New to SSD world and XP!!

Hi there,


I would like to get a SSD for the Asus X83vp-A1 that I'm getting. I have plenty of external storages so I don't mind a small SSD. I would like to have the best performance without having to spend tons of money. Xoticpc offers 80GB Intel G2 X25-M Solid State Drive upgrades for around $250. Is this a good upgrade or are there better performance/price SSD's out there? The main thing is I will be running XP professional x64. What should I know about setting up XP properly on SSD?

Thank you

 

I'd say the best SSD currently on the market would be the Intel X25-M 160GB. It's large enough for all your files and programs, whereas you'll find that you'll probably be a little short on space with the 80GB drive, since the OS with shadow copies will probably take up about 30GB, and that leaves you with about 50GB for programs and files, and other media.

The fastest on the market at the moment would be Intel's SSD's, and while they may be expensive they are worth it. Make sure you get a Generation 2 like you are planning, as well, as they have TRIM support (which I don't know whether XP supports it or not), and performance will not degrade over time.

Also, seeing as it is a SATA based SSD, you may have to do the whole slipstreaming SATA drivers with XP using nLite, there is a lot of information about that on the internet.

Also, what is the specific reason why you want to use XP?

 

You don't need to tweak an X25-M. Just install/image XP and go.

Been running XP on an 80GB G1 for half a year now with no problems at all. Yes, you don't get TRIM, but even a degraded X25-M is generally faster than a fresh Indilinx or Samsung.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I have decided to go with Intel 80GB X25-M G2 one. Some of the software that I work with require XP and besides, I just can't seem to like the newer OS like Win7 or Vista. Whenever I have to use them, I end up running all the XP transformation packs. I just like XP! So there is no TRIM support under XP?

Thank you

 

no there's no trim support for an os built around 2000. i really suggest you to take win7 for a month, without any change and configuration, test it out, and where ever you think "huh", ask. so you'll learn what's new and why, and start to fall in love with it.

then, moving back to winxp, you will feel it's uglyness very quickly

 

That's okay, I understand why you would like to use XP, but at least give Windows 7 a try for a month or so. I wasn't used to it when I first installed it, but now it is a my primary OS and I only really use Vista for junk now, and my iTunes collection.

If you have programs that absolutely require XP, you could use XP mode within Windows 7, if you have a processor with Intel's Virtualization Technology.

 

XP works fine with an SSD, and flys.I haven't seen any degradation with my Kingstons built in cleaning.
I suggest you keep using whatever you prefer, just install and go

 

except newer stuff normally means progression => normally means once you step over the hurdle of 'learning and accepting new things', things will get better than they where before. about always.

but yeah, do what you like.

 

I'm fixing to go with the 256GB crucial, and I'm wondering if I plop down this kind of cash on an SSD, how long is it going to last? And would you guys recommend the Crucial drive or the Intel X25-M @ 160GB?

 

intel. always.

 

But I get more capacity with the Crucial. I've read that intel makes the whole drive, even the controller board. Are they really that much better?

 

they're great. better, i don't know, but so far, they're great.

 

Thanks for all the input guys. It's good to know that XP works fine with SSD.
The kids gaming desktop has Windows 7 in it. I wasn't satisfied with the performance, that's all. One of the main reasons why I personally like XP is that it's so much more moddable. My modded XP uses only 60MB and has only 14 processes after boot up. You just can't beat that. As you can tell, I'm into the whole minimalist thing. I don't care much for visuals. It already boots up under 11 seconds in a 7200rpm drive. I can't wait to see it with an SSD. My main work OS is XP x64 which is essentially Windows 2003, very stable platform.

What about maintenance? With traditional HDD, I use defraggers and cleaners. I have read that SSD's don't require any defragging. Is this "degradation" an inevitable part of using SSD's?

