- Jul 12, 2010
- 17
- 0
- 18,510
I'm looking for advice on buying and installing an SSD. I've read a staggering amount of stuff over the last few days, but with how fast the industry moves and changes, it's hard to know what's current and what's outdated - half the articles recommended to me were from early 2009, and I figure, those can't be up to date anymore.
Since it's such a common question that I assume all the regulars are bored to tears of answering, I'll try to keep this post a bit generic so maybe future posters with the same question(s) can just be linked here.
Which:
Which SSD would you recommend I buy ? Like everyone, I'd like size, speed, quality and ideally it would be very cheap ;)
My usage scenario is rather common, I'd say - Windows 7, lots of Firefox usage, Steam, Email, Office stuff, and for me personally programming (Java, Eclipse). So, definitely something SSD would help with. As I understand, that means I will be looking for latency and random write performance, and not so much at raw sequential speeds. That probably means a disc with a SandForce 1200 controller - but which one ? Or is that controller outdated already ? Price range I would aim for $200, but I'm not married to that number.
When:
New stuff always comes out, especially in this market segment. Waiting is always a good idea when you can. What is worth waiting for, and how long would I have to wait ? Is there anything amazing right around the corner, or am I looking at a six month wait for something that's maybe 10% better/cheaper than what's available now ?
How:
Installing seems pretty straightforward. Turn on AHCI before formatting/installing Windows. Turn on TRIM. What I couldn't find was whether I should do anything above that during OS install, such as supplying extra drivers via thumbdrive or whatever, or whether I should format the new SSD with certain settings such as a specific NTFS block size (or whatever's size you get to specify during formats). I'm also not clear on how I actuall *DO* activate TRIM - everything I found only said to turn on AHCI. Will turning on AHCI make Win7 enable TRIM automatically ?
Lastly, I found this page with tips on how to 'improve SSD performance':
http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/solid-state-drive-ssd-tweaks-for-windows-7/552.html
Much of that seems like terrible ideas. Is my computer knowledge outdated, or is that page simply full of bad advice ?
Since it's such a common question that I assume all the regulars are bored to tears of answering, I'll try to keep this post a bit generic so maybe future posters with the same question(s) can just be linked here.
Which:
Which SSD would you recommend I buy ? Like everyone, I'd like size, speed, quality and ideally it would be very cheap ;)
My usage scenario is rather common, I'd say - Windows 7, lots of Firefox usage, Steam, Email, Office stuff, and for me personally programming (Java, Eclipse). So, definitely something SSD would help with. As I understand, that means I will be looking for latency and random write performance, and not so much at raw sequential speeds. That probably means a disc with a SandForce 1200 controller - but which one ? Or is that controller outdated already ? Price range I would aim for $200, but I'm not married to that number.
When:
New stuff always comes out, especially in this market segment. Waiting is always a good idea when you can. What is worth waiting for, and how long would I have to wait ? Is there anything amazing right around the corner, or am I looking at a six month wait for something that's maybe 10% better/cheaper than what's available now ?
How:
Installing seems pretty straightforward. Turn on AHCI before formatting/installing Windows. Turn on TRIM. What I couldn't find was whether I should do anything above that during OS install, such as supplying extra drivers via thumbdrive or whatever, or whether I should format the new SSD with certain settings such as a specific NTFS block size (or whatever's size you get to specify during formats). I'm also not clear on how I actuall *DO* activate TRIM - everything I found only said to turn on AHCI. Will turning on AHCI make Win7 enable TRIM automatically ?
Lastly, I found this page with tips on how to 'improve SSD performance':
http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/solid-state-drive-ssd-tweaks-for-windows-7/552.html
Much of that seems like terrible ideas. Is my computer knowledge outdated, or is that page simply full of bad advice ?
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