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    Setting up a SSD for the M17x

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by cookinwitdiesel, Oct 2, 2009.

  1. cookinwitdiesel

    cookinwitdiesel Retired Bencher

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    I will state up front, I am new to SSD's and have only had 2 days experience with them now. What I am aiming to figure out is what are the necessary OS tweaks/optimizations so that I get the best performance AND lifespan out of my SSD.

    The model I have is the Corsair Extreme Series x128 SSD. I did a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro x64 (full retail version - Build 7600 [RTM]) because I heard that Windows 7 is designed to work better with SSDs.

    The only thing I have done so far is disabled the page file. Other than that I have heard about disabling prefetchers and disabling drive indexing. I also know that I want to disable the defrag stuff within windows but would like some clear instructions on how to do so.

    I understand that for the most part, it will be better to keep the drive as "clean" as possible as performance suffers when a SSD is full?

    Any advice I can get is greatly appreciated and I hope this becomes a thread that others can reference as well.

    And yes, it is fast! Here is what I have seen so far:
    [​IMG]
     
  2. Marvie100

    Marvie100 On a Mission

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  3. cookinwitdiesel

    cookinwitdiesel Retired Bencher

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    very helpful link Marvie100

    Thanks and +rep!
     
  4. hankaaron57

    hankaaron57 Go BIG or go HOME

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    Turn your pagefile back on. It's hardcoded to be used with many legacy programs. It's to save your butt in an emergency. There is no gain to turning it off.
     
  5. cookinwitdiesel

    cookinwitdiesel Retired Bencher

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    It is on, but set to 200MB, down from 6 GB
     
  6. Speedy Gonzalez

    Speedy Gonzalez Xtreme Notebook Speeder!

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  7. cookinwitdiesel

    cookinwitdiesel Retired Bencher

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    Marvie100 beat you to it, by 1 full month and a half...

    thanks anyway though, the information was useful :)
     
  8. Armin_Tanzarian

    Armin_Tanzarian Notebook Consultant

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    Anyone working with the program you can download from OCZ...the one in Marvie's link? I am expecting my laptop soon and I got my SSD after market, so I'll have to set it up on my own.
     
  9. Armin_Tanzarian

    Armin_Tanzarian Notebook Consultant

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    No thoughts on this?

    My system is being delivered tomorrow and I will need to put my Intel SSD in. I'm a little cautious about the steps I need to take since this is my first SSD install.
     
  10. cookinwitdiesel

    cookinwitdiesel Retired Bencher

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    it is pretty much like a HDD, just a few differences that help performance/life of the device along as mentioned in the links above
     
  11. Mandrake

    Mandrake Notebook Nobel Laureate NBR Reviewer

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    On thing I did was use the Windows 7 driver for the controller versus the nVidia driver. I was getting 260/100 sequential.