Finally bit the SSD bullet.

just received my Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD, so i'll be going through the whole installation process soon.

stupid movers left my Sager laptop box (with all the CD's) at my old house so i gotta figure out a way to obtain Win7 Premium and my activation code first. -_-

wish me luck! any help or directions would be greatly appreciated! i'm pretty stoked.

does anyone know where i can download a legit version of Win7 Premium? i contacted XoticPC and they can send me a Win7 DVD for $15 + tax/shipping. i really don't feel like paying for some bs like that.

i contacted Microsoft, directly, and the agent i spoke with was a complete derp. all he did was kept pushing me to buy a new product. the moron didn't help at all.

 

Read this. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=9770810

For windows 7, search http://forums.mydigitallife.info/forums/16-Windows-7?

 

You may want to rethink your EVO purchase.

See:
Samsung 840 EVO read speed drops on old-written data in the drive

 

I use this
Windows 7 Direct Download Links, Official Disk Images from Digital River

 

+1

EVO is the worst SSD one could buy as a main drive

I have the 1TB mSATA 840 EVO only as a storage device for videos, mp3s, pics, etc.

but for an OS drive, after having have tried it on my previous 1TB 840 EVO it was the worst performing SSD I ever purchased. It shines in benchmarks only when you *first* get it then performance starts to take a big hit slowing down by up to 70% in some cases. Return it ASAP and get an MLC SSD such as the 850 PRO 256GB which is for $200 USD or if that's too much for your budget, you can get the Crucial MX100 256GB which would give you better reliability, sustained speeds, better warranty, and a better drive all round for cheaper

 

I would not worry about that, people just need to maintain their hardware, nothing new there.

Edit. When I mean people, I mean Samsung, a firmware likely will fix this since its a new known issue and not something that was covered up

 

Belarc Advisor will tell you the activation key. Look under software after running it. Then write it down for the new install.

Belarc Advisor - Free Personal PC Audit, for software, hardware and security configuration information on your computer. Software license management, IT asset management, cyber security audits, and more.

 

Congrats with your SSD.
Same drive as I got. Very snappy and Im pleased with it

 

appreciate all the help guys. i'll be starting "the process" later tonight. i gotta find my USB drive too. i have no idea where i put that thing.

too long to read...

this is my first SSD so i didn't feel like going for "top of the line". i went with Samsung for it's stellar reviews and name brand -- in case i needed to go through any RMA'ing. i just needed my NP8850 to last me another 6-12 months, so i wanted to give it some new life by upgrading it's HDD. as long as the performance is "noticeably/significantly" better than the original HDD then i'll be happy. i'll grab the Samsung 850 PRO for my next build/laptop.

 

Dont worry, it will be miles faster than a HDD anyway.
EVO series from Samsung is well proven and one of the fastest drives out there, although 250GB is noticable slower than the 500GB and 1TB. Still very fast though

 

By the time that ssd feels slow or dead, pcie will be out and 5x faster

 

In sequential bandwidth maybe but not single queue random operations which dictates much of a consumer workloads, for that to improve, an evolution of the NAND is required, 3d Stacked NAND looks promising atm but the real breakthrough will be stuff like memristors.

 

Too long to read? Hmmm, okay.

The short version: speeds down to ~30MB/s for 'older' files. Yeah; below HDD speeds. But a free program like MyDefrag run on the Data Monthly defrag schedule brings the performance up to where is should be: ~450MB/s.


Why do I keep my EVO's? Maybe because I've been defragging them with PerfectDisk for the last few years already.

 

is there a tutorial on how to set my windows into AHCI mode? is this done before or after the actual SSD install?

also, could u define "older" files? like, files that have been on my system for a certain amount of days or a file that's from 5+ years ago?

 

Go into the BIOS to enable AHCI mode before you do a clean install.

Older files as affected in that thread: 2 months or older.

 

how do i do that? i don't think i've ever accessed my BIOS. can that be accessed through the dos prompt or at pre-bootup?

 

I don't personally know your specific model of notebook, but when the computer is rebooting, try repeatedly hitting the F1, DEL, F2 or F10 button (try each one by itself, of course to find which one works for your notebook).


With Windows 8/8.1 see 'Accessing UEFI BIOS' in the link below:

See:
How To Access The BIOS On A Windows 8 Computer


I highly recommend Windows 8.1 x64 Update 1 for a new install in late 2014 - especially with an SSD.

 

i just got done installing the SSD and DAMN! it's fast. i'm going through all the Windows updates and installs at the moment. after that, i'll be doing all the SSD tweaks that were suggested. i hope all goes well. i'm stoked so far.

i got bored while waiting for the updates to get done, so i did a speed test since i was hardwired to my router at the moment. lovely lovely speeds.

 

it looks like i missed the part where i was supposed to do the over partition thingy. i don't remember seeing any options for me to do that during the install. was it the part where it asked me where i wanted to install my Windows on?

can i go back and do the partition without having to do another clean install of Win7?

