Tips for a new SSD owner?

[blanketyblank]

Just bought my first SSD, a Corsair Nova 32 GB.
Anyone have any tips on the best way to setup the drive?
I've got windows 7 so I can use the TRIM support, but not sure about things like
pagefile, etc...
I know the drives too small to keep everything so what do you actually keep on the drive and what do you setup outside? Should I keep the program files directory on there or is that completely moved onto a second drive? Thanks for any help.

 

[erdemali]

Just bought my first SSD, a Corsair Nova 32 GB.
Anyone have any tips on the best way to setup the drive?
I've got windows 7 so I can use the TRIM support, but not sure about things like
pagefile, etc...
I know the drives too small to keep everything so what do you actually keep on the drive and what do you setup outside? Should I keep the program files directory on there or is that completely moved onto a second drive? Thanks for any help.

If you asked this before buying 32Gb, my answer would be not to waste your money for a small drive. Since you now have it, there is boat loads of info here. You just have to dig it in.

 

[Ballatician]

Hi, I started another thread here asking essentially the same questions very recently.

For a lot of things such as the pagefile debate, there is no right answer but you can find an enormous amount of discussion through searching.

The program files issue is one I am wrestling with currently.

 

[flamenko]

There are plenty of guides but one of the most important things I think many can agree on is to do a clean install with the drive. Yes on defrag off and system restore off.

 

[coolVariable]

Install Win7.
Turn off system restore.
Done. (Win7 does the rest, e.g. turn off defrag, automatically)

Instead of looking for SSD advice, you maybe should look into advice about keeping the install footprint small.

 

[blanketyblank]

Thanks just wanted to make sure I wouldn't be ruining my new drive. Space isn't a big concern for me since I'll have 2 x 640GB drives in addition to the new boot drive.
32 GBs sounds like it'll be big enough to install windows and updates and maybe 1 or 2 games at a time which is good enough for me.

 

[flamenko]

Great setup like that actually.... I just popped in a Intel X25v and 1Tb drive into my sons Asus 17" and he is simply amazed...

Its nice when u can have both the speed and capacity in the same machine.

 

[Nothinman]

There are plenty of guides but one of the most important things I think many can agree on is to do a clean install with the drive. Yes on defrag off and system restore off.

No, system restore should be left on. There's no good reason to turn it off.

 

[blanketyblank]

No, system restore should be left on. There's no good reason to turn it off.

System restore hardly seems like a big issue since I think I can easily ghost the entire SSD to the other drives. However aren't SSDs supposed to be super reliable so it's not supposed to be necessary. I've heard that when they fail they no longer allow you to write or have poorer performance, but you can still read the data. I have no idea if that's true or not.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

install SSD, install W7, turn off defrag, turn of system restore. learn how to save space on the drive. Use your PC that is not very fast.

i haven't done anything special with my 2x SSD's in 6 months and they're still runnig as fast as day 1

 

[Voo]

No, system restore should be left on. There's no good reason to turn it off.

So Intel (not sure if others ever had those problems though) finally fixed those issues with system restore?

 

[Nothinman]

System restore hardly seems like a big issue since I think I can easily ghost the entire SSD to the other drives. However aren't SSDs supposed to be super reliable so it's not supposed to be necessary. I've heard that when they fail they no longer allow you to write or have poorer performance, but you can still read the data. I have no idea if that's true or not.

Hitting F8 and selecting a date to restore from is simpler than booting to a rescue disc and waiting for some imaging tool to restore the entire disk. And leaving system restore enabled is simpler than updating that image every day, week, etc.

So Intel (not sure if others ever had those problems though) finally fixed those issues with system restore?

No clue since I don't know what issues you're talking about.

 

[flamenko]

So Intel (not sure if others ever had those problems though) finally fixed those issues with system restore?

To my knowledge no.... and leaving System Restore on may be fine if your SSD doesn't suffer performance degradation as a result...which many do.

It is still a daily occurrence that people will floating sites wondering why their system has slowed after a few weeks use and it being attributed to System Restore in the end.

Also, heads up on the ghosting thing as many have experienced difficulties with performance through ghosting as well... Its best to do a fresh install with a SSD

You will find many opposing views; its best to read them all and be aware of how and why you would turn something on or off rather than simply blindly following the flock.

With regards to System restore there is ALOT of support that the way restore allocates its restore points makes it difficult if not impossible for TRIM to work. Intel themselves have even made the recommendation in their documents.

 

[coolVariable]

No, system restore should be left on. There's no good reason to turn it off.

No. It should be turned off.
Do you even have an SSD?

 

[razel]

No. It should be turned off.
Do you even have an SSD?

I have an SSD and the setting for system restore is a user preference. I do remember seeing some Intel slides and Intel Toolbox readme's reccomending system restore to be off, but if my old brain remembers correctly, it was for performance and not for convienence. And if you are having issues with running Intel Toolbox.

 

[Old Hippie]

I do remember seeing some Intel slides and Intel Toolbox readme's reccomending system restore to be off, but if my old brain remembers correctly, it was for performance and not for convienence.

'Tis true but since most of us bought these for performance and don't wish to write our drives to an early grave, it's turned off.

Timely external back-ups FTW.

PS....At least if you're going to use system restore, limit the space it can use.

 

[mvbighead]

Personally, I don't know that I've ever had System Restore do anything for me, ever. That is, aside from using up disk space for failback points that I don't need. SSD or no, I pretty much always leave it off, because it just makes your disk do that much more work.

 

[Voo]

'Tis true but since most of us bought these for performance and don't wish to write our drives to an early grave, it's turned off.

Nah, nobody cares about the write limit, because system restore won't ever write any drive into its early grave (except if you define 5+ years as early).

The only reason to leave system restore off is because at least Intel SSDs have a problem with it - can't remember the fine details, but it somehow got TRIM mixed up. As long as I don't see a link that shows those issues fixed, it's better to leave it off, but other than that? Nice feature, less hassle than using a image, always up to date.. why would I want to turn it off, except if I wanted the space?


Soleley personal preference, nice to have if something goes wrong, but you can do without it just as fine..

 

[Old Hippie]

Nah, nobody cares about the write limit, because system restore won't ever write any drive into its early grave (except if you define 5+ years as early).

You're very incorrect about the write limit but since you can see into the future.......

 

[kornphlake]

Before starting your win7 install make sure SATA is set to AHCI in BIOS. I couldn't get the installation to work unless I disconnected my other hard drives. Otherwise installing the OS on a SSD was just like any other drive, but faster.

 

[Voo]

You're very incorrect about the write limit but since you can see into the future.......

Ok, show me one plausible paper that researched that topic and came up with the result that the limited write cycles (5-10k for current MLC flash) are a problem in a normal usage scenario. Otherwise I'll believe the published data about write amplification (<1.1 for intel drives), given write cycles and a little bit math. Sure that could also be wrong or not entirely accurate - what ever is - but I think I believe it more than some rumours without any backup

Idc also posted an interesting paper about that topic