SSD and Tweaks

[RomneyPalin]

I have an Intel X25-M gen 2 and I have windows 7 currently installed. I have 2 wd caviar blacks in raid 0 for storage. I moved my user document folders to my storage drive. I am wondering about other things to move to the storage drives. Should temp files and temp internet files be moved to the storage drives or left on the ssd? Also, any other recommendations? I have searched but not found a conclusive answer.

Also, I am not sure if windows 7 recognized my ssd. I went to defragmenter scheduler, and I notice that while my C: (ssd) shows up in the main list, when I go to scheduler and select disks, the only two options are All disks and my raid array. Does this mean that it recognized the ssd? The only thing I do not like is the All Disks option is automatically selected when the raid array is selected.

Finally, superfetch and prefetch. I am unsure if these were disabled. Should they be disabled?

Thanks!

 

[sub mesa]

Superfetch should be disabled; as it accelerates HDDs because they have slow seek times; SSDs do not so this feature only lowers boot performance.

As you know, you should *never* defragment an SSD. Once you do, you semi-permanently made a junk of the data on the SSD. You probably need to wipe the whole drive using zero-write or HPA-clear utilities.

To allow Windows 7 to use TRIM and 'detect' the SSD, you have to enter your system BIOS and set the Serial ATA controller mode to AHCI - and not IDE emulation or "SATA" or "RAID" or any other option you may encounter. So check your BIOS if you can find the AHCI option.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Superfetch was a pretty annoying thing for HD's....for SSD's it and defrag are bad things which accelerate wear.

 

[sub mesa]

Superfetch will not wear an SSD; as all it does it keep record of which apps you use often and write that (once) to a location on the C drive, so that when you boot this can be read sequentially. While without this feature, it would require the HDD to seek alot when starting apps like Firefox etc.

So after booting, when you start your usual programs, thes Superfetch feature had already loaded these in RAM; so they are "pre-loaded". In essence, it has converted Random I/O access to Sequential I/O access - something that will benefit HDDs alot since they have crazy high seek rates.

But the access to this Superfetch-file is often read-access, and its only written to when the Superfetch profile is updated; when your usage behavior changes. Read access is harmless to an SSD; only writes will wear the drive. With modern SSDs, it doesnt matter if you write alot to the same sector or that you spread your writes; as they got advanced wear leveling that swaps flash cells that have been written to alot; and just remembers this 'bypass' internally without Windows or the rest of the system ever knowing.

 

[notty22]

Heres a good read

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?63273-*-Windows-7-Ultimate-Tweaks-Utilities-*

a trip (is it working/on) method as well.

 

[RomneyPalin]

Preciate all the reply folks. However, my ssd is in ide mode. I thought TRIM was not supported only in raid. Can anyone else confirm that TRIM does not work with ide and only ahci?

Also, temp files. Should those remain on the ssd or be moved to secondary drive?

Thanks.

 

[sub mesa]

TRIM works when you set your SATA controller to AHCI interface. AHCI is the native interface for Serial ATA - and will allow usage of NCQ and hot-plug features inherent to SATA.

 

[RomneyPalin]

So does this mean that TRIM does not work with ide?

I've heard you can change ide to ahci without doing a reinstall:

http://thewindows7site.com/forum/threads/14171-Switch-from-IDE-to-AHCI-after-Installation

Will this method work and allow me to get TRIM support? Or is a reinstall needed?

Also, if anyone knows if temp files should be moved to secondary drive or if they should be left on the ssd, plz let me know. Thanks.

 

[sub mesa]

You should not need to re-install; although Windows isn't as flexible as Linux with changing BIOS parameters.

You can try changing to AHCI and see if windows boots; if not you set it back to IDE mode. I'm not entirely sure IDE mode does not support TRIM; but i can imagine you need AHCI for that.

 

[RomneyPalin]

Preciate it. I went ahead and used the method of that link to change to ahci mode. It works and my windows experience rating went from 7.6 to 7.7. Startup might be slightly slower, but I could care less. Thanks for the help.

Still wondering about temp files if anyone has any info on those.

 

[bariskin]

I have an Intel X25-M gen 2 and I have windows 7 currently installed. I have 2 wd caviar blacks in raid 0 for storage. I moved my user document folders to my storage drive. I am wondering about other things to move to the storage drives. Should temp files and temp internet files be moved to the storage drives or left on the ssd? Also, any other recommendations? I have searched but not found a conclusive answer.

Also, I am not sure if windows 7 recognized my ssd. I went to defragmenter scheduler, and I notice that while my C: (ssd) shows up in the main list, when I go to scheduler and select disks, the only two options are All disks and my raid array. Does this mean that it recognized the ssd? The only thing I do not like is the All Disks option is automatically selected when the raid array is selected.

Finally, superfetch and prefetch. I am unsure if these were disabled. Should they be disabled?

Thanks!

You may consider checking this guide on ssd i saw yesterday. http://www.computingunleashed.com/tweaks-to-speed-up-ssd-optimize.html

i think that would answer most of your question on that.. Hope this helps..