again at the 480/512GB mark for most drives, which is why 240/256GB drives in RAID0 can be a compelling option, especially given their lower cost/GB and official TRIM support for RAID0 on Intel platforms (if you can tolerate the obvious risk of data loss). Oh, is RAID0 with TRIM available now? Last time I checked was back in the spring and it still wasn't out EDIT: Hmm, seems like it only works on Panther Point chipsets. Shame TomWaitsForNoMan fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Aug 26, 2012 |
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Aug 26, 2012 17:30
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TomWaitsForNoMan posted:Oh, is RAID0 with TRIM available now? Last time I checked was back in the spring and it still wasn't out It's only available on the 7-series of Intel motherboards, like the Z77. So if you have an older motherboard with, say, a P67 chipset (which is probably what you have if you bought a motherboard for Sandy Bridge like a poo poo-ton of people did), you're still SOL. Not that this is a huge issue for personal computers: the 830 has built-in GC, so as long as you give it some idle time every now and again, it'll clean itself up similar to how TRIM will. Where this is a big issue is on a DB-server or other machine that is doing constant writes 24/7, which will prevent GC from running properly; eventually performance will drop pretty badly until given an hour or so of non-writing recovery time.
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Aug 26, 2012 17:41
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DrDork posted:Not that this is a huge issue for personal computers: the 830 has built-in GC, so as long as you give it some idle time every now and again, it'll clean itself up similar to how TRIM will. Sandforce drives work better than others because their built-in compression and data deduplication leave them with much more spare area and lower write amplification than other drives (other drives average about 1.5X the amount written than actual data, Sandforce usually writes LESS than the actual amount of data).
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Aug 26, 2012 17:57
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Factory Factory posted:Copying an existing installation is a significantly different beast. I was just talking about a fresh installation of Windows (which you would then update, install software on, etc. like a new computer). I've read a few places that installing Windows on an SSD optimizes it somehow, and some will even claim that it's a horrible mistake to just clone your Windows from an HDD. However, the reality is that I've done this twice now (cloning using the free Intel tool, on my home and work PC), and not only is it super quick and painless, but I gained the massive performance I expected, and have had zero problems for 1-2 years now. Maybe it could be 5% faster, who knows, but it's good enough.
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Aug 26, 2012 22:56
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It really depends on the tool. Clonezilla would be great except that it can't guarantee partition alignment. The migration tools bundled with some drives work perfectly, as does restoring from a Windows Backup system image. The bundled tools really are the closest thing to easy, though. Oh, and all that optimizing can be done at any time; just re-run the Windows Experience Index and Windows will do all the necessary (except partition alignment).
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Aug 26, 2012 23:00
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Factory Factory posted:Oh, and all that optimizing can be done at any time; just re-run the Windows Experience Index and Windows will do all the necessary (except partition alignment). I just ran it (first time ever), and my Primary hard disc score stayed at 5.9 as it was before. Oh well.
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Aug 26, 2012 23:28
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Would the inbuilt Win 7 image backup feature line up the partition offsets correctly when going from HDD->SSD?
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Aug 26, 2012 23:42
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Yes. Windows aligns all partitions it creates, regardless of when or how it creates them, along 1MB boundaries. This aligns with every SSD page/sector size I know of.
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Aug 26, 2012 23:52
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I just bought an old cheap laptop (Inspiron 6400 for $150) to use for notes/browsing/music/chat at school. I'm looking for a cheap and small SSD to put in it. On computers I actually use a lot I use a Crucial M4 128gb and Windows 7, but I don't want to drop $100 on a SSD for a computer that's not going to need the space, and $70 for the 64gb M4 is also a bit much. I'm not sure if I'm going to put XP or Vista on it (and yes I know about all the performance benefits of 7 vs Vista vs XP). The best I could dig up was http://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperTalent-VSSD-32-GB-FTM32GL25V-SSD-Solid-State-Drive-/271010680266 -- 32gb is fine for my purposes. Any alternatives? Anyone looking to dump an old drive cheaply?
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Aug 27, 2012 20:20
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BadBeatsCrewDerk posted:Any alternatives? Anyone looking to dump an old drive cheaply?
