Some ubiquitous SSD upgrade questions

[STC]

So,

I have acquired an OCZ Summit 60GB SSD that does trim. I have upgraded to the latest FW. I know this model is quite old, but I fancy playing around with it.

I really, really want to see if it's worth cloning my existing HTPC OS from a mechanical drive. It has so many tweaks and widgets working perfectly.
Looking up my plight, I see many posts recommending a clean install, all saying "you may run into trouble if you don't" but do not quantify what the issues may be.

I am aware I have to build the SSD with 1024 cluster size to create the correct alignment.
It appears Acronis 2011 with the plus pack can help me out here - comments? I think I have to partition the drive first with 1024K blocks.

There are several services that need to be adjusted, but aside from these things, what else would "give me trouble"?

Would love to know thoughts from anyone, perhaps even someone who has cloned a mechanical drive to an SSD.

Cheers!

[Scallica]

You will encounter grief if the OS partition does not contain the MBR (Master Boot Record). On some Windows 7 systems, the MBR is located in the recovery partition that is created during installation. To be safe, clone the entire disk.

[STC]

Yes thanks I was just reading up on that. Repairing the MBR should be no issue, and even removing the 100Mb windows partition should be relatively easy. I understand the SSD does not require this.

[StumpyBloke]

Have never done it but have considered it for ages...let us know how it goes!!

[richard1980]

@STC: Read this: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... rking-life. I know the main focus of the article is XP, but it will show you the correct way to align your SSD.

[STC]

Thanks Richard. Is that it though? i.e. What's all this mysterious stuff that doesn't appear to be documented if upgrading from a mechanical drive!? Perhaps just speculation and hear-say?

[richard1980]

The important thing is to get the offset set correctly and make sure you format it with a 4k sector size. That's pretty much it for the alignment process. Everything else is optimization for the OS...disable defrag on the SSD, turn off superfetch, readyboost, etc...there are a number of things to do, but I don't know them all. I found it much easier to just start with a clean install, and Windows 7 did all the alignment and optimization for me automatically.

And in case you didn't know...some places will tell you to pull the page file off the SSD, but quite frankly that's about the stupidest thing you could do. Just leave the page file alone and you'll be alright.

[STC]

Okie dokies, I will get around to doing this sometime soon, when I get time. Thanks for the info, I shall report back.

[STC]

Regards the pagefile. What do laptop SSD owners do? Hmm...

[richard1980]

I don't understand...care to elaborate?

[STC]

I'm with you. A lot of decent laptops come with SSDs now and they'd have no option to move the page file. If it was bad to have the PF on an SSD they would ship with it disabled but they don't. Even with a shed load of ram, it appears it's still beneficial for Win7 to have a page file running on 'disc'.

[STC]

The proof is in the pudding sir! (British thing)

[richard1980]

Yeah, the common fear is that the page file will prematurely kill the SSD. It all started several years ago when SSDs first appeared on the market. They had terrible lifespans, and common practice was to write as little information as possible to extend the lifespan as much as possible. People wrote articles about how to keep writing to a minimum, and one of the recommended things to do was to move the page file to a HDD. The logic was simple...SSDs cost hundreds (thousands) of dollars, whereas a HDD was much cheaper. So you avoid tearing up the expensive SSD by tearing up a cheap HDD instead. Fast forward time to today, and there are still people that think this way. The only problem? SSDs do not have terrible lifespans anymore, nor are they as expensive as they once were. I've been in a couple of different arguments on WEC about this, and after doing the math, I've found out that it's actually WORSE to put the page file on a HDD. But you can't convince some people of that. They have this paranoia, and nothing you say will convince them that they are wrong.

I just look at it this way....thousands of years ago, people believed the Earth was flat. And when some guy told them it was actually round, they all laughed at him and called him a fool. We all know who ended up being right....it sure wasn't all the "sheep" that couldn't think for themselves.

[milli260876]

Do SSDs come on quicker when you wake from s3 as well as boot up time?? Thinking about getting one just wondered... ta

[STC]

From the info I have gathered, the general concensus is not to use a hibernate file on an SSD. I could be completely off base here, but boot times are fast enough 'cold' not to use one.

[richard1980]

SSD's are quicker at anything that involves reading or writing, including waking from S3.

And STC, Hibernate is S4, not S3....and no, I wouldn't recommend using S4. S3 is my preferred sleep state.

[STC]

And STC, Hibernate is S4, not S3..

Oopsie, my bad sorry. I wasn't thinking right that day.

[STC]

Have never done it but have considered it for ages...let us know how it goes!!

Well, got it installed last night, cloned my precious OS over and wow, what a difference! IDE mode for now, trim active, 4k clusters and some Windows widgets tweaked. It really does help improve the MC experience.
Even my DMA's show a marked improvement in general speed.

I managed to do the work whilst my wife was away (only two of her precious recordings in the way which I managed to time shift, thankfully) and today she commented that MC seemed quicker. She did not know I did any work to the system up to that point.

Wholeheartedly recommended SB.