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Migrating to an SSD



 
 
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  #31  
Old March 25th 12, 12:42 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
dweebken[_2_]
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Posts: 59
Default Migrating to an SSD

On 25/03/2012 9:34 AM, Drew wrote:
My ssd scores a 7.2

My SSD scores 7.5 on a laptop on the WEI.
Ads
  #32  
Old March 25th 12, 03:29 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Allen Drake
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Posts: 451
Default Migrating to an SSD

On Sat, 24 Mar 2012 23:47:36 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

On 24/03/2012 6:49 PM, Allen Drake wrote:
Follow The Below Steps To Increase The Life of Your SSD Drives On
Windows 7

http://www.computerforums.org/forums...-a-208106.html


This guide is a year old so I would suggest reading as much as
possible from different authors.


Although there is some good info here, it sounds like he's just giving
general advice on how to improve Windows responsiveness. My
understanding is that SSD's are pretty sensitive to writes, but there's
never a problem with reading from an SSD. But this article seems to give
advice on how to minimize reads too.

Yousuf Khan


I think at this early stage everything that is out there is mostly
speculation and simply conversations. It seems that using multiple
drives would be good plan in any event. I have always had external
drives attached for files I rarely use and a small fast drive for
system files. I have also read that when an SSD fails it will only be
readable which is fine with me. If an HDD fails most of the time you
are completely unable to access the files. Also I have seen some
compare the SSD to a flash drive that has lasted far longer then any
HDD that has been accessed as many times. It seems that a good backup
plan is always the bottom line. Using motherboards that has SATA III
speeds will also be a good idea. I just bought a Crucial Adrenaline
Solid State Cashe
http://www.crucial.com/store/ssc.asp...e=pd_google_us

This might actually be a better choice than a stand alone SSD.

  #33  
Old March 25th 12, 04:35 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul
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Posts: 18,275
Default Migrating to an SSD

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Yousuf Khan
writes:
On 24/03/2012 6:28 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
When it is said that they "are a good host" or "not so good", is that in
terms of performance, or longevity? I'd have thought that in terms of
performance, even if non-optimal, having almost any file on an SSD would
be better; but I could also believe that certain much-written files
would significantly shorted the life of the SSD, especially if not
optimised (is that what this "Trim" thing is about?).


Yeah, longevity is my major concern here too, so should I avoid
putting anything that has too much writing happening to it? As for
Trim, it's a command that tells the SSD that a sector is no longer in
use, so it can go in and erase that area during idle moments in the
background.

Yousuf Khan


I'm not understanding what you mean by "erase" here. Are SSDs different
in some way, i. e. aren't bits erased anyway when overwritten?


In flash, a block consists of perhaps 64 pages.

Erasure (i.e. preparing for write) is done on blocks. The entire
block is erased. But you can write new data into a freshly erased
block, in units of pages. A page might be 2KB, a block 128KB, so
there are 64 pages per block. Page size and block size change
as the flash gets smaller geometry cells and higher chip densities.

The drive works most efficiently, if you need to write block-sized
things. Writing "small things", smaller than the block size, leads
to "write amplification". Write amplification refers to needing to
erase and rewrite major portions of a block. This article has some
nice pictures, showing how the SSD controller works behind the
scenes, to get the best usage from the flash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification

Paul
  #34  
Old March 25th 12, 05:56 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)
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Posts: 5,291
Default Migrating to an SSD

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

[]
I'm not understanding what you mean by "erase" here. Are SSDs different
in some way, i. e. aren't bits erased anyway when overwritten?


