Win7 on SSD partition

RoIng · July 2, 2011

As I was told that the files written on a fast SSD would be best off if there was not alot changes to the disk or partition. I'm lucky to have a vertex3 ssd, so I want to be as kind to the SSD as possible.

Few questions:

1) would be obviously smart to have the user files on a seperate partition, but what about the pagefile? and other system files?

2) would it be best to make a sysprep image and then once in a while just do a reinstall of the OS or would it be better to make an image backup with software like TrueImage or is there just a difference in preference?

3) any other advice about the disk structure of the OS regarding to SSD storage?

Thanks all! :giveheart:

Mr_Smartepants · July 3, 2011

1) I left everything alone on the SSD except for the large files/directories.

2) If your image will fit, then cloning the disc could save you a lot of time. I just did a clean install.

3) On my 120GB Vertex 2 I use symbolic hard links to map very large directories to my 750GB drive. As an example, my C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps folder is 25GB on its own.

Edited July 3, 2011 by Mr_Smartepants

BYTE-ME · July 4, 2011

See this post, which essentially found most SSD tweaks have no impact, except on storage space.
At the end of the day, you're the one who has to decide if any of these adjustments are worth your time.
Microsoft does a commendable job optimizing the latest version of Windows 7 for systems with SSDs,
leaving little to tweak manually. If you're willing to take a few risks, though,
there is capacity under the hood you can free up. 
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-tweak,2911-14.html

Edited July 4, 2011 by BYTE-ME

sirtex · August 11, 2011

See this post, which essentially found most SSD tweaks have no impact, except on storage space.

At the end of the day, you're the one who has to decide if any of these adjustments are worth your time.
Microsoft does a commendable job optimizing the latest version of Windows 7 for systems with SSDs,
leaving little to tweak manually. If you're willing to take a few risks, though,
there is capacity under the hood you can free up.

http://www.tomshardw...ak,2911-14.html

Nice link, thanks! & I love Tom's also!

But, for some things that are constantly re-written (eg pagefile, Windows Search's index), is it better to move those files to your 7200RPM HD, to help save writes to your SSD (thus extend it's life)? Also, what if some but not all of the tweaks were implemented?

The Intel X25-M G2 80 GB suffers a dramatic performance drop across the board when all of the tweaks are performed. We see little performance impact on Intel's X25-M when the first four changes are made, so the offending tweak is in the second set, and probably has something to do with write-cache buffer flushing.

Edited August 11, 2011 by sirtex

BYTE-ME · August 12, 2011

I tried all the tweaks and couldn't detect any significant performance improvements, I just tried to free up capacity on the SSD, like the article suggested. Fiddling with the page file (either making it a fixed size or moving it to another partition off the SSD) sometimes creates performance issues for some reason, at least on my PC. The only other speed tip I routinely use is that I setup a RAM drive to put temp files and internet cache files on, but again, some programs expecting to see a temp folder on the C:\Windows drive choke. But I've found if a developer isn't flexible enough to use a user-selectable temp file then the program usually has other issues concerning customize-ability or performance.

Hope that helps.

bphlpt · August 12, 2011

I would think that if some programs expect temp files or whatever to be in a particular location, the solution would be to use a hard link so that the program thinks it is where it wants it, but actually it is where YOU want it.

Cheers and Regards

sirtex · August 12, 2011

I tried all the tweaks and couldn't detect any significant performance improvements, I just tried to free up capacity on the SSD, like the article suggested. Fiddling with the page file (either making it a fixed size or moving it to another partition off the SSD) sometimes creates performance issues for some reason, at least on my PC. The only other speed tip I routinely use is that I setup a RAM drive to put temp files and internet cache files on, but again, some programs expecting to see a temp folder on the C:\Windows drive choke. But I've found if a developer isn't flexible enough to use a user-selectable temp file then the program usually has other issues concerning customize-ability or performance.
Hope that helps.

Hmmm, not so helpful for me, though for general usage I think RAM drives are great; it depends on what brand/model your SSD is (as per Tom's article), what speed/setup your platter HD is (<7200RPM still common; laptops & "green" HDs), how much & how fast RAM you have etc.... Also that article seems to indicate only the first 4 speed up tips are really helpful for certain.

I plan to use my laptop 90% for audio & web/graphics/movie editing. So not only am I using large suites of programs (Adobe CS3, NI Komplete), but I will be using several programs at a time editing several large files (audio & video) at a time. Very possible that I can have 2GB+ of 25bit 96kHz .WAV files open for a movie soundtrack I'd be editing. In fact, I expect to hit the page file & temp directory hard. So my use-case perhaps is unique.

I happen to have an i7 laptop with 7200RPM drive & a 2nd drive bay for my SSD, so what I plan on is:

SSD: OS & smaller programs

HD partition 1: "Temp": Page file (set large enough to not to expand all the time, but expandable), /temp folder, os "Documents and Settings" folder, internet cache, etc.

HD partition 2: "Documents": My real documents folder, where I'll keep my large .WAV, movie, & graphics files. Also large installs that will not fit on my tiny Intel 40 GB X25-V SSD.

? HD partition 3: OS backup?

I do use a separate OS drive now for XP (D:\Windows\, but page file is on C:). Do I need to have page on C: again for Win7? Dang that will make my OS E: or F:....

Any other expert tips please?

BTW BYTE-ME, I do think Ram-drive is awesome for 98% of the users, but I could use up my memory (loading big audio samples), which could drag-down my computer if I don't have a space. Hmmm... if there was a util that could turn off & on a ram-drive for temp files...

cheers