(mis)Adventure - Windows 7 HDD to SSD - Optimizations - Fresh vs Clone

INTRO

A lot of things have been said regarding migration from a hard disk drive to a solid state drive. Some of what has been posted, here and elsewhere, is true while at the same time some of it is not true.

After much discussion with people, mainly via PM, I have undertaken the task of examining this in depth. I own or have owned a plethora of SSDs and HDDs of various makes and models. I am quite familiar with several firmwares and how to update the firmware. Anyone that wants a list of what I currently own or have previously owned, send a PM. If I receive several requests, I'll post the list publicly. I have quite a bit of experience with these devices.


GENERAL INFO

I installed Windows 7 fresh to a clean and unpartitioned hard disk drive. I installed Windows 7 fresh to a clean and unpartitioned solid state drive. I cloned the freshly setup hard disk drive installation to a solid state drive. I attempted the cloning process by two different means. Results will follow the obligatory test-system stats.


TEST SYSTEM

Asus M4A785-M AM2+ motherboard
AMD Phenom II 920 AM2+ CPU
PNY 1GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz RAM (2 sticks)
HIS HD 5570 Silence display adapter
LG GH22LS30 Super-Multi DVD Lightscribe


TEST STORAGE DEVICES

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS SATA2 500GB hard disk drive
Samsung 470 Series SATA2 64GB solid state drive

TEST SOFTWARE/DRIVERS

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit with Service Pack 1 English OEM System Builder Pack
(Build Date 05-18-2011, End Item Part Number GFC-02050 UPC Code 8 85370 25850 9 Disc ID 6/11 X17-03404-02)
ASUS Factory Install CD for M4A785-M
(Audio Driver, Chipset Driver, Catalyst, Realtek Ethernet)
HIS Radeon HD5570 Factory Install CD
(Video Driver, Catalyst Control Center)
Windows Experience Index
Anvil Storage Benchmark Pro RC2 1.0.45


NOTES

Notes about fresh installation and cloning procedure: I made a video during installation to the HDD, and played it back while duplicating EXACTLY the same steps when installing to the SSD. Same drivers, same mouse clicks, everything in the same order.

No errors may be attributed to a difference in method of installation to either device. All storage units were securely erased using Parted Magic on a bootable CD prior to each installation as well as prior to the cloning stage (Always clean, always fresh). All times were measured using a 3rd party timer in my Palm Zire 72, so no errors would be due to a different chronometer being used at any time.

The entire system, all hardware, and all other elements of this examination are currently on-hand and intact as tested. It will not be used for any other purpose or powered up for any reason other than to reproduce or rerun any steps. The system may be sold in the future, and therefore it may become unavailable at any time.

At the time of this posting, I choose NOT to SPAM this forum with a metric-crap-ton of photos and screenshots (numerous were made and are on hand, if needed to fend off any challengers).


DISCLAIMER

I may choose to post this information on other sites and in other forums. Anybody who wants to use any of this should post a link to it that leads back here to this site and this topic, instead of copy-pasting the text elsewhere. If I find this anywhere that I didn't post it or allow it to be posted, I will do everything I can to have it removed. Any questions about this particular point, contact me or site admins and moderators.

The final results apply to my circumstances and to the hardware/software environment that prevailed. I do not intend to assure anyone else that they will achieve the same results if any other setup is used. I am confident of my own outcome. I am not confident of yours.

I have invested more than 12 hours into this adventure. I had already been awake for 18 hours when this began. Any typos or other errors in presentation are due to mental fatigue. I reserve the right to edit the contents of this post to correct any grammatical errors or facts that may have been recorded in some fashion but inadvertently omitted due to absence of mind.

Missing data may exist in screenshots, paper and pencil notes, video footage, or the darkest recesses of my mind. If it happened, I reserve the right to add it for purposes of clarity. Any errors in the method or the results are subject to discussion/debate/challenge.

If the layout sucks, I reserve the right to edit this for readability. Suggestions are welcome. Submissions of rework to me for review and revision are even more welcome.

I filled both of my camera storage cards and drained 4 batteries. Some of the procedures were not recorded to video due to batteries that charge very very slowly. I wasn't going to stop the show for 16 hours to charge batteries. I just trudged forward with still-camera and alt-prtscr. If anyone requests video proof, I may not have the specific piece desired.

Anything not recorded by some means or another may be mentioned by me or referred to, even though footage may not exist. I will respect anyone who doubts or challenges any points that can not be verified by proof. I know what I observe, but you aren't expected to simply take my word on anything.


MOVING ALONG

On with the show...


