11 replies to this topic

[Napoleon_Blownapart]

i want to add an SSD to my system,i put win7 and mwo on it?should i put my browser on it?i have 2 hard drives for data and other programs.i have found many online articles on loading ahci driver, enabling trim and changing pagefile location.any guidance would be appreciated.

where should i load video drivers to the hd or ssd?
the ssd is 120g so im not worried about room im just not sure if it matters where drivers are found.

my win7 is on the hd with my programs raidcall teamspeak etc.can i just install win7 on the ssd,keep my programs and somehow remove win7 from the hd?do i need to wipe it and reload all the programs?

Edited by Gorantir, 10 February 2014 - 12:47 PM.

[Golrar]

Put your OS and your main apps on it (MWO, Browser, other games). Use your conventional drives for storing files such as MP3s, video, pics, etc. Your games and your browser will benefit from the faster SSD, since you use them all the time. And move your Windows page file to one of your spin drives to mitigate extra writes on the SSD.

Also, if you are looking for SSD tweaks, try speedguide.net. I linked directly to their SSD tweeks page.

Edit: BTW, adding my SSD a short while back improbed my Windows score from a 5.4 to 7.2. I didn't fresh instal my Windows though, I just cloned it. Planning on reinstalling from scratch this weekend.

Edited by Golrar, 10 February 2014 - 12:45 PM.

[Egomane]

You should put the applications you often use on the SSD. This does include your browser.

I'm running a 120 GB SSD for a while now. I have every installed programm running on the SSD. Ths suggestion move the pagefile is a good one and you should follow that advise. You should also disable indexing.

Well... just follow the advise on the page Golrar linked to and you will be perfectly satisfied with your new drive and the boost to application performance it will bring.

[Napoleon_Blownapart]

thanks
great article

ok , so i downloaded ahci drivers for my motherboard,extracted them,put them on a cd and rebooted into bios and set my hd to achi 'i think'.i did see a fast adding hardware icon in the system tray.. is there a way i can verify ahci is active before i add the ssd and install windows?

i see an eject my hd option i didnt used to see.does that mean its ahci now?

Edited by Gorantir, 10 February 2014 - 04:28 PM.

[Durant Carlyle]

If AHCI is set in the BIOS, Windows will automatically use the AHCI driver. There is no way to check other than to check the driver in Device Manager.

The best way to convert from HD to SSD is to do a complete Windows install. That means re-installing the programs on the other drives as well, so that the new Windows install knows they're there. Back up your data, format the drives, and start over from scratch. It's a pain, but it's best practice.

Note: DO NOT have any other drives attached during the Windows install -- ONLY the DVD drive for the install disk (or USB stick if you're using that) and the SSD where you will be installing Windows. Any extra drives present during install will only confuse the installer and may cause pieces of the install to be put on multiple drives. You can re-connect the drives after the Windows install is finished.

[Goose]

I love my SSD … But I didn't sense any gain by moving MW:O onto it: Whatever check it is that linghens with your 'Mech count just doesn't care about drive throughput.

I've never heard Durant Carlyle's thing about pulling all the other drives before, but I can tell you this:

Igor Wallossek of Tom's Hardware said:

Frequent swap operations are poison to an SSD, possibly decreasing its speed.

Get yourself up to 8GB or RAM and set up a RAM disk, then put the Temp direcotories onto it, as well as your browser cache, and the first instance of your OS's page file.

Some might complain about that "page file" line: The better option would be to mount 20 or so GB and disable the page file alltogeather, but that's not cheap, and every once in a while you hit an app that throws a kiniption fit in the absance of a page file. :-]

[Lictor]

Do it. Once you hav SSD as your main HD you will never want to use a PC without one, its that much of a game changer.

Also. Don't forget to set the windows virtual memory swap file on the SSD to minimum size (800mb if you want to be able to send crash reports to microsoft.) And then set swap file on secondardary HD to either system controlled or 1.5 times RAM iin system.

Do not disable swap, windows 7 & 8 do not function optimally without themm. Even if you have 24GB worth of RAM (My Laptop Does) windows does not function correctly without a swap file.

Souce: [I'm an Microsoft Ceritified IT Professional Enterprise Admin]

also: http://lifehacker.co...ldnt-disable-it

Edited by Lictor, 11 February 2014 - 12:14 PM.

[Durant Carlyle]

There will be no general performance improvements in any game or program due to an SSD. It's only loading the game/program itself and loading game levels/maps and such that will improve. Because most of the time we spend waiting is because of program/game loading, it speeds up our everyday usage. But the programs/games themselves don't get any faster on an SSD.

Goose: The reason it can take a few seconds or whatever to load up the Mech Lab is because it's pulling data from the server. Your SSD doesn't help with that.

And as far as swap file goes, I run a 256MB swap on my SSD. Even in extreme-usage scenarios, SSD life is still measured in tens of years, so it's not like I'm still going to have this SSD when it wears out. Even the cheaper TLC drives will last a hell of a lot longer than anyone will ever own them.

See The Tech Report's SSD Endurance Experiment
Update at 22TB written
Update at 200TB written
Update at 300TB written
Update at 500TB written

Note: I've had my Samsung 840 Pro drive for over a year, and have only written 5.73TB to it. It would take me 4 years to write 22TB, 40 years to write 200TB, 60 years to write 300TB, and 100 years to write 500TB. The SSD is my OS and game/program drive, and I have a 3TB Seagate Barracuda drive for everything else.

Edited by Durant Carlyle, 11 February 2014 - 12:27 PM.

[Goose]

Sooooo if your Peak Commit is zero all the time …

[Goose]

OK: I missred the Wiki on "Commit Change," thinking it was talking about the page file size, and not total memory addressed; A Peak Commit of zero is imposable …

At any rate, everything shown doesn't contradict my point: "Stop pussyfooting around and buy some moar RAM."

[Golrar]

Goose, if you are NOT doing a fresh install and just cloning, you will have to enable the AHCI in WIndows before you enable it in BIOS or you will get the BSOD.

And yes, more RAM is always desired.

[Catamount]

More RAM helps to a point. I would definitely prices have hit a point where there's no excuse not to have 8, but anything more than that is a waste for most home users right now.

And no, you don't have to be concerned about placing the page file on the SSD. Page files are read heavy as I understand it, not write heavy, and wearing an SSD out with one would probably take so long, you'll be wondering if the heat death of the universe is going to occur first.