My first SSD just came in the mail today...

It appears my post somehow didn't appear? Uhh well I was asking whether or not there's anything I need to do special to make sure Windows installs correctly optimized and everything. Or, is there anything I should know about SSD maintenance that's different than for a normal HDD.

 

If you do a clean install, windows 7 will set everything that needs to be set automatically. Afterwards, do not defrag the SSD and you should be good. There are other tweaks you can do, but they aren't needed.

 

Ok thanks =D. Windows default settings wouldn't automatically defrag right? I know in the past there was a way to set it to defrag once a month or so, but I don't remember where those settings are or if they're default.

 

win7 will not schedule defrag on the drive if it see it is a SSD.

Yet another victim of SSD, probably no turning back.

 

You should still check if defrag is turned off, it will WRECK an SSD.

 

Hi.

I just did a fresh install on my new ssd and scheduled defag was still enabled.

John.

 

On a clean install win7 will turn off defrag by default, but it doesn't hurt to check that it is turned off.

This cannot be overstated.

That is strange, did you use the recovery discs or a windows dvd/usb?

 

I can confirm that it was defaulted left on. Thanks for the tip, I wouldn't have checked otherwise :/

 

LOL. Now I'm scared getting an SSD since I haven't had one before. Maybe I should take it slow and get an mSATA SSD first.

 

Doesn't matter which SSD, everything else will feel slow after you've had a taste of one.

 

Forthcoming msata is advertising 2.5" SATA3 speed,or "normal speed".

 

What are peoples' thoughts on disabling the page file when using an SSD? I have 8GB of RAM, so that's never an issue.

 

typically ,we(as in most people) would suggest constrain the size, but not turning it off all together. I believe it is 800mb min for it able to create a dump?, not sure but it should tell you when you try to set the minimum.

Some program may require a larger min. Also should have some threads around here.(actually alot)

 

when i had 8gb, i use to have it disabled and i had no problems, though i have heard that photoshop and some other programs need it to be enabled.

John.

 

Ahh well I don't use photoshop so I think I'll leave it disabled unless some program I try to run demands a page file be enabled.

 

Older versions of PS wanted teh swap file, newer ones don't really care, Dawn of War II also freaks out if it doesn't have a 1.5GB page file. Personally, i'd set the size manually, min to something like 256MB and max to 4 or 8GB. Since you don't need it it will never go past 256MB and should you need it, you'll at least have it instead of having a program crash on you.

 

On my R2 with 16 GB RAM, I set minimum 64 MB and 1024 MB max, haven't had an issue yet. In fact that's a setting on all my SSD machines.

 

I've had this happen most of the time I've done an (clean) install on an SSD. Even after running WEI, defrag usually stays enabled on the SSD. Maybe I have bad luck, but I always check to make sure.

 

What does that have to do with anything except giving you an idea how fast Windows thinks your drive is?

 

Some people report that running the WEI "kick-starts" Windows recognizing the fact there is an SSD, and thus disabling defrag. No idea if this is in fact true since, as I said, no system I've ever put one in disabled defrag.

And I agree the WEI is useless as far as real benchmarking.

 

Nope. It's not.

vicvelcro helped me debunk the myth that Windows Experience Index (WEI) will tune a system with a newly installed SSD using a CLONED or RESTORED image from a platter based HDD a while back -

 

I read it over engineering w7 blog that windows disables defrag after WEI is run on system.
if the ssd crosses certain score then windows disables the defrag setting.

thats how WEI is coded in windows.

 

Do you need to partition SSDs?

 

Unless you have that first hand from a Microsoft engineer, I'll have to disagree as that is not what we uncovered in testing.

If anyone else is restoring HDD image onto a SSD, would like to run further tests, please let us know your findings.

 

If you want to preserve a little extra space on the SSD, you could create a partition that is slightly smaller than the drive's total space. This way, even if you fill up the partition, the drive retains some open space.

Other than that, there's no real performance benefit one way or another in regards to partitions.

 

I suspected as much...explains why it never did anything. I shall stop that madness now

 

I don't know why folks make such an issue of disabling defrag with SSDs. I've replaced traditional hard drives with SSDs on a desktop and two laptops and every time Windows automatically removed the SSD from the list of drives to be defragged.

Every day I plug in an external SSD on my work desktop to run a virtual machine off of it, and every time I've checked, the SSD has never been added to the list of drives to be defragged.

Either I am really lucky, or there are some people who like to invent issues.

The only case I can think of where I would check to see if Windows will defrag an SSD is if you clone an SSD from a mechanical drive, and I only think this is I've not yet done it and don't know the results.

 

Yes, that is the case I'm talking about here, and was what vicvelcro was able to confirm

I'll update the text to my post in order to clarify, but when defrag is already set up on a platter based HDD, the drive is cloned (or restored from image) from that platter HDD to SSD, the drive remains scheduled, and running Windows Experience Index will not remove it from the list.

 

Thanks for the clarification jclausius.

To no-one in particular, I think the correct recommendation is to "ensure your SSD is not on the list of drives to be defragged" vs. a general statement to disable defrag implying to disable it altogether.

 

Well I only do clean installs (with the exception of ONE system I upgraded to SSD) and like I said, whenever I would check after an install, Windows would still have the SSD on the list to be defragged. This has been across 4-5 completely different systems and of different generations with different SSDs. Now, once it is disabled for the SSD, it doesn't re-enable it so that's fine, just one thing to check when doing a reinstall, that's all.

True, and I think this is what most people mean, even if not strictly what they say. Defrag on the spinners is still fine and even essential some would argue, but the big thing is to make sure the SSD isn't on said list!

 

Scheduled defrag will still be ON. But if you click "select disks" nothing will show (see image below) unless you have an HDD, and nothing will defrag unless it shows and is checked.




Here's my desktop with three drives/partitions, notice C: drive which is SSD is not showing.