 

Go to windows disk manager and reside the partition. Leave the rest partitioned at the end of the drive. I would leave 26gb at the end

 

can u be a bit more descriptive? i went into the disk manager but i'm not sure what to do next. when i right click the C drive icon, the 'format' option isn't clickable.

 

In Disk Management, click on the C: drive partition, right click and select Shrink Volume.

Take the Total Size Before Shrink in MB's and multiply by 0.30 for a 30% OP.

Enter that in the Enter Amount to of Space to Shrink in MB's cell. Click Shrink.


After the volume has been shrunk, I would create a new partition on the new 'unallocated' space, format it and leave the computer idle for at least an hour (make sure you disable sleep and hibernate). After the time is up, delete the new partition you created and just finished formatting and leave the space as 'unallocated' again.

This will clean the nand in your 'unallocated' portion of the drive and give you all the benefits of a properly OP'd setup.


Next time you do a clean install; do the above in the Advanced section of Windows Setup when you pick the Drive to install to (I would delete ALL partitions and create a new one from scratch).

 

i'm having a few hiccups after the clean install. i can't seem to get my wireless adapter to work for some reason. i don't even see my Intel 6300 wifi card in the device manager. i can't seem to connect to anything bluetooth either. u guys have any clue? do i need to try to contact XoticPC for a driver package? when i click on 'update driver', it says that my stuff is already up to date. i'm having to sit on the floor next to my router right now because i have to stay hardwired in to get online. sigh.

my C: drive is reading 232GB. do i calculate 20% of that or 20% of 250GB for the partitioning? i might do 25%. will that suffice?

what the heck is up with all these weird devices that need troubleshooting???

 

Network Controller = Intel 6300.

My guess is that you're missing the chipset driver, and possibly whatever card readers the machine - which I'm completely unfamiliar with - has.

Good luck.

 

you need to go to your laptop's manufacturer, then to your model number of your laptop then download all the drivers from there......

one would start by the following order usually.....

Intel Chipset Software
USB Drivers
IRST (Intel Rapid Storage Technology) [only install the driver by manually pointing the AHCI/IDE controller in the device manager to update from the folder of where the drivers are located, no need to install the full IRST app if you are not on RAID 0)
IMEI (Intel Management Engine Interface)
VGA
Audio
LAN
WLAN
Card Reader
Touchpad
ETC

 

i went to XoticPC and got all the drivers right after i made that last post. it looks like everything is working fine now. the last thing i gotta do is the partition thing and hopefully that's it. if my C: drive is reading 232GB, that means that Samsung has already setup a small partition, correct? i'm not too sure on how big to make the partition.

the performance boost has been VERY nice since last night. i appreciate all of u guys helping me. i repped some already and will rep the rest when i can. many, many thanks bruhz!

 

Even if you don't do any optimization, the performance would be mind blowing and like a night and day difference coming from an HDD.

That doesn't mean you cannot improve things further

 

232GB is the real capacity, just like it's being advertised that DVD has 4.7GBs, but in reality you can only write ~4.3GB. It's that "1024 thing."

 

Welcome to the world of SSDs. Once you enter you can never go back

 

so it sounds like downloading a defragging program would be beneficial? what's a preferred program -- preferably free i don't mind some monthly maintenance at all. is that the suggested maintenance cycle?

i might go download a benchmarking program to see if my SSD went as good as my laptop feels right now. i've never ran a hard drive benchmark before lol.

i'll get back with u on the teamviewer thing. i've been a bit busy.

appreciate it and appreciate everyone else's help. i couldn't have done it without u guys.

 

PerfectDisk hands down. tilleroftheearth will back me up on this one

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...-optimization-perfect-disk-vs-o-o-defrag.html

 

houstoned,

You really should go to that thread I linked and sign up at overclock.net. That way, you'll be able to download custom programs that show you the issue directly (without writing needless data to your drive - they simply read files and calculate the speed vs. the age of the files).

The two programs that are in that thread are the File Bench program and the SSDReadSpeedTester program.

The recommended (in that thread) defragger is MyDefrag.

See:
Download and install


Read the thread above, of course... but the defrag option you want to choose is the Data Disk Monthly defrag option.


There are a few posts that even data newer than 30 days has slowed down a lot (and defragging helped with MyDefrag).


From my testing on my systems, I would be returning the EVO at this time (yeah; they're that bad).


Edit: The normal benchmark programs that you will be recommended to run do not show the issue; they create new files and read them back, so they are not 'old' files to exhibit the issue at hand. Simply ignore them (they will simply show how great the SSD is).

 

Computers calculate via the power of 2's, while manufacturers use the power of 10's. Hence 1024 GB vs 1000 GB is the discrepancy in "1 TB".

Every since the Intel X25-M came out, I get SSDs for all my computers. It really is true.

 

I agree that PerfectDisk 13 Professional is the only one I would recommend to buy, but MyDefrag seems to be the better solution for the issue that is plaguing TLC drives like the EVO and original 840 from Samsung (both TLC nand based).

 

Can you please explain why is that and how it does so?

