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Started by tecmo34 | | 67 answers
Useful SSD Articles - Part 2
Last Updated on April 23, 2013

A look at the NAND itself. How an SSD works at the lowest levels:


  • Write caching, wear levelling and the importance of partition alignment:


  • A broad overview of everything SSD (including TRIM):


  • Tweaks / Optimization


  • Storage Review


  • The SSD Review - An SSD Primer


  • Tom's Hardware Articles




  • Original thread created by Randomizer: Useful SSD Articles
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    October 17, 2014 11:43:22 PM


    haha,i agree with you
    September 16, 2014 2:09:00 AM


    Hi, Have learn much and thanks for your sharing.

    just happen to know a wonderful activity for portable native USB 3.0 SSD. Maybe useful to you as well.

    they are giving away 256GB SSD drives to celebrate National Day of the PRC, see the link http://goo.gl/o9we1A
    May 29, 2014 1:56:42 AM

    Some are too complex to understand. Whatever, thax
    March 28, 2014 12:25:05 PM

    To das_stig(Viola) -- I tried this,

    1. Once setup and at the desktop, don't bother doing any customization, but start up Computer Management via Control Panel, Administrative Tools, double click on Computer Management, click on Local Users and Groups.
    Two items show, Users & Groups.
    Click on Users, info shows up in right pane (there should be three items, Administrator, a User name and Guest).
    I could not find anything like "\System and Security\".

    2. Click on Administrator, click on Properties & box opens, unCheck "Account is disabled" and enable the account.
    Click Apply & OK. Close all.

    3. Reboot.

    4. Logon as Administrator, no password. Go back into "User" account in Computer Management (see above) and delete the account name that was created during setup and any and all files. (I could not find any other files).
    A User and Groups box opens with warning about each account has a unique identifier... Are you sure? then 2nd box opens because the "user" has Administrator rights.

    5. Startup Regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
    In Profile List there is a number of items. Look in each until the "Users" name is found. Right click on ProfileImagePath, click on Modify, change the drive letter & delete name.

    6. Change the ProfilesDirectory from %SystemDrive%\Users to, for example, D:\Users. Do you have to put something about "Users" on the HD that you are going too?

    7. Close down regedit and reboot.
    *** Now screen is showing two boxes, one with flower picture & Administrator under it. The other is blank with Other user under it. Click on Administrator and I get "Your account has been disabled. Please see your system administrator, which is me. Click on Other user and two boxes open wanting User name and Password. I have entered different info and nothing works. Now I have a computer that is unusable.***

    8. Logon as Administrator and create a user account with admin privileges.

    9. Logoff and logon using new account and let system create profile, which is now on your D: drive which of course now the default location for all your personal files.

    10. Start up Computer Management via Control Panel\System and Security\Administrative Tools.

    11. Local Users and Groups\Users, select Administrator and disable the account. Leaving this enabled is a big security risk!!!

    karenchimai had this problem. Do you know if it got fixed?
    I am blocked in Step 9. When I logon to the new account, I have an error: "The User Profile Service service failed the logon".
    And now, I change the D:\Users back to %SystemDrive%\User and it not works anymore.

    To> > das_stig(Viola),
    Did anybody get this to work?? If I remember right you said you used this all the time.
    Can you fix the places that I went wrong? By the time you read this I will have re-installed to get computer back to square one.

    Thank you
    February 7, 2014 6:35:24 PM

    Yea, I should of been clearer. It's not that everything is a bad idea, but, the fact that it should be filtered. Of course there is a lot useful information, and suggestions. The issue is, some people might not be able to distinguish between the two.

    February 7, 2014 12:23:53 PM

    chargeit said:
    My issue with some of this is because users will follow these "how to guides", without knowing why, or what it is that they are really doing. Any time it is suggested to alter something at the registry level, I have to question what the writer was thinking. If you don't know to do something like that on your own, than you should leave it alone. Also, there are often less intrusive ways to go about doing the same thing.

    I suggest that anyone following these guides makes sure to bookmark the pages, so that you can easily come back later and figure out what was changed.

    Oh I would definitely second these recommendations. The worst situations, from an IT Support standpoint, that I have walked into are the ones in which the person had "a friend who knew computers" who came in and "fixed my computer and/or made it faster/better" and ones in which the person in general started messing around when they didn't fully understand what the results of their actions would be. I ALWAYS recommend that no one mess with ANYTHING on a computer unless they KNOW what it is they are doing. This is not something I would expect a grandma buying her first PC to try to attempt.

    In my experience, if a person is confident enough to build their own PC (which is where I've targeted my recommendations) then they will/should have enough knowledge to understand page file, defrag, etc. settings.

    I also absolutely recommend bookmarking this list if you use any of the recommendations contained herein in case you forget what you did to your PC. You have to be able to remember how to undo something in the off chance that something goes wrong and you have to fix it.

    I only took issue with the idea that none of these recommendation are helpful and/or useful and should never be used.
    a c 162 G Storage
    February 7, 2014 10:31:14 AM

    You both have your points. It is up to the end user to decide.

    Personally I did nothing special in my one system and in 553 days it has only got a wear level count of 23. My files have always been on another drive so that helped and my browser and its cache are on a ramdrive(for speed more than anything else).

    Everyone has a way they like to do things.

    The reason for some recommending disabling page file and indexing is to lower overall writes(since SSD's can only do so many program erases) to the drive. I leave my page file at 4 gigabytes on all my systems with ssd's with no issues at all. Search indexing is up to you.
    February 7, 2014 10:25:37 AM

    There is no harm in verifying that Trim is disabled.

    I've never found system restore to be useful, but, I've also noticed that less experienced users tend to have problems which are easier to fix. It could be as simple as having the system remove a program, or roll back drivers.

    I might of been a slightly mellow dramatic about the search indexing, but, I really don't see it saving much space.

    Making sure your SSD isn't set to defrag wouldn't hurt.

    Issues that come up because of page file being fully disabled might not seem large to you, or someone else that knows what it is, but, to a person less experienced, this could be a major headache that isn't so simple to fix. I've read that Photoshop for instance, won't start without Virtual ram. (I'm not sure if this is all versions, or just some.)

    All of what was just mentioned above, will be handled by the program I suggested, "Samsung Magic". It gives you a nice list of things to check on, complete with shortcuts.

    My issue with some of this is because users will follow these "how to guides", without knowing why, or what it is that they are really doing. Any time it is suggested to alter something at the registry level, I have to question what the writer was thinking. If you don't know to do something like that on your own, than you should leave it alone. Also, there are often less intrusive ways to go about doing the same thing.

    I suggest that anyone following these guides makes sure to bookmark the pages, so that you can easily come back later and figure out what was changed.

    See all answers