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Aug 27, 2012 20:34
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Alereon posted:Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 60GB, don't even consider anything that isn't Sandforce-based for a system that won't have working TRIM support. I know you don't think you need 60GB of space, but 32GB really isn't going to be enough, and the problems of running without TRIM are exacerbated on smaller drives. Frankly, if you're not willing to drop the $70 to get a 60GB Sandforce drive, you should just stick with the harddrive that's in it because any SSD you get is going to be broken or dog slow. Thanks for the reply. I am 100% sure 32GB is enough. TRIM is not make-or-break for me and I'm going to kill the performance by throwing TrueCrypt on it anyway. Really what I'm looking for is either a new or used SSD at least 30GB that is sub-$40 or I'm going to buy another 128 with the intention of using it properly in a better machine later.
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Aug 27, 2012 21:26
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Alereon posted:ALL drives have some degree of background garbage collection, but only Sandforce's will be in any way comparable to running with TRIM, which is why only Sandforce drives are recommended for configurations without TRIM. The key aspect of TRIM is that it allows the operating system to tell the drive when data has been deleted and can be garbage collected, otherwise the drive only knows about that when data is overwritten, which means a drive can easily exhaust all non-spare pages. This probably wouldn't hurt basic desktop usage too much, but go install a game and watch throughput drop to a quarter of what it should be after a gig because you ran out of clean flash pages. I think I'm having some garbage collection related issues. I have a 128GB 830 and after nearly filling it up my write speeds dropped to <100MB/s. I put Windows 7 on it and a couple big virtual instruments (essentially a ton of wav files) and had about 15GB free. Then even after freeing up 40% of the drive and forcing TRIM my write speeds are still at ~80MB/s. From what I've read I can fix it by secure erasing the drive and restoring Windows, but how can I prevent this from happening again? Should I increase overprovisioning, and how much space should be available to Windows? How much space can I safely use? From what I've googled most people say SSDs don't need free space like HDDs but then you have write amplification and other stuff I don't understand. Help!
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Aug 28, 2012 05:22
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If you're running Win7 with TRIM enabled, you shouldn't have an issue with that to begin with. Can you tell us a bit more about what all you're running?
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Aug 28, 2012 06:29
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open container posted:I think I'm having some garbage collection related issues. I have a 128GB 830 and after nearly filling it up my write speeds dropped to <100MB/s. I put Windows 7 on it and a couple big virtual instruments (essentially a ton of wav files) and had about 15GB free. Then even after freeing up 40% of the drive and forcing TRIM my write speeds are still at ~80MB/s. Leave the system on overnight not doing anything. That should run the drive's idle-time garbage collection.
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Aug 28, 2012 06:52
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DrDork posted:If you're running Win7 with TRIM enabled, you shouldn't have an issue with that to begin with. Can you tell us a bit more about what all you're running? I'm running Win7 x64 (fresh install), bios is set to AHCI, my partitions are aligned, I've run Windows Experience Index, latest firmware and I've run Performance Optimization (TRIM) via SSD Magician. I installed Windows and BFD2+expansions, which is about 70GB of wav files so 105-110GB were used. (I later removed the expansions hoping some free space would help, no difference.) The rest of my apps are mostly on a second drive. System is a Dell Latitude e6420, 2760QM CPU, 8GB ram. SSD is 128GB Samsung 830. Factory Factory posted:Leave the system on overnight not doing anything. That should run the drive's idle-time garbage collection. It's been about a month since I first noticed the slow writes so I think it would have worked itself out by now if it was ever going to but I will make sure to do so tonight. Here's what I'm getting:  Compared to someone else's results using the same drive:  VVVV I've been doing that. VVVV open container fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Aug 28, 2012 |
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Aug 28, 2012 07:35
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Empty your recycle bin. That's one of the events that will start the garbage collection process. Then leave it for a while.
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Aug 28, 2012 07:56
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That's an interesting one. I think it's normal that the drive got slow after you wrote all that data to it, but I also would have expected it to recover, either with a bit of time or after the files were deleted. I would try running a sequential write benchmark 10+ GB in size, single pass, then let it sit for an hour. The goal is to trigger the drive to clear a few gigs of pages.
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Aug 28, 2012 14:35
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