Intel x25-m 80GB SSD windows 7 or windows xp ?

[CrashOverride90]

Alright here is my dilemma.

I just ordered an intel x25-m 80GB SSD. I should be getting it by next week (bought from buy.com). Anyways I am planning on installing that on my ASUS 1005ha netbook. Now the dilemma is whether I should install windows 7 or windows xp on the brand new SSD which I am about to receive.

I personally would much rather prefer windows xp. So if you guys have good guides/tips for optimizing this SSD drive for Windows XP I would really prefer it.

But even if you guys say windows 7 is the way to go I would still appreciate some information on how to optimize the best performance on windows 7

Thanks and hopefully some brilliant mind here will help me out...

CrashOverride

 

[cjl]

Why do you dislike 7? Have you tried it? i used to love XP, but I've been using Vista since it came out, and 7 since the beta came out, and honestly, once you get used to it, the new interface is quite a bit better. 7 handles SSDs better too.

 

[geofelt]

If you bought a gen2 X25-m, then you definitely want to use windows-7 which recognizes SSD's and implements the trim support. Trim releases space on the ssd without having to do a rewrite. That is faster, and prolongs the life of the SSD.

If you use XP, disable defragmentation which is useless and detrimental to a SSD. W7 will do this for you when it recognizes the SSD. W7 also has some power saving features which will be helpful on a netbook.

Does your netbook not come already with an OS? I would pick W7 if given the choice.

 

[cory1234]

If you bought a gen2 X25-m, then you definitely want to use windows-7 which recognizes SSD's and implements the trim support. Trim releases space on the ssd without having to do a rewrite. That is faster, and prolongs the life of the SSD.

If you use XP, disable defragmentation which is useless and detrimental to a SSD. W7 will do this for you when it recognizes the SSD. W7 also has some power saving features which will be helpful on a netbook.

Does your netbook not come already with an OS? I would pick W7 if given the choice.

+1 for Trim/ Win7

 

[sminlal]

I agree with the others, use Windows 7. It's already pretty well optimized for SSDs, the only thing you'll probably want to do is to move the user directories and perhaps the page file to a hard drive.

 

[geofelt]

I agree with the others, use Windows 7. It's already pretty well optimized for SSDs, the only thing you'll probably want to do is to move the user directories and perhaps the page file to a hard drive.

For his netbook application, I don't think two drives are an option. Even with the option, I would not bother unless space became an issue.

 

[CrashOverride90]

If you bought a gen2 X25-m, then you definitely want to use windows-7 which recognizes SSD's and implements the trim support. Trim releases space on the ssd without having to do a rewrite. That is faster, and prolongs the life of the SSD.

If you use XP, disable defragmentation which is useless and detrimental to a SSD. W7 will do this for you when it recognizes the SSD. W7 also has some power saving features which will be helpful on a netbook.

Does your netbook not come already with an OS? I would pick W7 if given the choice.

I have used windows 7 on this netbook before but it used the battery much faster than windows xp (battery life reduced by couple hours which is a lot for a portable computer)...thats the main reason I am hesitant switching to windows 7.

Another reason is I am currently in the processor of learning debuggers and assembly which from time to time requires me to use windows XP. SO I much rather would prefer to keep windows XP for the moment. I have nothing against windows 7.

Just wondering....can we manually enable trim support on windows XP? I really wouldn't care if windows 7 has automatic SSD support as long as I can do the same manually for windows XP....I have no problem doing some manual work on XP.

EDIT: I was just at intel's website and even though windows 7 has built in native support, you can have all the trim support and everything for windows XP by using intel SSD optimizer.

 

[geofelt]

If your new SSD is a gen1 version, then the device does not have trim capability. There is a firmware update for it that helps the free space optimizing.
I think the SSD optimizer is a reasonable soution for gen2 devices if you do not have a trim capable ssd driver.

There are more power tuning capabilities in W7 than XP, some which you may not have used. Your power usage will largely be determined by what you are doing on the pc.

If you are learning how to debug XP, because it will not be supported, then I suppose that there will be a market for you. Otherwise, assembly language is OS independent. My inclination would be to learn about a newer OS that not everybody is up to speed on.

 

[CrashOverride90]

If your new SSD is a gen1 version, then the device does not have trim capability. There is a firmware update for it that helps the free space optimizing.
I think the SSD optimizer is a reasonable soution for gen2 devices if you do not have a trim capable ssd driver.

There are more power tuning capabilities in W7 than XP, some which you may not have used. Your power usage will largely be determined by what you are doing on the pc.

