[Solved] How to setup SSD with new build win7 64?

Hi Everyone,

I'm building a new system. i7-970 on an ASUS Sabertooth X58 board and I'm going to buy an OCX Vertex 2 SSD (unsure of the capacity).

Is there a basic walk-through tutorial for setting this up correctly for a fresh build installed with Windows 7 64 bit?

Thanks

Sure, check out the OCZ forums. Windows 7 does all the important stuff for you. I would recommend at least 120GB if not larger if you want to keep all your programs and games on it. I am space conscious even with a 120GB model......I keep having to uninstall games to add new ones as I am running out of space. I just have Windows, Office, Programs and games on it. I use my hard drives for storage.

Since you do not game I would say the 120GB model is perfect for you.

Thanks both for being patient with the newbie. Anort3, in reading the information here on tomshardware, it seems as if the trim command is important but that I don't really have to be concerned that it's being implemented because I'm building a new system and running win7. When I first install win7, will it automatically select AHCI as the default controller interface?

Best answer selected by art2010.

Depending on what you want to install, a 60GB SSD could even be enough. I currently have my OS, AV, Office, IM and a few other tools on my SSD and I barely use 20GB. However, I did move some of my profile folders ("My Document", "My Downloads", ...) to a regular disk. I checked Adobe's requirements for photoshop, illustrator and dreamweaver and I think all of them put together don't require 5GB of disk space so unless you have a lot more you want to install, 60GB could be enough; if you want some padding, I think there are also 80GB and 90GB models.

I know this isn't the subject of this thread, but seeing you don't plan on gaming, why did you go for the X58 chipset???

What kind of multitasking are we talking here, audio/video encoding, 3D rendering, ...? If it's just running tons of apps without closing any and most of them don't do much unless actively used, then hex-core won't change a thing. At work I usually run 1-2 Windows XP VM (mostly idle) from within my Windows XP host, some development tools, Word, Excel, Visio, IE 6 (don't laugh!), WMP and FireFox with 10-15 tabs and my RAM became an issue way before my dual-core CPU.

I just want to make sure your needs are understood, you would be the first feel sour if you discovered you could have saved a few hundred dollars on your build. If you don't need that much CPU power, then going for a P55 board (100-130$) with any processor between an i5-760 and a i7-875K (210-320$) with 2x4GB or RAM (upgradeable later to 16GB if you need it)(110$) would probably save you a good 500$.

You can also check (ask around) if the applications you are using perform that much better on Intel CPU to rule-out AMD, the AMD hex-core CPUs are much cheaper (240-275$).

The only heavy task I see is 3D rendering, the other things are rather light (I think) but could take RAM so 8+GB would be a good idea. For the 3D rendering, check if the software you use could take advantage of NVidia's CUDA, if so, you might be able to cut on the CPU a bit, but complement it with a GPU.

AHCI gives you some advantages, like hot swap and S.M.A.R.T. Performance is determined by the hard drive characteristics, so that part is moot.
I suggest AHCI for everything.

You can probably plug the SSD in the SATA 3 port as well, it will work and won't slow down the other HDD, but either way shouldn't make much of a difference. You could also plug the WD in a regular SATA 2 port, I don't think it would make any performance difference either (run benchmark with it plugged in both to see if there is a controller better than the other).

The only drive I know of that takes advantage of SATA 3 is the Crucial RealSSD C300 and even it doesn't saturate the SATA 2 speed, but it does have better performance under SATA 3.

I would set it up as you posted with HDD on SATA 6 and the SSd on SATA 3.
The SATA 3 will use the intel drives which are better than the Marvel drivers.

Take a look at this thread for detials:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] p#t1834468

yes

So even non SSD drives should have AHCI turned on?

Basically just go into BIOS and make sure every Hardrive has this feature enabled ???

Any reason not to do that?

Yes even normal spindle type hard drives can benefit from AHCI. geofelt is right.

I might be wrong, but perhaps you can set it to RAID, put your SSD as a single drive in an array and create a 2nd array with your 2 F3. If you have the latest BIOS and drivers, TRIM and other AHCI commands might still be sent to the SSD since it's single.

You could try to contact Asus support of find someone on this forum with the same MB ...