I have PD 13 Pro installed ATM

Now I do have two 256GB 850 PROs setup in RAID 0 where I install all my apps + games + Windows and my 1TB 840 EVO mSATA is where I keep my docs, music, pics, videos......

 

Ferris23,

MyDefrag with the Data Disk Monthly routine is better for the issue the Samsung TLC nand drives are exhibiting (slow reads for old files) because it more completely forces a rewrite of all data and that is what makes the files 'new' again. This brings their speeds from lows of 10MB/s or slower to over 450MB/s or even 500MB/s as they should be.

With PerfectDisk, it has a lot smarter algorithm and doesn't move the files if they don't need to be moved. All files are defragged much better than with MyDefrag, but that doesn't help with the issue of the old files needing to be rewritten so that they're 'new' again to the TLC controller/nand.

Did I explain that well enough?


I have been defragging my SSD's for a couple of years now, and I see that the issue isn't simply one of excess fragments (at least on the EVO's I have).


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...64-smartplacement-defragging-perfectdisk.html


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...pace-does-not-equal-op-space.html#post9743244

 

thank you for the simple explanation bro......but doesn't that cause a huge amount of re-writes? Since the data I have on the mSATA EVO is like 300 GB

 

Here is a good link to a 1TB EVO SSD that shows just how slow the Samsung TLC drives can get.

See:
Read speeds dropping dramatically on older files; benchmarks needed to confirm affected SSDs - Page 3

Note: 70 Minutes to read ~345GB... and 227 MB/s average read speed.



After a MyDefrag run:

See:
Read speeds dropping dramatically on older files; benchmarks needed to confirm affected SSDs - Page 4


~14 Minutes to read the same data and note the Actual Average read speed of 524MB/s in the graph. A five times improvement in responsiveness.


I feel like junking all the 1TB EVO's I have bought and boycotting Samsung once again (always said they felt slow to me...).

 

Yes, it needs to, to fix the TLC issue. But I'm not worried about how long an SSD lasts - I care about getting the performance they PROMISE.

 

I had two 1TB 840 EVOs before these PROs, they only lasted in my laptop for 2 weeks then I sold them, I felt they were the slowest SSDs I've owned in real life. Even my LiteOn 256GB SSD that came with my previous ASUs G750JX laptop was more reliable and never gave me lower performance than when I had it on day one even without OP as I didn't know about OPing back then....

I just keep the mSATA 1TB 840 EVO just for the sake of filling up that mSATA slot nothing more nothing less.

EVO = teh fail

 

What fooled me to keep them past the return period was they are the snappiest SSD's I've used.

But as I keep trying to tell people here; snappy is not equivalent to fast.

 

oh during the first week, yes, they were snappy as heck......then I copy a large file from the first 840 EVO to the 2nd 840 EVO @ a snail pace 170MB/S....not enough for meh......give meh the PROI

I remember when you used to advice me back then to get the SanDisk Extreme II if I want consistent performance but I never listened to j00 and went with the EVO

But the reason I didn't get the SandDisk Exteme II now was because of the 850 PRO which is the new performance king

 

With 170MB/s I would have been happy - but I was getting less than 5-6 MB/s while I was setting the system up (copying a huge amount of data to it - it is 1TB after all, right). I wrote it off as the pseudo SLC junk trying to keep up to my NAS. And since it seemed to improve after I let it idle overnight, I thought it was fine for use as a very low (performance) level workload drive. And it was snappy!

What worries me now is that with reads in the less than 10MB range on the EVO (see that linked thread), could it fail completely to read the data at all?


Someone on that thread is convinced that a firmware update is guaranteed to fix this issue. I don't have such high hopes.

Samsung is not known (to me) as a supplier of quality products... unfortunately, I didn't heed my own gut instinct with this model. sigh.

 

dammit . . .

woke up this morning to a message saying that my Windows was not genuine???

first time i've ever gotten this message on any of my devices, so i'm tryin to figure out wth to do now. i chatted Microsoft and they were useless. now i'm trying to get ahold of XoticPC to see if they can provide my CD-KEY for me. the process that u guys helped me with only got my Product Key and supposedly that's not good enough for Microsoft to help me.

 

Is there nothing on the backside of the computer or under the battery? You might also want to check all of the documentation that came with the system, DVD sleeves, Quick start guides etc.

 

long story short: crappy movers. they left alot of crap at my old house including my laptop's box that had all the OEM contents inside of it.

there's a 15-digit product key on the bottom of the laptop. i need the CD-KEY on the CD's sleeve. i think they said it's supposed to be 12 digits. i've been trying to contact XoticPC.com via live chat and was unsuccessful today. will email them tomorrow and try again.

 

Mine is 25 characters separated with a dash every 5, ?????-?????...

 

Solved yet? If not, go here Belarc Advisor - Free Personal PC Audit, for software, hardware and security configuration information on your computer. Software license management, IT asset management, cyber security audits, and more. Download Belarc Advisor, install, update, run. It will open in your browser. Scroll down to Software Licenses. The key will be there.

 

I thought 256 would be enough, just the other day i had to debate what games to uninstall to get a new game lol. 512 it is for me next time