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SSD Step-by-Step?

R

Radeon962

Senior member
Looking to add an SSD as my OS drive and would like to know if anyone has made or found a complete step-by-step guide to installing and tweaking one. I know there is lots of information available, but looking to see if anyone has found a good one.

My primary concern is that my current HD is a 640GB WD Black that I have setup as a 100GB C: and 500GB D: and I would be using a 40GB Intel X25-V.

Would I need to shrink my current C: drive to 40GB, use a backup of my current C: (I use Acronis True Image) and restore the image to the SSD rather than clone since I have the physical drive as a C: and D:

Assuming that works, then swap drives leave Black unplugged and boot up with SSD on SATA 0.

Could I then shutdown, plug in the Black and delete the old C: partition?

Thanks, Bill
 
Is there any reason why you wouldn't do a clean install on the SSD rather than copying an existing installation?
 
Lazy, I guess. I have 2 machines running Win 7 & was looking to avoid reinstalling as I built both of them around Christmas so Win 7 still runs well on both with no issues.
 
I'd wait until I had the funds to go >= 80 GB, and do a clean install. I think it took me less than an hour to get Win7x64 and all of my drivers installed. These things are wicked fast. But you do miss the capacity.
 
I use a 60GB and have no problem with it being my OS drive. But you have to consider your own personal situation. For me I don't game so there are no 10GB game installs. I don't use productivity apps, so no massive adobe suites or the like. Mainly I just do the web, music, movies, and photos. My music stays on my machine and my movies and photos are on an external drive.

As far as set-up it isn't hard. Do a clean install and let Windows do the formating itself, i.e. don't format the drive yourself let windows do it or else your drive alignment may get screwed up. Once installed disable indexing and a couple other minor things that reduce unneeded writes and you are good to go.
 
dph1077 said:
This.
I think the guides are for aligning the partition (I think that's the term) but Windows 7 handles it natively so you're set to just install. I just installed and it worked just fine
Click to expand...

You only need to align for WinXP (and anything older than that), though even there you have a good chance of WinXP getting it right.
 
coolVariable said:
Here's the guide:

Clean install Win7.
Done.
Click to expand...

That's the way I was leaning and means I will probably resell my two X25-V's that I picked up and wait until next winter when I build a new system and go with an 80GB SSD at that time.

I build a new system to replace one of the two machines every year (most years) and like to leave things alone after it is built, but the talk of the SSD's has made me reconsider this years build, but I guess I'll stick with it and just sell the X25's and buy something larger next year when I build again.

Thanks, Bill
 
To get back something like 1/4th of your free space back:
1. Disable hibernate
2. Shrink system recovery storage area size
3. Shrink page file to something "reasonable" (I use 256MB on a 8GB system)

Unless you really use up all your memory, the default page file size is just too freaking big. Disabling it is a bad idea because some apps will complain.

You do not need to disable:
1. Prefetch. Windows 7 will automatically exclude SSDs from prefetching.
2. Defrag. Windows 7 will automatically exclude SSDs from defragging. Defrag will still show as "on".
3. Indexing. Up to you, and how much you need content search. Personally, I use Everything.
 
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jimhsu said:
To get back something like 1/4th of your free space back:
1. Disable hibernate
2. Shrink system recovery storage area size
3. Shrink page file to something "reasonable" (I use 256MB on a 8GB system)

Unless you really use up all your memory, the default page file size is just too freaking big. Disabling it is a bad idea because some apps will complain.

QUOTE]

I already did #1 and #2. I left #3 alone as my C: drive currently is only about 25GB on both systems. I moved my User files to a second partition and install all games, etc. to 2nd drive. Main C: drive has Windows 7, Office 2007, iTunes, etc.

So size of C: is not an issue.

Bill
Click to expand...
 
Similar situation happened to me a few days ago. And True Image worked for me when migrating from WD6400AAKS to Kingston SNV425-S2. Though Win7 x64 reports that TRIM is working normally for the time being, I plan on reinstalling Win7 once SP1 releases to the public. For now, I'm just too lazy to do chores from the scratch.

Incidentally, Kingston bundled True Image in their SSD upgrade unit, so I think they at least has had verified this idea before. 🙂
 
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