New to SSD's, have some queries

[TheGunslinger]

I know some of these will have been asked before, and i am currently reading through the many posts etc, so bear with me.

Little background info....

Completely fresh build, going from WinXP to Win7 Ultimate (64bit) for the first time, whilst i still have all my data and install etc on the original drives, i will be starting with effectively a fresh machine. (QX9770, Asus P5E3 Deluxe, ATI 5770)

Main drives are:
1. Intel X25-M 80gb of the OS
2. Maxtor 300gb 10k SCSI u320 for the applications etc
3. Gigabyte i-Ram (4gb) that i intend to drop the page file into
4. Various combination of storage and download drives that i will install post OS setup

Questions:
1. For installing, because i am going straight to Win7, is there any special preparation i need to be doing ? or can i install onto the SSD straight out of the box ?
2. Shifting the Page-File onto the i-Ram will aide the life of the SSD and 4gb will be more than enough, but for Temp files etc, and stuff from Browser cache etc, would i be better re-locating that onto the SCSI drive, or will i see a performance hit ?
3. Certain programs, such as Office applications can benefit from being on the SSD, are there any general guidelines on what works best from the SSD and what will be just as happy on the SCSI drive ? - i am slightly concerned about the amount of garbage Office applications like to dump into various places around the OS drive.
4. On the subject of this, windows update likes to store crap all over the OS drive as well, how do i shift that into another drive as default, because i wont be using all the 300gb of the SCSI drive for applications, i am likely to partition off some of it for this other crap - and i see no point in having the windows update files stuffed onto the SSD


any help will be appreciated

 

[sub mesa]

1. Normal install on the SSD. The only 'tweak' you might do is leave space unused on the SSD; depending on whether you prefer storage or performance.

2. iRAM is bound by SATA150 is it not? Either way, its not as fast as it could be. Invest in more RAM would make more sense to me. And disable the pagefile, so you wouldn't have to worry about that anymore too. Nothing wrong with putting it on the SSD; the truth is pagefiles are only rarely used with todays huge RAM pools. Out-of-memory is something that only occurs on server systems, 64-bit virtualization systems; not 32-bit windows desktops.

3. any (installed) application should be on the SSD. Any large sequential file created by a user should NOT be on SSD but on rotating media instead.

4. Store your profile or parts of your profile on rotating disks instead, so you keep the SSD free for programs and executable content. Large files shouldn't exist on your SSD. And average filesize should be around 2 kilobytes.

 

[TheGunslinger]

thank you for your reply, appreciated, in responce to your questions.

Correct, the i-Ram is bound by the SATA150 protocol

Right now i am thinking 4GB of RAM, but that is mainly because of fears of issues relating to running 8GB of ram and compatibility with the motherboard and BIOS settings, there have been a number of posts regarding this motherboard and 8GB of ram, i'm 99% sure i'll be running Patriot Sector 5 DDR3 at either 1600 or if i can get them the 2000mhz modules, whether i tweek the bios to get the ram at 2000mhz i have not decided yet, stability is my main aim, especially with such a mixed variety of hardware, i have more chance of hitting some issues (i have an Asus u3s6 and Parallel card in there as well as the SCSI host card, and an xMeridian to handle the audio duties)

Disabling the Page File is not something i'd like to do right off the bat, i know there are conflicting opinions on this, so as i have the i-Ram and memory for it, it might as well go into there for now, and if it's under utilised, so be it

Interesting about the applications all being on the SSD (although not sure i have the space !) i was trying to think of those that might benefit me be on the SSD, but would not create a large number of writes to the drive, things like my email program, can stay on the SCSI drive is what i was thinking, and only putting the heavier things like office and video processing applications on the SSD, bearing in mind the SCSI drive is no slouch in the performance stakes

Thank you again for the reply, i'm still reading and trying to digest all the threads/posts .... and my head hurts already !!

 

[MRFS]

Check out RamDisk Plus from SuperSpeed LLC:

http://www.supremelaw.org/systems/superspeed/RamDiskPlus.Review.htm

http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php


MRFS

 

[MRFS]

p.s. Also, rather than using the i-RAM for paging,
you can achieve excellent page file performance
by "short-stroking" a dedicated primary partition
on a secondary HDD, and using the Contig freeware
to create a perfectly contiguous pagefile.sys .