If you are learning how to debug XP, because it will not be supported, then I suppose that there will be a market for you. Otherwise, assembly language is OS independent. My inclination would be to learn about a newer OS that not everybody is up to speed on.

i have been using ollydbg 1.10 which is officially supported on windows xp (i know it runs on vista/7 but there are some things which needs XP at this point....

But with all that aside my SSD will be the gen2 intel x25-m SSD. And the SSD Optimizer seems to do the same thing that windows 7 will natively do.

But i guess i'll just give windows XP a shot...if I don't like the performance i'll switch to windows 7 or maybe i'll move my SSD to my desktop (would make my already fast windows 7 desktop super fast).

 

[cjl]

I have used windows 7 on this netbook before but it used the battery much faster than windows xp (battery life reduced by couple hours which is a lot for a portable computer)...thats the main reason I am hesitant switching to windows 7.

Another reason is I am currently in the processor of learning debuggers and assembly which from time to time requires me to use windows XP. SO I much rather would prefer to keep windows XP for the moment. I have nothing against windows 7.

Just wondering....can we manually enable trim support on windows XP? I really wouldn't care if windows 7 has automatic SSD support as long as I can do the same manually for windows XP....I have no problem doing some manual work on XP.

EDIT: I was just at intel's website and even though windows 7 has built in native support, you can have all the trim support and everything for windows XP by using intel SSD optimizer.

Win 7 reduced your battery life by a couple of hours? That's very odd - I had the opposite experience - my eee has a longer battery life with 7 than it did with either XP or Ubuntu.

 

[CrashOverride90]

Win 7 reduced your battery life by a couple of hours? That's very odd - I had the opposite experience - my eee has a longer battery life with 7 than it did with either XP or Ubuntu.

I get the best battery life with windows XP right now...maybe i just didn't tweak my windows 7 enough to squeeze out the best battery life

The problem with windows 7 and battery life performance is the Aero interface....you need to close the shiny Aero interface and get get rid of all the fancy effects to get the best battery life. If you do that I am positive you'd get similar battery life as windows xp.

But the thing is windows 7 experience revolves much around its sleek and shiny Aero interface. The smooth maximizing and minimizing, the Aero peek in taskbar the smooth snapping of windows to the sides, etc...Without the shiny Aero interface its just no fun. I'd rather stick with good old XP on my netbook. The tiny screen doesn't really do justice to windows 7. I would just rather use windows 7 on my desktop and keep XP on my netbook

 

[sminlal]

For his netbook application, I don't think two drives are an option.

Excellent point!

 

[cletus_slackjawd]

My netbook (Samsung N130) has identical hardware as your Asus and mine included Win 7 Starter. If you use Win7 you'll probably be forced to disable Aero. The integrated graphics are so poor I think they have a hard time just pushing the GUI.
I think I'd run Win 7 though over XP just because it can be more convienient.

 

[CrashOverride90]

My netbook (Samsung N130) has identical hardware as your Asus and mine included Win 7 Starter. If you use Win7 you'll probably be forced to disable Aero. The integrated graphics are so poor I think they have a hard time just pushing the GUI.
I think I'd run Win 7 though over XP just because it can be more convienient.

actually i would hate running anything lower than windows 7 home premium. I have loaded 7 home premium on this netbook before and aero works just fine (only that it drains battery much faster).

 

[daship]

Use Win 7 Pro or ultimate and use xp mode when you need xp, or use a lower edition and tweak it to allow xp mode.

 

[CrashOverride90]

Use Win 7 Pro or ultimate and use xp mode when you need xp, or use a lower edition and tweak it to allow xp mode.

XP Mode in windows 7 is nothing more than a marketing technique from microsoft to get people to switch to Windows 7. Who needs XP Mode when you got a free software like VirtualBox. You can not only use windows xp, but use any other operating system you want with VirtualBox.

 

[forummember]

The more basic answer is nobody who has replied has any clue. They like Windows 7, but they have no idea of how an SSD would do on Vista vs XP. Answer Windows 7 to this is like someone asking should I eat an apple or an orange and you answer that they should eat a toaster.

I really wish people would stick to the questions that people actually ask or just say nothing.

