How to: SSD - Need help

[clocand]

I need help with the actual setup of my SSD, the manual stuff. No, not the hardware installation o_o but the partitioning, the BIOS settings, and the ordering in which to do these steps.

FYI: I am using win7 and the software that came with my SSD : Norton Ghost 15 and samsung SSD Magician.

First, I'm not sure why I need to partition the SSD, if I'm not going to be dividing it (but using it as a whole). I'm guessing its just something I need to do, because it is not showing up as any letter for me right now (not D, E or ..Z). I'm not sure how to partition it, but a google search can probably do that for me (unless you'd like to tell me/link it).

Next, I'm guessing the first step is to get my OS onto the SSD. A clean install is recommended, although I could "ghost" it over using norton ghost. I read somewhere that putting the OS on the SSD while having it on the OS still on my C: drive won't put the boot info on the SSD. So I wipe everything first, then put the OS on there. After doing that, I know there's somewhere in BIOS that I now need to enable my SSDas my default boot drive and change it to AHCI (no clue what ahci is, but I'll do it) otherwise I'll BSOD. If there's more I need to do, please inform me. I could use more details here, but again, youtube on my laptop will probably get me through this.

After getting the OS on there, I'll need drivers and whatnot, it'll be just like a brand new computer! When I go to download new programs, I simply choose whether to put them on my HDD or my SSD and I'll be back up in no time.

Thanks for any assistance.

 

[Topweasel]

I need help with the actual setup of my SSD, the manual stuff. No, not the hardware installation o_o but the partitioning, the BIOS settings, and the ordering in which to do these steps.

FYI: I am using win7 and the software that came with my SSD : Norton Ghost 15 and samsung SSD Magician.

First, I'm not sure why I need to partition the SSD, if I'm not going to be dividing it (but using it as a whole). I'm guessing its just something I need to do, because it is not showing up as any letter for me right now (not D, E or ..Z). I'm not sure how to partition it, but a google search can probably do that for me (unless you'd like to tell me/link it).

You need to partition it even if you are going to have it as 1 large partition. Most drives are not sold pre partitioned and pre formatted unless it is an external drive because they have no idea how you are going to use it. For example if you go to disk manager in your administrative tools (or in Win 7 just do a start button search) you will see the drive and have the option to create a partition and format it. But don't do this unless you are using it as a second drive.

Next, I'm guessing the first step is to get my OS onto the SSD. A clean install is recommended, although I could "ghost" it over using norton ghost. I read somewhere that putting the OS on the SSD while having it on the OS still on my C: drive won't put the boot info on the SSD. So I wipe everything first, then put the OS on there. After doing that, I know there's somewhere in BIOS that I now need to enable my SSDas my default boot drive and change it to AHCI (no clue what ahci is, but I'll do it) otherwise I'll BSOD. If there's more I need to do, please inform me. I could use more details here, but again, youtube on my laptop will probably get me through this.

Make a decision on how you want your configuration to be. What people talk about with boot info is that when you are installing windows on a hard drive when a second drive is detected, speccially if one of them already has windows on it, then it there is a high likelihood that it will just update the MBR of another drive then the one you want to install it on. If you are doing a clean install, either unhook the old drive, or disable it in the BIOS. If you are ghosting do a full drive copy and the MBR will be written to the SSD. If you do the Windows installation after it boots up to Windows the first time shut down the computer and hook up the old drive and make sure the BIOS has the SSD set as the primary HD boot device. If you Ghosted then all you need to do is change the boot drive.

After getting the OS on there, I'll need drivers and whatnot, it'll be just like a brand new computer! When I go to download new programs, I simply choose whether to put them on my HDD or my SSD and I'll be back up in no time.

Thanks for any assistance.

If you do the fresh install then yes. Also keep in mind there are options for quickly creating junction points and symbolic links, so that you can install programs into your C:\ drive and then move them to the D: if an application doesn't like to be installed on another drive. Steam mover is a good example. It's intended for Steam games as you can't change directories of each particular game. But it works with pretty much all programs.

 

[clocand]

Oh and friends of mine originally told me to SRT (supported by my z68 m/b) but after looking into it, I decided SRT was for small SSD's and wouldn't give me the same performance increase.

I can't raid because I only have one ssd at this time.

So I'm left with just using it as standalone as my best choice, right?

 

[clocand]

Yes, I'm going with the clean install since it is recommended and I don't mind it. So it would seem that I have all my bases covered at this point?

Thank you for your input.

 

[Topweasel]

Oh and friends of mine originally told me to SRT (supported by my z68 m/b) but after looking into it, I decided SRT was for small SSD's and wouldn't give me the same performance increase.

I can't raid because I only have one ssd at this time.

So I'm left with just using it as standalone as my best choice, right?

Most people will tell you its best to get one SSD at the biggest size you can. RAIDing seems like fun but unless you get really into the specs and the drives themselves, features missing by RAIDing can cause the drives to slow down with use to the point of a single SSD or slower.

