Test Setup And Method
| System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Hardware Details | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-920 (Bloomfield), 45 nm, 3.2 GHz, 8 MB L3 Cache |
| Motherboard (LGA 1366) | EVGA 132-BL-E758-TR, Intel X58 Express/ICH10R, BIOS: 6.00 PG |
| SATA Driver | Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver 10.1.0.1008 |
| RAM | 6 GB (3x2GB) DDR3-1600 OCZ Platinum (OCZ3P1600LV6GK) |
| HDD | Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 TB (103SJ), Firmware 1AJ10001 |
| SSD Test Drive 1 | Intel X25-M G2 80 GB (SSDSA2M080G2GC), Firmware 2CV102M3 |
| SSD Test Drive 2 | OCZ Vertex 2 240 GB (P75HAVO6H3N8E278), Firmware 1.29 |
| Graphics Card | EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1563-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1 GB 256-bit GDDR5 (SLI) |
| Power Supply | Corsair CMPSU-850TX |
| Benchmarks | |
| Performance Measurements | CrystalMarkDisk 3.0 x64 |
| PCMark Vantage 1.0.2.0 | |
| I/O Performance | IOMeter 2008.08.18 |
| Fileserver-Benchmark | |
| Webserver-Benchmark | |
| Database-Benchmark | |
| Workstation-Benchmark | |
| Streaming Reads | |
| Streaming Writes | |
| 4k Random Reads | |
| 4k Random Writes | |
| System Software & Drivers | |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit |
The test system is configured in much the same way an average enthusiast would set up his machine. It's a great example of tiered storage, with the SSD hosting our operating system and a handful of widely used application. Games, user folders, and all other files are held on the storage drive.
For the purposes of testing, we Secure Erased each SSD before installing Windows 7. Each benchmark was conducted from within the OS with two days between each test to prevent issues with drive throttling, seen mainly with the SandForce SF-1200 drives. More details on that phenomenon can be found on OCZ's own forum in this thread: Understanding SF1200 drives, TRIM, OP area use and Life write throttle.
Additionally, we partitioned our OCZ Vertex 2 drive down to 74.4 GB to equal storage capacity of Intel's second-gen X25-M, and to increase the overprovisioning on the OCZ Vertex 2 drive. To be clear, our goal isn't to compare Intel against OCZ so much as we want to measure speed/space before and after some of these popularly-discussed tweaks.
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Indexing is not used to access files more quickly. It's used to find files more quickly in search. Disabling indexing will result in slower searching.
Hibernation: Amount of space saved by turning this off is equivalent to the amount of RAM in your system. Not limited to 2GB.
Also, hibernation has benefits over standby where hibernation will allow your system to return to a fully working state after removing power whereas standby requires power to still be supplied to your system. Laptops for example you'll want to hibernate to avoid discharging the battery while in sleep mode.
With system restore disabled, no swap file, and some of the additonal tweaks mentioned here, my two small capacity SSD's are running Win 7 effectively in a small footprint -- my 60GB Agility has 37GB free, while the X25-V in my laptop has over 20GB free. The best part is keeping lots of extra space help longevity, while the tweaks enhance performance while keeping my drives free of junk.
Thanks for another excellent article -- I'm surprised I haven't seen an article on this subject that's as comprehensive. Toms to the rescue.
Thanks for another great article. I would love to see a part 2 of the article where you would explore the causes of the performance drop.
Indexing is not used to access files more quickly. It's used to find files more quickly in search. Disabling indexing will result in slower searching.Hibernation: Amount of space saved by turning this off is equivalent to the amount of RAM in your system. Not limited to 2GB.Also, hibernation has benefits over standby where hibernation will allow your system to return to a fully working state after removing power whereas standby requires power to still be supplied to your system. Laptops for example you'll want to hibernate to avoid discharging the battery while in sleep mode.
Thanks for pointing both of these things out. You're absolutely correct about indexing.
