New SSD install advice/opinions

[Norton]

Hey All

This is the first thread I started with the exception of noting a few New Egg specials so please let me know if I need to change anything

Onto the topic- new SSD install:

I just picked up a Corsair Nova 2 60 GB SSD (New Egg special) that I will be trying out as my OS drive (system specs in my sig).

- I have a fresh install of Windows 7 64 bit and all my base programs, drivers, etc have been installed and updated
- I've cleaned up nearly all of the installation garbage, defragged, etc

Everything is running fine so I should be ready to go with this. I believe I have 2 options to load up the SSD with my OS drive:
*Note- OS/etc install size appr. 30GB*

Option 1- Clone OS drive to SSD and swap w/HDD. I have an Apricorn USB enclosure with their software for it and have used it to sucessfully clone the drives on my laptops when I've replaced their HDD's

Option 2- Prepare an HDD image and load the SSD with the image

I prefer Option 1 but would like to know if anyone has any input or advise to this process as this is my first SSD install.

Also, is there anything additional I should do or need to know to set up an SSD....this drive came with no software, utilities, or instructions and I found no info on the Corsair website for this drive except for basic specifications

Thanks

 

[mediasorcerer]

For me ive always done a clean install when putting os on ssd,s , but cloning may be just as good. I would check for firmware update before doing install too btw.

There are a few tweaks you can do once you have done install to shut down some services and regedits to optomise/save more space like 8.3 name creation and other stuff, go to ocz forum and search windows ssd tweaks to see a comprehensive list,and other sites. I use a little program by elpamsoft called-ssd tweaker- its free too,does it all for you.

 

[Norton]

For me ive always done a clean install when putting os on ssd,s , but cloning may be just as good. I would check for firmware update before doing install too btw.

There are a few tweaks you can do once you have done install to shut down some services and regedits to optomise/save more space like 8.3 name creation and other stuff, go to ocz forum and search windows ssd tweaks to see a comprehensive list,and other sites. I use a little program by elpamsoft called-ssd tweaker- its free too,does it all for you.

My OS install was done last weekend and have been pulling in all of the updates over the past week so I should have ready and "clean"... been dumping/cleaning of all of the install garabage, restore points, etc

Corsair's website didn't have too much support info or I couldn't find it regarding firmware updates and tweaks. Basically the FAQ section suggested to make one change in the BIOS and nothing else had to be done

I'll check on those post install tweaks you mentioned and Thanks

 

[FreedomEclipse]

personally i feel that 60Gb for W7 x64 and all its updates with a few odd programs like photoshop, M$ Office, Roxio/Nero etc etc is a bit small.

for linux and other stuff its probably fine. after you installed all the updates there wont be much space left im guessing. I used to run with a 90Gb OCZ Vertex2 2E but it was getting full so i upgraded to a 128Gb and its just great

 

[Norton]

personally i feel that 60Gb for W7 x64 and all its updates with a few odd programs like photoshop, M$ Office, Roxio/Nero etc etc is a bit small.

for linux and other stuff its probably fine. after you installed all the updates there wont be much space left im guessing. I used to run with a 90Gb OCZ Vertex2 2E but it was getting full so i upgraded to a 128Gb and its just great

Thanks for your input
My current install will only fill up 1/2 of the drive (windows, browsers, office, Power DVD and VLC player, phot editing, and utilities) and the balance of my storage needs for programs is not that high. I got the drive cheap and am going to try it out.... If I like it I can pick up another one and set it up in Raid 0 for the extra performance and room or I can pickup a larger one later on when the prices drop further and send this one over to a USB 3.0 external enclosure.

If I don't like it.... I can go back to my trusty HDD and send this unit to a USB 3.0 external enclosure.

A win either way in my book

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I could trim my current installation a little - at most youre looking at around at least 70Gb'ish which the bare minimum of programs installed - dont forget that programs have updates too. you are gonna need to be installing a lot of programs just to your mechanical hard drive and IMO some programs could use a boost in loading times

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

- I've cleaned up nearly all of the installation garbage, defragged, etc

You defragged the SSD? You dont need to as there are no sectors on an SSD/flash drive for you to defragg as nothing on a flash drive/SSD can get fragmented.

 

[Norton]

I could trim my current installation a little - at most youre looking at around at least 70Gb'ish which the bare minimum of programs installed - dont forget that programs have updates too. you are gonna need to be installing a lot of programs just to your mechanical hard drive and IMO some programs could use a boost in loading times

My current install (OS and programs) with all updates is at 32 GB and since I started keeping all of my storage is on my 2nd drive, I haven't gone over 45 GB total on the c:/ drive.

I should be OK for the short term. A have a price watch going for sales on another one of these drives so I'll pick up another if I think I need it.

Thanks again for the input

Any comment on the install method or tweaks that may be necessary?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

pretty extensive guide to SSD tweaking can be found here

 

[Norton]

You defragged the SSD? You dont need to as there are no sectors on an SSD/flash drive for you to defragg as nothing on a flash drive/SSD can get fragmented.

I defragged the HDD I have the OS install on- going to clone this drive to the SSD when the time comes.