Thank you

 

OS preferences aside (I use both of the Windows versions mentioned before, and Vista, and Linux), I had a terrible experience with an early Transcend IDE SSD in my HP zv6123. XP's driver clearly wasn't able to deal with it, random freezes became less and less random, and whatever tweaks I tried were useless. I installed win7 right after the release, and it was a breath of fresh air to such an old machine, never again did I have problems with freezing, stuttering and so on.

Maybe (probably?) that is no longer an issue with more recent SSDs.

You can always install XP and 7 side-by-side though...

 

yutsmail, buy the Intel. The Intel comes with the Intel SSD Toolbox, whose biggest feature is a manual TRIM for users of XP and Vista. Problem solved if you're worried about degradation (that said, Intel made their SSDs pretty resilient to degradation). To be fair, Indillix drives have programs for manual trimming and Samsung has robust garbage collection on top of Trim... but the users in the SSD megathread have said both are kinda hit or miss.

XP is fine. I actually used XP x64 for a while. If that's what you want, go for it. Just be warned that it seems like that once Vista x64 (let alone W7 x64) hit semi-mainstream (all those Dell systems that shipped with like 6GB of Ram came with Vista x64) support by software and hardware companies for XPx64 disappeared. As if it was big to begin with If what you have totally runs it though, awesome. It's plenty stable.

Only problem I see is XP works best when you align your partitions to a certain size... wish I remembered the details. I heard this in the megathread and am passing it on in hopes someone else who knows more than me would help you. Incidentally, Vista and 7 both do the partition alignment thing automatically.

Funny story, I hated Vista and my hands on with W7 beta wasn't spectacular. I'm a creature of habit. XP was great and I bought my Thinkpad with XP installed. I went to a launch party/convention/whatever for Server 2008 ("Heroes Happen Here") and the goodie bag included a Vista Ultimate license. That sat collecting dust for half a year. Why I didn't use it for a coaster I'll never know. When I bought my Intel, I wanted to do a complete clean install. The Lenovo XP restore disc would have been fine, but I didn't want to need to tweek the thing. I wanted 7, but when it came down to it the T500 and T400 do not play nice with Windows 7. STILL. But the Vista drivers run great. Hence now I am a Vista user.

 

Good choice; LaptopGun is on the gun with the point about only the Intel SSDs supporting TRIM on XP (and, unbeknownst to me, only after the first generation). Also good choice buying it from somewhere that tells you which exact SSD it is; we aren't at the point yet where you can buy any SSD and assume similar performance.

Well said. "Better" is subjective, too, for that matter. And it's the sum of everything that decides what's better for the consumer. Even if we accept that Windows 7's search and whatnot is better than XP's, there may be other factors that outweigh that, and incompatible software is certainly an important factor. For a lot of people Windows 7 will be an excellent home OS. But Microsoft will never be able to create a version of Windows that is better than a previous one for every user.

I decided to give Vista the try back in 2007, and ran it for five months exclusively. I probably spent more time trying to fix computer problems in those five months than I have in the rest of my life, and to no avail. Vista just didn't play nice with my software or even my "Designed for Windows Vista" hardware. Then I switched to XP, and all the problems were gone or reduced to the point of being non-issues. I tried Windows 7 while it was in the beta stage, but the same old issues recurred - the architectural changes from XP to Vista were still in Windows 7, and there was no way around them if I went with Vista or 7. For my current hardware and software set, XP is a better choice than either Vista or 6.1 (Seven). Sure, I miss out on a few Windows 7 features that are improvements in my eye (and a few that aren't improvements to me). But I get what I need to work, working, and that's far more important.

The other great thing about XP is that it's been around long enough to have a large repertoire of compatible tweaks and modding software. Some of this is fairly dependent on how XP works, and isn't available for Vista/7. So in some ways I actually have more functionality integrated into my OS in XP, thanks to third-party extensions, than I would have in Vista/7. Examples of these include the nView Desktop Manager (available for Quadro on XP/Vista/7, but only XP for GeForce), the XP Powertoys, and (although this may have been updated) Taskix.