New SSD user - what should I know

I'll be getting my new X201 soon and will upgrade it right away to OCZ Vertex2 120GB SSD. This is my first SSD so I'd like to know if there are any "special treatment" I have to do with it? I've heard about "keeping it aligned", "zeroing it in" and so on.... with HDD running FAT32 or NTFS, all I had to do is to defrag it every now and than. What should I do with SSD? Which utilities should I use?

 

do the stuff in below 2 links

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...sd-performance-tips-underperforming-ssds.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-intel-series-4-5-965-chipsets-jjb-tweak.html

and your SSD will be perfect.

P.S : Nver defrag SSD.. You'll spoil your SSD... just search on the forum.. plenty of stuff to do with SSD's..

 

As I'm not after the TOP PERFORMANCE out of my SSD, but more after STABLE perforamnce over time + good battery work-time, I'm not going to apply all of the tweeks (especialy in the second post you suggested). One thing I will do, probably, is to disable swap file in order to limit the ammount of writes my SSD gets.... if I do that, should I be upgrading from 4GB to 8GB memory?

 

If you do a clean install with Windows 7 you'll be fine. Just disable scheduled defrag (sometimes necessary).

If you want to get more performance you can look into the tweaks that Sean posted.

There's no need to upgrade beyond 4GB unless you run applications that actually need it.

 

So I shouldn't disable swap?

 

If you're going to have 4GB of RAM or more, then you don't really need swap, unless a certain program demands it.

There are some write reducing tweaks that can also be made, but aren't necessary. There are a few others that will actually improve boot times as well.

I'm a fan of the new Intel IRST chipset 10.0.0.1043

You can also look at The SSD Optimization Guide | The SSD Review

I initially did all of the changes, but have backed out of over half of them as they don't fit my needs or really don't provide any benefit. I'd be happy to explain which I kept and why.

One thing that can definitely go away is hibernation. Your boot times will be so fast, that hibernation just isn't necessary. Imagine writing 1 or more GB each time you hibernate. Ugh.

 

I did disable swap and never had a problem with it.

It is a good way to reduce writes. But unless you write a lot more than average or plan to use your SSD longer than 5 years, it shouldn't really be necessary to reduce writes.

 

Anseio, I would love to hear what did you leave on.
So it looks like I'll stay with 4GB and upgrade only if needed.

 

SSD Tweaker is quite nice. It can do everything for you.

 

Sorry for taking so long. I once tried SSD tweaker, but it was after I had already made a bunch of changes. Just by launching it, it changed everything back. For that reason, I don't like either it or the IE9 tweaker, which cause me to have to reimage, cuz I didn't have a restore point handy.

Ok, my thoughts on the tweaks from The SSD Optimization Guide | The SSD Review

Note - I have a 2ndary HDD in my optical bay, so that influences some of my choices.

1 - ENSURE YOUR COMPUTER IS OPERATING IN AHCI MODE.
The VAIO F series comes with this mode already enabled. Yippee!

2 - ENSURE CHIPSET DRIVERS ARE UP TO DATE.
This recommended the default MS AHCHI driver over the Intel chipsets. I initially agreed, as the benchmarks were better. After installing the IRST 10.0.0.1043, I changed my mind. It shaved 2 seconds from my boot time.

Pick which driver you're happiest with and go with it.

3 - DISABLE SYSTEM RESTORE.
Bad Bad Bad idea. What will you do if you make a stupid mistake and need to go back? Well, you can create a system image daily onto another drive, but reimaging is a heck of a lot more in writes than saving system restore points. Maybe reduce the amount of drive space down to 2% or something. If you're feeling lucky, disable it, but its benefits to you outweigh the small impact on SSD lifespan.

4 - DISABLE DRIVE INDEXING
I did this one for a while, but I noticed that I wasn't able to search things easily from the Start Menu. I can search from Windows Explorer while Drive Indexing is disabled, but that's not my preference. Again, another tweak that may be overkill. It may be a decent write to make the index, but so long as you don't rebuild it, you're not doing massive writes.

5 - DISABLE DRIVE DEFRAGMENTATION SCHEDULE
Definitely do this one!!!

6 - TURN OFF PAGEFILE
Since you're gonna have 4GB of RAM, you can live without a pagefile, which could cause significant writes. I have to have one, due to Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. So, I have it located on my HDD instead.

7 - TURN OFF HIBERNATION
This is a good idea. Your boot times will be so fast anyway, that hibernating will be less special.

8 - TURN OFF WINDOWS WRITE-CACHE BUFFER FLUSHING…OR NOT
Try this one and benchmark. This tweak did not work for me and my Intel X25-M.

9 - DISABLE PREFETCH AND SUPERFETCH
Good tweak. Speeds up boot time and programs load superfast anyway from the SSD that it doesn't need to be "pre" loaded into RAM and waiting for you.

10 - DISABLE WINDOWS SEARCH AND SUPERFETCH
Disable Superfetch, but I kept Windows Search enabled, as it's needed for indexing.

11 - ENABLE FASTER BOOT THROUGH MSGONFIG
I got rid of the Microsoft GUI and don't mind the black screen during startup. Watch out for this tweak when it tells you to specify cores. It doesn't work, as in no positive impact.

12 - TURN OFF MULTI-BOOT SELECTION
I'm using this. Don't know if it makes a difference though.

13 - DISABLE RECYCLE BIN
They say it's necessary for TRIM to function properly. Any thoughts from others? I have mine disabled.

14 - DECREASE SHUTDOWN TIME
I have done this one too.

15 - VERIFY TRIM
yes.

16 - POWER SETTINGS
Yes, do these too!

17 - DISABLE ‘CLEARPAGEFILEATSHUTDOWN’
AND ‘LARGESYSTEMCACHE‘.
This goes along with disabling the pagefile itself. If you keep the pagefile, then keep this untouched.

18 - NTFS MEMORY USAGE & NTFS DISABLE NAME CREATION
Can't say if this makes a difference either way, but I did it.



So, these were my thoughts from my personal experience with the tweaks. Hope they help you out. I'm open to additional thoughts and clarifications from others.