Windows 7 with Intel X25-M SSD

I just did a fresh install of Windows 7 on a new Intel X25-M SSD drive. I turned off automatic defrag, but is there anything else I can do to optimize Windows with this drive? Thanks in advance.

 

Here are some tweaks:
http://mydellmini.com/forum/windows-7/2441-windows-7-ultimate-solid-state-drive-speed-tweaks.html

 

Read This

 

...and this.

My X18-M is identical to your X25-M, except in physical size.

 

Nice find. This blog entry nullifies many of the tweaks outlined in the URL Jaredy posted.

 

Ya, that's good. Sort of annoying for people who don't like to play around with their computers.

I don't have a page file though usually on my SSDs and I disable the indexing, but it probably doesn't do much in the grand scheme.

 

Indexing is a feature—it’s quite nice being able to click Start, type a word and have Windows spit back every document, email and etcetera that contains it. If you turn this off, you lose this—much like disabling System Restore also disables the Previous Versions feature.

 

I know it is a feature. I don't use it or want it running.

 

Exactly! Hey, do you have the Intel Gen 2 drive yet?? I thought it wasn't out yet!?

 

The gen2 drives were out late july then pulled then out again. They are in very high demand and hard to get for a good price (near MSRP).

 

Are the second-gen 1.8" drives out yet? Is there ANY distinguishing feature, even part number, to indicate what generation these drives are (since they kept the same model numbers)?

 

They seem to be out of stock for the moment. And yes, they do have a different part number. The X18 G2s are SSDSA1MH080 G2/SSDSA1MH160 G2 while the originals are SSDSA1MH080 G1/SSDSA1MH160 G1.

 

I haven't seen the X18 G2 pop up, just the x25 g2 here and there for much higher pricing than the MSRP.

 

So how are you digging the G2 drive? And what's different again besides the trim feature thanks to Windows 7?

By the way, which program do you recommend for "secure erasing" the Intel SSD...well, I guess any SSD, right? And this will not harm the drive, but somehow make it better by restoring it to factory defauts?? Sorry, I just wanted to check back with you before I did anything crazy. I hadn't done one of these in a while, and as you can see, the Intel almost always runs above spec. That firmware upgrade made a huge difference.

 

http://www.iishacks.com/index.php/2...e-erase-reset-an-intel-solid-state-drive-ssd/

The G2 isn't DRASTICALLY different. It is more optimized and uses higher density chips on it benefiting from the smaller manufacturing process. G2 will be able to support TRIM, which the G1 unfortunately will not support.

Anyways doing a secure erase is not really something to do just to get performance back, though you can certainly do it for that. Because you're just going to wipe all your data and what happens when the drive fills up again? So it isn't really a great process to keep doing. An SSD is going to hit a steady state rate of performance once the drive is filled up so you should eventually just accept the performance it has post factory state. But if you're going to go with windows 7 or something by all means wipe the drive and go for it.

And you of course use a little bit of life of your SSD doing a secure erase, just like if you formatted your drive, etc.

 

Great! Thanks for the advice!

2 reasons I thought I might do the secure erase. For one, to have the drive consistent since I put the firmware upgrade on with the "new writing style". Yes, I have been using Windows 7 x64 since the RTM came out.

The 2nd reason is the fact that I didn't know that I needed to keep 20-30% of it free, while I had it at 95% full for a while.

All of this may be unnecessary. I'll get a G2 eventually anyway. And I might just spring for the X25-E SLC Gen 2. lol...Sound like a plan? lol...

 

I could almost swear the Intels come with extra memory specifically so you don't have to watch your free space.

 

I don't recommend tweaking anything. You have probably the best ssd on the maket that will fit into a laptop, why would you want to settle for lesser functionality of your operating system?

All of the ssd tweaks that I have seen turn off certain windows features supposedly increasing performance. What little performance you may gain from turning off certain features is lost imo by removing the various functions such as paging file, system restore, etc.

 

The intel drives have about 5gigs of free space for buffer. Still isn't ideal to load them up close to capacity.