 

[awatz]

This is the guide I used

Sean's Windows 7 Install Guide & Optimization for SSDs/HDDs

 

[sneekypeet]

clone or new OS shouldn't matter. make sure your bios is set for AHCI, do your thing with the OS, then find the program called SSDTweaker and run the auto preset to do everything you need once in windows. Enjoy the speed! http://elpamsoft.com/Downloads.aspx?Name=SSD Tweaker

 

[Cuzza]

.... that I will be trying out as my OS drive ....

I guarantee you won't go back to HDD! Also guarantee you will find yourself wanting a bigger one pretty soon. When you do, buy one. You won't regret it.

Also, +1 for what CrAsHnBuRnXp said, never defrag your SSD. It just wastes write cycles, degrading the flash chips for absolutely no gain.

 

[Norton]

clone or new OS shouldn't matter. make sure your bios is set for AHCI, do your thing with the OS, then find the program called SSDTweaker and run the auto preset to do everything you need once in windows. Enjoy the speed! http://elpamsoft.com/Downloads.aspx?Name=SSD Tweaker

BIOS is good to go, I checked already. I downloaded SSD Tweaker and that is ready to go as well

I guarantee you won't go back to HDD! Also guarantee you will find yourself wanting a bigger one pretty soon. When you do, buy one. You won't regret it.

Also, +1 for what CrAsHnBuRnXp said, never defrag your SSD. It just wastes write cycles, degrading the flash chips for absolutely no gain.

I double checked my original post but am not sure how that message came from it? I prepped my install on a HDD so I wouldn't need to spend SSD write cycles writing, rewriting, and updating my installation- the defrags were on the HDD not the SSD... but thanks to both you and CrAsHnBuRnXp for the caution.

** UPDATE **
Finished the clone of the HDD to the SSD and installed in my system Clone to SSD through USB 2.0 took <15 min.... took just over an hour to do the same thing onto my external HDD (30 GB install)
- Startup was flawless as was running SSD Tweaker. System quicker on startup and program access.
- I ran ATTO and WEI for some quick benches- ATTO results matching drives rating at near 280 MB (Mb?)/sec, WEI went up from 5.9 to 6.9

Unfortunately, I had to swap back over to the HDD for now as the adapter plate I picked up for my hot swap unit wasn't compatible with Silverstone hot swap connector. I temporarily hung the drive off of the connector w/o the tray to verify the drive would work properly. The tray needs to be notched to clear the connector properly

I should have the plate cut out and the drive back in operation this evening. I'll post up screenshots of the before/after results when it's back in

 

[erixx]

Thanks bro for all the feedback and details. I am waiting for mine, a Samsung 830 250Gb

How did you clone? With what program? Mine ships with a full Norton Ghost cd 15 years ago I sweard to never use Norton products again, and people report it being a fail product again. I have soo many tweaked business programs I would need a full weekend to reinstall from scratch

I also have various "Free software of the day" clone programs but never dared to use them...

 

[FreedomEclipse]

since that is a Sata II SSD - In the future id keep that SSD as a dedicated drive for games (if you are a gamer - should be able to hold BF3, BC2 and a few other games that usually take a while to load)

your board supports sata III (6Gb/s) theres no reason not to use it, its almost twice as fast. Instead of pulling 280mb/s you could be pulling 530-550mb/s.

ANY SSD is still a great addition to any setup though if you are moving away from a mechanical hard drive as a boot drive.

moving from my Vertex 2 to a Crucial M4 was a bit lackluster in a sense that I personally didnt notice much of a difference. either that or all the love has gone out of the marrage.

of course there were differences. going from 280mb/s to 530mb/s is quite a jump. but its probably because I was already used to my rig being fast that i didnt notice a huge amount of difference but its still a fairly big difference under the hood

 

[Norton]

Thanks bro for all the feedback and details. I am waiting for mine, a Samsung 830 250Gb

How did you clone? With what program? Mine ships with a full Norton Ghost cd 15 years ago I sweard to never use Norton products again, and people report it being a fail product again. I have soo many tweaked business programs I would need a full weekend to reinstall from scratch

I also have various "Free software of the day" clone programs but never dared to use them...

I have an Apricorn USB 2.0 external 2.5 drive enclosure. I put the SSD in the enclosure ran their EZ Gig III software and was done in 20 minutes (5 on setup/double checking, 15 for the clone). I have used this unit for at least 4 different HDD clones with success each time

APRICORN EZ-UP-UNIVERSAL 2.5" USB 2.0 Hard Drive U...

**EDIT- @erixx- one thing I needed to do was move the pause buffer from my TV Tuner card over to another drive... if I didn't do that, I would have killed any performance gain from an SSD pretty quick (pause buffer= many write cycles). You would need to check for things like that before you migrate to an SSD.

 

[Norton]

SSD is in and running. Couldn't use my drive tray/hot swap adapter as I wanted to but was able to get it in my case in the tray w/regular cables

Here are some screenshots:

BEFORE (WD 640GB (Blue) HDD):

AFTER (Corsair Nova 2 60GB SSD):

Looks good too me!