As for SRT. Its great if you are already using a hdd and want to speed it up. Lets say you went with the highest settings 64GB. From that point on most of the stuff up to 64GB that you used will be stored in there for quicker access including windows files. For the most part that should cover most user use cases, as people tend to only access certain applications regularly. All it takes is one opening for any app to get written into the SSD so it will adapt itself to your uses.

Problems with it is A.) VM's large VM's can clear out caches pretty quickly. B.) Writes are not sped up only reads. C.) If you access lots of applications and large files consistently performance is going to be really weird and unpredictable.

Plus side is that reads are the most important for system performance. 64 GB is much cheaper the a 256GB drive. You don't have to worry about windows installation. You don't really have to worry about managing storage usage.

 

[clocand]

I've researched SRT pretty well, but since I have a 128gb, SRT isn't the best option for me, albeit a good one for 64gb or 80 gb ssd's. If I went SRT, half of my SSD wouldn't be used. I know I should only use about 100 of 128gb to maximize performance, but to not use 64gb is a bit much, unless there is something I can do with the other 64gb?

So using it as a second drive is still the best choice to maximize performance, right?

 

[Topweasel]

I've researched SRT pretty well, but since I have a 128gb, SRT isn't the best option for me, albeit a good one for 64gb or 80 gb ssd's. If I went SRT, half of my SSD wouldn't be used. I know I should only use about 100 of 128gb to maximize performance, but to not use 64gb is a bit much, unless there is something I can do with the other 64gb?

So using it as a second drive is still the best choice to maximize performance, right?

There are ways of using 64GB for SRT, and still having the other 64GB for a secondary drive for specific applications and uses.

But really it doesn't make sense. You have a hard drive big enough to comfortably manage the amount your storing on. You are willing to do a fresh installation and like I said. With SRT you are missing out on a couple of things that SSD's are also pretty good at.

I was just trying to clear up some stuff not necessarily recommending it. Its really there to keep people from having to get a big drive to really enjoy the speed of SSD. The drive Intel sells for this feature is only 24GB. So you can see where they are going with it. Its a small, cheap, and easy to install upgrade. For people willing or having the funds to do more, a full blown OS SSD is the way to go.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

Don't do SRT. And don't over-provision the drive. Just partition the whole drive during Windows setup (it will do it automatically for you) and let it do its thing.

And SRT caches writes, BTW. But with a 120GB drive you don't need to use SRT. You will have plenty of space for most of your stuff, you just have to be smart about things like large music or photo collections, lots of games (Steam), etc. Put those things on your D: drive.

 

[Zap]

I need help with the actual setup of my SSD, the manual stuff. No, not the hardware installation o_o but the partitioning, the BIOS settings, and the ordering in which to do these steps.

Have you considered reading the sticky?

If clicking on that link and reading more text is too difficult, here are the cliffs.

Step 1: Pretend your SSD is a HDD.
Step 2: Install Windows 7 on your new "HDD" just as you would using any other HDD.
Step 3: Profit.

Other than that, setting BIOS to AHCI mode helps boost speed, but even without it the SSD should be much faster than any HDD.

 

[icanhascpu2]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds

 

[LokutusofBorg]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds

I hate this over-optimization crap, it pops up like weeds.

We have our own stickies here that cover the 4 essentials steps that "guides" like this turn into 37 and have you doing all kinds of stuff you don't need to do. (I made those numbers up.)

 

[icanhascpu2]

I hate this over-optimization crap, it pops up like weeds.

We have our own stickies here that cover the 4 essentials steps that "guides" like this turn into 37 and have you doing all kinds of stuff you don't need to do. (I made those numbers up.)

Sorry, not everything is as simply as hurr hurr change bios to dis, den install win 7 hurr hurr. Thats not a guide.
Yeah who needs to free up 8-16 GB of room on their SSD. Thats just silly! No one said you have to follow every step, its just useful to know them, you know, knowledge and all that silly shit, calm down. But have fun being ignorant and wasting space on your drive.

 

[jhansman]

Sorry, not everything is as simply as hurr hurr change bios to dis, den install win 7 hurr hurr. Thats not a guide.
Yeah who needs to free up 8-16 GB of room on their SSD. Thats just silly! No one said you have to follow every step, its just useful to know them, you know, knowledge and all that silly shit, calm down. But have fun being ignorant and wasting space on your drive.

And, let the pissing contest begin...

 

[LokutusofBorg]

You come on a tech forum and link to another forum and don't expect to catch flak for it? You link to a thread that has a bunch of information that has been (repeatedly) debunked on this forum as completely unnecessary, and you don't expect to catch some flak for it? Really?

 

[icanhascpu2]

You come on a tech forum and link to another forum and don't expect to catch flak for it? You link to a thread that has a bunch of information that has been (repeatedly) debunked on this forum as completely unnecessary, and you don't expect to catch some flak for it? Really?

lol Who the hell cares if its from a different site? A lot of the information there is not covered in our own (still good) guide. What exactly has been 'debunked' about teaching someone how to turn off the hibernation (and make sure the hibernation file is gone) as well as turning down VM to name two of several things covered there to have a choice of recovering several GB on their SSD when space starts getting tight?