 

[Guest]

I have been using the gen 2 Intel SSD under XP for thee months now. I do a lot of copying in and out from the SSD to another HD. My SSD now has not a single unused, thus not a single free to wrtite block left, I think. The Crystal Disk Marks have more than halved for writing to the SSD. When rarring or unzipping the SSD seems to be only as fast as a normal HD now. But it is noiseless (my Raptor wasn't), and it is fast in loading programs or getiing large directories in Explorer, so I am still happy. I have used W 7 for a week or soo - but it crashed so often and I got so annoyed by the slow and useless Aero bling that I came back to XP!

 

[CrashOverride90]

I have been using the gen 2 Intel SSD under XP for thee months now. I do a lot of copying in and out from the SSD to another HD. My SSD now has not a single unused, thus not a single free to wrtite block left, I think. The Crystal Disk Marks have more than halved for writing to the SSD. When rarring or unzipping the SSD seems to be only as fast as a normal HD now. But it is noiseless (my Raptor wasn't), and it is fast in loading programs or getiing large directories in Explorer, so I am still happy. I have used W 7 for a week or soo - but it crashed so often and I got so annoyed by the slow and useless Aero bling that I came back to XP!

actually after posting the original thread...i've done quite a few things with the SSD drive...
1st I installed the ssd on the netbook with windows 7...the performance of the SSD drive was definitely great! the SSD drive got a 7.2 out of 7.9 on windows 7 experience index.

However the performance boost received from ssd on a netbook was just not good enough to justify a 250$ SSD drive.

So I switched the SSD from my asus 1005ha netbook to my now (almost) 2 year old HP Laptop (Pavilion DV6885se). The laptop has decent specs. Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz, 256mb 8400M GS graphics card, 4GB RAM.

After doing the switch I could not have been any more happier. The performance of my HP laptop is off the roof. Applications installations & loading times are almost as fast as my desktop (if not faster). The boot time of the laptop is under 40 seconds now. With the traditional 5400rpm drive it used to take almost 1 min 30 seconds. I have windows 7 installed and the SSD receives a score of 7.6 out of 7.9 on the HP laptop as opposed to the 7.2 on the netbook.

It is just absolutely amazing. After this little experiment i have concluded that there are lot of other factors (mainly processor & RAM) that limit the performance of the SSD drive. So if I were to switch the SSD from the laptop to my desktop I have no doubt the performance would yet again go up.
The only reason I am not going to do this is because 80GB capacity is just not good enough for my desktop. And I don't have enough money to buy a 160GB version.

PS: To keep the performance at its peak...you should run the Intel SSD Toolbox once a week. It really helps. This is from my personal experience. The SSD toolbox will take about 10-30 mins depending on how often you run it and other hardware configs....

But from my personal experience running it once a week is the best way to keep the performance at its best.

 

[Guest]

Hello there,
Please refer to Microsoft official site:
Windows 7 Compatibility:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/en-us/default.aspx
There you will find out about hardware and software compatibilty.
There is a pulldown from which you can choose "hardware" and "software".
Also check with Asus and Samsung as they may have the latest drivers and compatibiilty with Windows 7 in their support site.

I hope that helps out!
John M.

 

[hp79]

I currently have a thinkpad x61t. It's a tablet PC, and I had Windows 7 x64. I really liked everything until I saw a problem with my tablet inputs. Every time I use onenote for a while in lecture, when I try to click on start button, or other opened tasks on the taskbar, it won't let me. External mouse or trackpad nipple doesn't work either. But the keyboard worked. Then I would have to press control alt delete, and press escape to cancel. Then I get the control back. This was so annoying that I reinstalled XP tablet edition.

Now, the trouble with using XP is very slow boot time. Sluggish operation as time goes by. The more I use XP, the boot time seemed to get longer and longer, also the shutdown time is really long compared to Windows 7. When I use wireless, the annoying baloon pops up randomly saying 'now connected to xxxxx' making it look like my wireless lost connection, re connecting. Sometimes when there is a app crash, I always suspect XP and think should I go back to Windows 7. Then when I go back to Windows 7, no matter what kind of combination drivers / apps I use, after using the tablet input digitizer for a while, I loose control of the mouse and digitizer input.

I now have XP SP3 as main OS, and Windows 7 x64 as secondary (multiboot). I mostly just use XP since lots of programs are written for XP, and still not that much Windows 7 x64 friendly.

Thinkpad x61 tablet, multitouch-multiview lcd (finger + digitizer), bluetooth, intel 4965gn, 3GB ram, 80GB intel x25-m g2.

 

[paullyh]

Anyone has ideas about how to maintain SSDs performance and speed under Windows XP Pro x86 and XP Pro x64 that does not offer the trim?

I mean for non-Intel SSD that have no official 'tools'.