OS and Software > Software > [Need Info] Installing OS on SSD?

[Need Info] Installing OS on SSD?

yes. that is accurate.
install any firmware updates to SSD before installing OS.
change bios to AHCI. install fresh,
after OS install, turn defrag to never or off.

set hard drive power off to never in advanced power options in control panel.

its due to the block size

on SSD's and some 2TB+ drives they use a 4k sector size and if the formating isn't alligned then you get a block that crosses sectors (ok I know I'm not explaining it the best)

but basicly it makes it so it has to write to both 4k sectors everytime even if the file is sub 4k it wastes 8k writing it which is also slower

there are ways to allign it but I haven't done it so I'm not sure how

win7 and most modern OS's will allign during the install but XP doesn't know that it should so XP has to be manually alligned

the whole issue boils down to a new thing called advanced format drives

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format

there are a few things that windows7 will do automaticly when its being installed on an SSD

so if the OS is windows7 then I would reinstall
I don't have a list off hand of what those things are but I'm sure a list can be found, so if a reinstall is annoying (I know I wouldn't want to reinstall if I didn't have to) then its possible that a list of optimizations cn be found to manualy do what win 7 would do on a fresh install

I think I will spend a few days researching it and see what I come up with, if it doesn't look promising or effective then I will re-install. A re-install will allow me to free up the 12GB that Acer restore takes and get rid of their crapware as well.

In that case I'd re-install just to get rid of the bloatware

reply to grant tyrone

Here is the answer that I found to my question:

»forums.crucial.com/t5/Solid-Stat···-p/71051
--
Somebody's Back In Town

Thanks, that's good to know. I posted in the Hardware Help Forum what I did, for I cannot find the log to see how many times it defragged. I just want to know for my own knowledge.

EDIT: I just realized that I hijacked this thread.....Sorry.
--
Somebody's Back In Town

Defraging simpily is useless on SSD's the only thing a defrag would do is extra reads/writes thus slightly shortening its life

reply to george357
If you do this again. Try this.
»www.paragon-software.com/technol···dex.html

reply to george357
I did a fresh install when moving from a mechanical drive to my SSD. I could have cloned the drive, but then I would still have the bloatware.

Also, whenever I get a new computer with an image on it, I do a fresh install, The computer, be it a Mac or PC just seems to run faster and better. It may be a placebo affect, however, that affect is worth it.
--
Somebody's Back In Town

reply to Kanebrake

reply to george357
I have a little conflicting information. I checked msinfo32 and it shows a 512kb sector for my SSD. I then ran the Paragon alignment utility and it said that the drive was aligned correctly, anyone know what to make of this?

its possible its doing 512 emulation
its also possible that the imaging was smart enough to align it.

I'm fairly sure that I read that all ssd's used advanced format because it made it easier to make ssd's

reply to george357
the wikipedia article mentioned earlier has a section on 'advanced format 512e' where 4k sector devices pretend to have 512 byte sectors (emulation)
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_format
however SSD sector sizes might well be larger than 4K anyway ...

»en.community.dell.com/techcenter···ves.aspx
scroll down to 'Frequently Asked Questions'
if your fsutil.exe is at a high enough level (win7 sp1 + kb982018) then "fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo c:" will show both the 'bytes per sector' and 'bytes per physical sector'
»support.microsoft.com/kb/982018