I've updated the story for the author to reflect hibernation as well. I added clarification re: desktops and notebooks, though I'd suggest powering down a notebook with an SSD is comparable to putting it into hibernation. I don't think anyone would recommend putting it into standby; as you mention, that continues to drain power.
All the best!
Chris
Why are they testing last generation Sandforce and Intel SSD's?
SSD's are changing faster than any other computer technology. The current generation SSD's are already twice as fast as the SSD's tested in this article. Tom's Hardware is being left behind in the dust with reviews like this.
the article is very useful.
disabling system rstore is usually a good idea, sometimes it's better to just limit it's size form the 10% default value.
swap disabling is not a good idea, as you said. i'd rather have the swap on a secondary, mechanical drive.
indexing is very useful. you can relocate the address to where indexing data is stored. i put it on a mechanical drive.
disabling superfetch and turbo cache are really useful. ssd may be faster than hdd, but they are weak compared to ram speed. read caching really makes a difference.
hibernation file is not really useful on a desktop but it's a matter of taste. better have it on a mechanical drive if possible
another thing that really helps is putting firefox profiles on a ram drive. i develop on visual studio and there is a directory where lots of small files are written on build. having this temp folder on a ramdrive helps a lot regarding speed and writes as well.
oops... i meant having windows superfect and turbo cache (not sure about actual names) active is really useful. the memory that is occupied by caching gets liberated quickly if it's needed by apps. in the mean time it can really help on read caching.
None of my controllers mention AHCI, but my motherboard is set to use AHCI. I do see "AMD SATA Controller," is that it? I also don't see any ATA Channels as in the screen shot, just two IDE channels with no devices on them. I don't have an SSD, so no need for TRIM, but I would like to verify that I'm using AHCI.
This article is excellent for those SSD users who have just installed/reinstalled their OS. I will also forward this article to all my friends using SSD.
who came up with that idiot description of hibernation ? it was invented to:
1. save power
2. restore the previous work withou having to start everything
I use hibernation a lot on my desktop just because I can leave all the network independent applications running and just power down. after power up, I am in the previous environment state and can immediately continue whatever I was doing before. No need to start applications and reopen saved files.
Excellent article and I agree with most of Doug's solid advice. However, as a compromise I would recommend that users reduce the System Restore SIZE versus turning it off all together. System Restore would not be needed in a 'perfect' world, but reformatting or reinstalling windows is a tough trade-off.
...Also, if you are using a monitored UPS {Uninterrupted Power Supply} you must leave Hibernation turned-on. Once the battery hits its' minimum, typically 10% it triggers Windows to go into Hibernation mode to prevent data loss.
No mention of relocating User File locations ? ..... this, by far, exceeds all of the above "space savers" combined. Checked the size of your e-mail inbox / sent box lately ?
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutoria [...] ation.html
Nice review, but a little late to the game:
http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides [...] n-guide-2/
@jaquith... You bring up good and valid points on System Restore and hibernation with a UPS in play.
@JackNaylorPE... This another very good point on moving USER folder to another drive. It does free up additional space and keep down on writes.
@Chesteracorgi... There are many threads on tweaking, as the The SSD Optimization Guide is a very good one. The purpose of my article was not necessarily on what tweaks needed to perform but what actual benefits do you receive from performing them.
If i do the ahci setting in my controller or the registry setting which as I see is a universal setting in windows,wont it affect my other HDD's performance which aren't SSD's??
This is one of the most useful articles I have ever read here on Toms. Thanks for doing this and I look forward to seeing many more useful articles like this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Awesome SSD article. Goes over some points I already knew, but it's now in one easy to find place!
Also I have a suggestion. For example with System Restore and File Paging, you should make mention that you can simply apply them to your storage HDD instead of the SSD.
Oh and what's the point of telling us to disable Prefetch, which has no effect on the SSD and can certainly help the system stay faster by preloading onto RAM? Plenty of enthusiasts have 6, 8, or 12 gigs of RAM so it's not like space is a premium...
Disable disk defragmenter.....