System powered up, BIOS was checked for optimal performance with no overclocking. AHCI was confirmed to be set.

Windows was installed in the conventional manner of booting from the media. System rebooted as needed. Motherboard drivers were installed from the factory provided media and no additional fluff utilities were included. System was rebooted. Video drivers were installed from the factory provided media and no additional fluff utilities were included. System was rebooted. 21512039

At this time, I created a backup using Windows Backup to create a system image to a Western Digital Passport SE external USB hard disk drive. I then shut down and booted using Acronis True Image Home 2012 CD and created a disk image (not a standard backup, a bit by bit mirror) saved to the same external USB hard disk drive. In the event that anything needs to be repeated or replicated to settle any disputes, these are available. The use of these backups will be subject to my available time and willingness to do so.

System was booted again, to the hard disk drive. Various configuration settings were noted and recorded on paper using pencil. Benchmarking was conducted on the system and the storage unit using Windows Experience Index and Anvil Storage Benchmark. System was shut down.

The WD5000AAKS was disconnected from power and the SATA cable. The fresh securely erased Samsung 470 was connected to power and the SATA cable. The system was powered up and BIOS was examined for presence of the solid state drive. BIOS was saved and unit was powered down after re-verifying BIOS settings. Unit was unplugged from wall power for a full 30 seconds. USB hard disk drive was plugged into a port. System was powered up and booted using the Windows 7 disk. "Repair your computer" was chosen. "Restore using system image" was chosen. "Latest available system image" was chosen and Windows automatically located it on the USB hard disk drive. All other options were left at default and "Next" was chosen. "Finish" was chosen. A message popped up stating that a restart was needed to complete. I hit "Close" on that message, since that was the only thing available. I was returned to the "Recovery Options" screen. I chose "Restart". System rebooted itself. I repeated all the previous steps up to "Finish". At this point, the restoration failed. Windows informed me that there were many typically generic and vague reasons why this may have failed. I continued to repeat this, eliminating each possibility mentioned by Windows, one item at a time. When all the items mentioned by Windows were eliminated and with the restoration continuing to FAIL, I gave up. From beginning of this to the end, 6 hours 42 minutes had elapsed. I tried, people. I went on safari of the search engines, looking for solutions. None were found.

The Samsung was securely erased using Parted Magic. Windows was installed to the unit in exactly the same manner as the installation of the hard disk drive. Drivers were installed in the same order as before. Configuration was noted. Benchmarks were conducted in the same order as before. Some optimizations were implemented as appropriate for an SSD. System was restarted to finalize the configuration changes. Benchmarks were conducted in the same manner as before. System was shut down.

The Samsung was securely erased using Parted Magic. The WD5000AAKS was connected to an open SATA cable and connected to power. System was booted using Acronis True Image Home 2012 CD. The disk was then cloned using automatic settings. The cloning process successfully completed in 6 minutes and 27 seconds. Acronis disk was removed. System was shut down. WD5000AAKS was disconnected from power and SATA cables.

System was powered up into BIOS to confirm all settings were proper and consistant. System was rebooted into Windows. A hardware restart was required, due to the SSD being detected and the appropriate driver implemented automatically. System therefore rebooted. All configuration settings were noted and recorded in the same manner as was done with the hard disk drive and with the fresh installation of the solid state drive. Benchmarking was conducted as before. Some optimizations were implemented as appropriate for an SSD. System was restarted to finalize the configuration changes. Benchmarks were conducted in the same manner as before. System was shut down.


RECAP

To summarize and recap: Both installations were fresh to erased devices. Cloning was to a freshly erased device. Benchmarks were conducted once to the hard disk drive. Benchmarks were made on the fresh install to the SSD and the clone to the SSD before and after optimizations. Restoration of the image file created using Windows backup FAILED.


RESULTS

On the chart, Unoptimized and Plain refer to the settings Windows automatically defaulted to. Optimized refer to values manually implemented which are equal to or superior to Windows defaults.