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897428.aspx


To "short-stroke" a HDD, create a primary partition
that is relatively small e.g. 20-50 GB, and do so
with a modern HDD that uses PMR, which allows
tracks to be much closer too:

http://www.supremelaw.org/systems/io.tests/platter.transfer.crossover.graphs.2.png


Notice how the Raptors all fall faster than
the WD 2TB Caviar Black in the above graphs:
Raptors still do not use PMR.


MRFS

 

[blackhawk1928]

Questions:
1. For installing, because i am going straight to Win7, is there any special preparation i need to be doing ? or can i install onto the SSD straight out of the box ?
2. Shifting the Page-File onto the i-Ram will aide the life of the SSD and 4gb will be more than enough, but for Temp files etc, and stuff from Browser cache etc, would i be better re-locating that onto the SCSI drive, or will i see a performance hit ?
3. Certain programs, such as Office applications can benefit from being on the SSD, are there any general guidelines on what works best from the SSD and what will be just as happy on the SCSI drive ? - i am slightly concerned about the amount of garbage Office applications like to dump into various places around the OS drive.
4. On the subject of this, windows update likes to store crap all over the OS drive as well, how do i shift that into another drive as default, because i wont be using all the 300gb of the SCSI drive for applications, i am likely to partition off some of it for this other crap - and i see no point in having the windows update files stuffed onto the SSD

1. Nope, just make sure in Bios, your connection mode is set as AHCI, not IDE. AHCI is what allows trim, NCQ, performance increase...etc. If you forget to do this and install windows 7 on IDE and then switch to AHCI...the system will crash, but there is an easy registry tweak which can fix it. About the pagefile, I see no use for it. The first day I got Windows 7, I disabled pagefile and never had a single damn problem. Moreover pagefile will take up a lot of hard drive space...and 80GB isn't much so you should conserve. I also recommend deleting your Hibernation file. My pagefiles+hibernation file were over 12GB since i have 6GB of ram so yeah

2. By moving files like the cache to another hard drive, I don't really think you would see a big performance hit. It will save a lot of writes to the SSD. But then again...your SSD is going to last much longer then your HDD. Let me give you an idea. For the Intel X25-M SSD, there is a tool called the Intel SSD Toolbox where it shows you various information. Within that, there is a tool called a "Media Wearout Level Indicator." It basically shows you from 0-100 the level of wear out or write cycles you have consumed on your SSD. Currently on my 80GB G2 X25-M, I have written 900GB of data...approaching the 1TB mark soon, and I am still on 99...infact the drive came with a 99 I think. So assuming 900GB is 1 level of wearout...900GBx99=.....a big number And thats assuming its 900GB, who's to say it won't change from 99 when I reach 2TB!!

3. The programs that you use the most...E-Mail, Internet, Media Player..etc should be installed on the SSD...after all thats why you bought it right? So everything opens and loads faster. Big storage like cache, email data, multimedia can be kept on HDD.

4. There is a point for putting windows update stuff onto the SSD. First off you can't put it into another drive or partition...windows update is basically part of windows. ITs like a game patch...you can't just install this game patch on drive A and another one on drive B....doesn't work like that. Plus, the whole point in an SSD is to have windows running very fast and responsive so you want things like these on it. Trust me, your HDD will die before your SSD. Intel says assuming you write 20GB's to it per day, it has a life of 'AT LEAST" 5 years. If you write less then that which you most likley do, then it will last even longer..20GB a day is basically 4,000+ songs, so its a lot of space.

Interesting about the applications all being on the SSD (although not sure i have the space !) i was trying to think of those that might benefit me be on the SSD, but would not create a large number of writes to the drive, things like my email program, can stay on the SCSI drive is what i was thinking, and only putting the heavier things like office and video processing applications on the SSD, bearing in mind the SCSI drive is no slouch in the performance stakes

I really recommend keeping all possible applications that you use the most on the SSD. You want speed and performance. You payed for it...you're getting it. Again about the writes...your HDD will wear out much much quicker from spinning and heat/ mechanical unreliability then your SSD will wear out from writes.