Are you just trolling? I could care less about getting 'flak' from kids like you. The internet is about spreading knowledge, not being a fanboy.

And, let the pissing contest begin...

Yeah, who wants to save several GB on their SSD. How silly of me to share.

 

[kbp]

Hope this might help you....
http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds

 

[clocand]

Yeah Zap, I did read the sticky but it is 2 years old, excuse me for asking for additional input. Also, your attitude in that sticky sounds strangely familiar to the attitude you're displaying now, which honestly makes for a distasteful read, so please lose the sarcastic attitude, it isn't necessary.

Thank you very much, icanhascpu2, I do find all that "extra" knowledge to be just what I was looking for. So what if it's on another site? Knowledge is knowledge, and I think I just found a new forum to check out for information, rather than just this one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yes, after installation, open a Command Prompt (Run As Administrator!), and type "powercfg -h off". Then reboot.

Voila, your hibernation file is gone, and hibernation option is disabled.

Saving disk space approx equal to the amount of RAM in your machine.

Edit: To save more space, change your Virtual Memory (Paging File) size to a fixed size, and limit the size of it.

 

[KingFatty]

Edit: To save more space, change your Virtual Memory (Paging File) size to a fixed size, and limit the size of it.

I'll second this suggestion, especially since you can reduce the page file size in a no-risk manner. You keep all the potential benefits, and suffer none of the downside.

More specifically, you set the pagefile to a very small size, but tell the computer that it's OK to increase the size of the pagefile if necessary.

I set mine to 512MB arbitrarily, and so far the computer has never needed to increase that size. So I re-captured a lot of room on my computer by shrinking my pagefile.

So, although you could delete the pagefile altogether, there could potentially be a program that looks for a pagefile and refuses to run if it doesn't find one. That's seems reasonable to me, so I kept mine around, but damn it felt nice to recapture the space that would have otherwise been used for the pagefile and hibernate file. Maybe I'll never encounter a program that looks for the pagefile, but I know I've encountered other "dumb" software that, for example, insists that I'm not running the "current" direct X version or other some silliness because the program is so old and the programmers never considered accounting for passage of time.

 

[_Rick_]

Reducing pagefile below the size of physical RAM slows down memory assignments massively, when physical memory is already full, and reduces memory available for IO caching.
Hibernation, if available, is also a feature that should be used, especially on portables, but I can also see it being useful on work stations, if you switch it on and off often.
Windows "hybrid standby" is a really interesting feature, that you should evaluate before disabling the hibernation feature.

A measure that might actually be interesting, is mounting secondary drives as folder into your root file system. That way, you don't have to worry much about which partition to place installations on, if you have a relatively simple scheme.
For example my steam folder is simply a pointer to a file system on another physical disk, as that folder requires a huge amount of space, but the mount point is very much transparent, so default paths etc. will still work.

Anyway, the reality of the matter is, that the more you touch your system when switching to an SSD, the more there's a risk of messing things up. Windows 7 works out of the box with SSDs. If you really need the extra few GB, then you might want to play around with those settings (guess on 64GB and less this may be an issue), but I'd recommend saving for a bigger disk instead. They get cheaper per GB with increasing size AND faster.

 

[KingFatty]

In my case, it was about 12 GB or so, maybe more I think? I think it's best to balance the pros and cons.

Also, keep in mind that having an SSD really lessens some of the cons. For example, booting up the computer isn't bad at all on an SSD, so that lessens my need to use hibernate. However, my need for storage space is more, especially since SSDs can potentially degrade their performance if you run out of free space - there is an added bonus for freeing up every GB you can if you are approaching storage capacity.

So for balancing, I asked myself, do I want to free up 8 GB of storage space or enable hibernate, I chose to free up space. And because I have 8 GB of ram, my computer has never filled up the physical ram, so again, there is no reason for me to keep a huge pagefile on my SSD that never gets used. So I effectively deleted it, but kept a nominal tiny pagefile just in case a program happens to require one even if it never uses it.

I'm also interested in keeping things simple, so I like to just not bother with messing around with changing lots of settings just for an SSD. But, I think the thrust of your argument is weakened, if the argument against deleting the hibernate file and pagefile is based on ease of computer management, because you effectively fill up the hard drive more, which may force you to resort to other more involved tricks such as how you've set up a pointer to your steam folder on another disk. To me, it seems much easier to just turn off hibernation and shrink the pagefile to make room for being able to not worry about shuffling pointers etc., but then again I've never tried that.

Basically, I guess it comes down to whether you like to hibernate and if you are only running 2 GB of ram. I just figure, for people who get an SSD, they don't need hibernate because boot up is so fast and it doesn't hurt to have a freshly booted system. And they don't need huge pagefiles cluttering the SSD because they have more than 2 GB of ram. Turning off hibernate and shrinking the pagefile are pretty straightforward tasks that most users are already doing or are already familiar with doing even before SSDs were around.