Notes regarding Config options: Windows seems to enable TRIM if AHCI is set in BIOS prior to installation, not based on physical drive type (spinner/electronic). Superfetch caches the most recent 5 programs you used so it can speed up access by guessing what you might run the next time you boot - not a run-time cache, if you use more than 5 apps Superfetch is pretty much useless for any drive type. SSDs should not be defragged, they do not adhere to defrag locations, they handle file locations in their own firmware, SSDs ignore Defrag file location instructions but will recopy the file wherever they want to - bad for NAND. Drive indexing speeds up searches on hard disks, it has no effect on SSDs, save the processor time and memory hit by disabling it for SSD. Page file - some apps require a page file regardless if/that you have more than enough RAM, so keep a small one and keep it on the SSD because pagefile is mostly reads with some small writes and very few large writes, won't have significant effect on NAND wear for SSDs. Readyboost (with an "S") is for adding pagefile capacity and access speed using USB sticks (thumb drives) and will ignore them if your SSD does not benefit, leave it enabled. Readyboot (without an "S") - web instructions are mistaken, the steps disable the LOGGING of Readyboot events but Readyboot remains enabled - I could not find anyone who actually knew how to disable Readyboot itself - let me know if you DO find a way because SSDs do not need it (they are fast enough without another cache), thx. NTFS compression may or may not affect the performance of SSDs, it varies from unit to unit, so decide for yourself. Write Caching is good for all types of storage devices. Drive Sleep saves wear on bearings in drives that spin, SSDs use almost no power when not actively manipulating data, SSD performance may be reduced due to lag when 'waking back up' from sleep, so set SSD to Sleep NEVER. Hibernation is a matter of preference, disable it if you don't hibernate to conserve space on your SSD.

The results of the optimizations and benchmarking:

 

This post reserved for additional material, which may or may not occur.

 

Nice tests...

I've ordered my first SSD, when it came I'll clone it with the current HDD data and apply the optimizations and will test it, if everything is ok why waste hours re-installing programs and configs...

Thanks for the tests

 

I agree, when it comes to cloning. It is much faster to clone 200GB from spinner drive to chip drive than it is to install fresh and then re-personalize and then re-install all apps and then restore user data files. In either case, the same manual optimization of the SSD means ZERO advantage of fresh installation.

You're very welcome for the info I presented. I'm happy to know that it benefits people. The rumors and the false claims make it difficult for us to know what to actually do when we change from mechanical to electronic storage.

If you have any questions before your swap-out or have any questions afterward, I'm around.

Good luck and enjoy!

 

I'm kind of confused by all the detail you provide. I kind of think you buried the lead, and buried it deep. But maybe I just don't understand this. So let me summarize my impression of your test, and please correct me.

Most relevant to me, you made a direct clone of your HDD to your SSD. It booted in 41s. You then did the following optimizations:
1) Disabled Superfetch
2) Disabled Defrag
3) Disabled Drive Indexing
4) set drive sleep time to Never

and this dropped your boot time to 9s.

EDIT: I just did all of these things, one at a time with a reboot after each to test the time. It made no difference. It takes me about 42s to get to desktop.

 

42 secs is too long unless you have a lot of drivers and/or apps that preload before the logon screen. Did you check your alignment?

EDIT to add:
Bear in mind that the installation was fresh with drivers only, and no added 3rd party apps or fonts. In real use, my two primary computers after 1 year of use and many installed apps (Vegas, Sound Forge, Corel Paint Shop, MS Office, utilities, benchmarking tools, &etc - boot time is 17 seconds for both an AMD 920 quad and AMD FX-8150 OctoMonster. Both systems do not have identical apps and one is DDR2 while the other is DDR3.
END EDIT

Yes, boot dropped to NINE SECONDS. I got video, of the 9 secs. I did not count the few seconds of BIOS in that number. I didn't count BIOS time in the 41 seconds, either. I count from end of BIOS to desktop with no spinning blue circle. So if you want to add a few seconds for BIOS to the boot time, add it to both numbers.

edit to add: maybe you have a ton of fonts?

 

41 secs does indeed seem very long, it takes my laptop about 27 secs including POST to boot to usable desktop and i have a ton of stuff running, superfetch, indexing, etc are all enabled as well. That is on SATA II.

 

Well, I was timing from pressing the power button.

How do I check my alignment? (I do not have any additional fonts installed).

 

My 27 secs are from pressing the power button, but it's possible that POST on your laptop is long. You can use diskpart to check.

Load the command prompt as an admin

Type

Diskpart
list disk
select disk n (n is the # associated with your SSD)
list partition
look at the offset numbers, if you can divide them by 4096 bytes, your SSD is aligned.

 

Offsets:
1024 KB
301 MB
225 GB
237 GB

OK, I'm embarrassed to admit that I can only do the first one.
4096 b = 4KB which dives evenly into 1024 KB.

 

301MB*1024*1024/4096= 77056 (aligned).
225GB *1024*1024*1024/4096 = 58982400.
I'll let you do the other math. As long as there are no decimals, it's aligned.

 

They all check out. I also cleaned up my computer a lot. Deleting unused programs, turning off unnecessary services. No help. Any other ideas?