What do you guys think?

 

[Cuzza]

Good numbers, but I reckon the real test is in the responsiveness of the system, which is purely subjective, so, you tell us!

Back to the defrag thing, I knew you didn't defrag your SSD, i just thought it was a point that was worth emphasizing for any noobs out there who might be reading.

 

[Norton]

Good numbers, but I reckon the real test is in the responsiveness of the system, which is purely subjective, so, you tell us!

Back to the defrag thing, I knew you didn't defrag your SSD, i just thought it was a point that was worth emphasizing for any noobs out there who might be reading.

I like it - Windows start time is better but wasn't stellar, IE9 and MS Office are instant open now... blink and you miss it. Sped up most other programs as well. Will need to pop in a game or two and see how it is loading levels, etc..

Thanks for the making the point on the defrag.... sometimes I forget about that.

Will work with this for a while and hopefully the prices drop before I get the itch to get a larger one

 

[oldskooler]

I generally encourage people NOT to buy smaller SSD drives because within a matter minutes of discovering just how awesome SSD's actually are, they totally regret not spending that little bit extra on something bigger. Anyways, educations aren't cheap.

I was an early adopter having owned my first SSD back in early 2008 when they were so-so pricey. I wouldn't worry so much about the speed or benchmarks. any modern SSD is going to "spin your head" so to speak. They are all pretty fast.

Also, another solution to expanding your ssd storage space is to buy a used "identical" drive and raid 'em. This keeps your costs low and adds a nice performance boost and more importantly, doubles your space. 120gig is doable. I've since expanded to 4 x 120gig Corsair F120's. Bought the 1st one new 2 years ago and keep finding used ones on eBay for under $100. As you can imagine, my costs is low under $500 for 480gigs of space and my speed is right around 900 / 900 give or take.

Look into a free app called "ssd tweaker" and run it. There is an auto button that will turn a few things off in your OS that will add to the longevity of your drives.

Oh Norton, I just noticed your in Nebraska, same here .. Falls City, NE.

 

[Norton]

I generally encourage people NOT to buy smaller SSD drives because within a matter minutes of discovering just how awesome SSD's actually are, they totally regret not spending that little bit extra on something bigger. Anyways, educations aren't cheap.

I was an early adopter having owned my first SSD back in early 2008 when they were so-so pricey. I wouldn't worry so much about the speed or benchmarks. any modern SSD is going to "spin your head" so to speak. They are all pretty fast.

Also, another solution to expanding your ssd storage space is to buy a used "identical" drive and raid 'em. This keeps your costs low and adds a nice performance boost and more importantly, doubles your space. 120gig is doable. I've since expanded to 4 x 120gig Corsair F120's. Bought the 1st one new 2 years ago and keep finding used ones on eBay for under $100. As you can imagine, my costs is low under $500 for 480gigs of space and my speed is right around 900 / 900 give or take.

Look into a free app called "ssd tweaker" and run it. There is an auto button that will turn a few things off in your OS that will add to the longevity of your drives.

Oh Norton, I just noticed your in Nebraska, same here .. Falls City, NE.

Thanks for the feedback-

I have a search going for sales on the twin brother to the model I have and will likely pick another one up if I get a deal... otherwise I'll suffer a little while until larger SATA III models ease off in price a little more.
I picked up SSD Tweaker and ran already (recommended in an earlier post) so I'm all set there

Actually, the NE for me is New England not Nebraska..... sorry for the mislead

 

[FreedomEclipse]

small update on the 'no pagefile' stuff - I just found out the hard way that if you disable Pagefile completely then BF3 will start crashing.

the only solution to this is to set pagefile at 1Gb (or 2Gb) and just run with it till something starts crashing

 

[Norton]

small update on the 'no pagefile' stuff - I just found out the hard way that if you disable Pagefile completely then BF3 will start crashing.

the only solution to this is to set pagefile at 1Gb (or 2Gb) and just run with it till something starts crashing

Actually, I forgot to check on that

I have set it to 4GB min-6GB max (8GB default was the default) for the moment and will do some additional reading up on it to determine the optimum for my system usage/setup

Thanks once more for your feedback

 

[erixx]

My Sammy SSD830 of 250GB arrived this morning.
Last nite I already prepared everything: cleaning old system drive as much as possible, following your help plus the SSDTweaker site help.
Finally I didn't use the included Norton Ghost, instead I used EaseUS Todo BAckup with has a CLONE assistant and it lets you clone a BIGGER partition into a SMALLER SSD disc.
Before that, I moved all Steam games and others outside the hdd.

The clone took 25 minutes (200GB of data)
I unplugged old HDD, rebooted into BIOS, changed to ACHI, checked boot order and drives, and voilá!

Win Experience Index for Discs went from 5,4 to 7,9 (now I have every area at 7,9 : )

ONE GENERIC DOUBT:
It was advised to move all "temporary" kind of data out of the SSD.

Well, but what if I use Photoshop or Movie Director or other CACHE intensive software? Am I not losing tons of performance if those kind of programs have to move their temporary data to and from an old HDD?