Having read further - the answer to my question is yes. Writing can only
be done to erased blocks, unlike in a conventional drive; thus when
files are erased (or rewritten, meaning the old data is erased), in an
SSD the controller has to go around afterwards actually erasing - it's
not just a matter of modifying the directory file. (Directory files
themselves have to be treated in this manner too.)
[]
The drive works most efficiently, if you need to write block-sized
things. Writing "small things", smaller than the block size, leads
to "write amplification". Write amplification refers to needing to


I suppose we're stuck with it now, but whoever invented that phrase
should be ...

erase and rewrite major portions of a block. This article has some
nice pictures, showing how the SSD controller works behind the
scenes, to get the best usage from the flash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification

[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"He hasn't one redeeming vice." - Oscar Wilde
  #35  
Old March 25th 12, 07:19 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Tom Del Rosso[_2_]
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Posts: 8
Default Migrating to an SSD


Allen Drake wrote:
You can simply clone your system drive as I did at first when I
upgraded all my systems but that is not always the best option. You
need to know about SSD partition alignment
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...alignment.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...ndows-7-a.html


Cloning can create a new partition instead of using the existing one,
depending on what cloning tool you use.


--

Reply in group, but if emailing add one more
zero, and remove the last word.


  #36  
Old March 25th 12, 09:05 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul
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Posts: 18,275
Default Migrating to an SSD

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:


to "write amplification". Write amplification refers to needing to


I suppose we're stuck with it now, but whoever invented that phrase
should be ...


Write amplification covers the situation where a portion of a block
needs to be copied to a new block, because the block erasure operation
would take out both unused space, and space that is still used.
It's effectively read-modify-write, but using a new block that may
have been erased when the drive was quiet. By keeping a pool of
erased blocks, you don't have to pay for the erasure delay
while a sustained copy is taking place. If you'd used up all the
erased blocks, then you'd have to erase some while attempting to
complete a transfer.

Paul
  #37  
Old March 25th 12, 09:21 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Allen Drake
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Posts: 451
Default Migrating to an SSD

On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:19:06 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
wrote:


Allen Drake wrote:
You can simply clone your system drive as I did at first when I
upgraded all my systems but that is not always the best option. You
need to know about SSD partition alignment
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...alignment.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...ndows-7-a.html


Cloning can create a new partition instead of using the existing one,
depending on what cloning tool you use.


Exactly and depending on how you have that application set up. All in
all I have been satisfied with the speed of my SSDs as I gradually
replaced the HDDs and had no idea of the alignment issue until I
stumbled on some threads related to that subject. I plan on a clean
install of Windows 7 to new SSDs sometime soon. That will take care
of any misalignment.
The biggest gain I see in speed are the systems that actually have
SATA III motherboards.

  #38  
Old March 25th 12, 09:30 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Loren Pechtel[_2_]
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Posts: 18
Default Migrating to an SSD

On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 11:28:04 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

1. The software (ssd-life) doesn't actually do any tests; it just
reports SMART data from the drive in a friendly way (including making
note if you run it two or more times and predicting a life from that).


I don't think it needs two or more times, it's just a simple
extrapolation of life used vs time in service.

2. I hope I've got this wrong, but it seems to imply that once an SSD
has reached the end of its life, which seems to be decided _by the SSD
itself_, it switches to read-only.


Yup. When it considers all sectors to have reached their write limit
is no longer has anyplace to write to and it becomes read only.
  #39  
Old March 25th 12, 09:30 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Loren Pechtel[_2_]
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Posts: 18
Default Migrating to an SSD

On Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:38:50 -0500, "BillW50" wrote:

In ,
Loren Pechtel wrote:
They've been in use for a year now and I've managed to write so much
to the 128gb one that it's life is down to 99%. The 256gb is still at
100%.


What are you using that tells you what the wear level is?


SSD-Life.
  #40  
Old March 25th 12, 09:30 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Loren Pechtel[_2_]
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Posts: 18
Default Migrating to an SSD

On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 09:48:43 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

Yeah, longevity is my major concern here too, so should I avoid putting
anything that has too much writing happening to it? As for Trim, it's a
command that tells the SSD that a sector is no longer in use, so it can
go in and erase that area during idle moments in the background.

Yousuf Khan


I'm not understanding what you mean by "erase" here. Are SSDs different
in some way, i. e. aren't bits erased anyway when overwritten?


With a spinning drive you simply write new values into the magnetic
domains, the old values are irrelevant. SSDs don't work that way,
though. You can only write 1s to a block, a zero can't be written.
Instead you have to erase the whole block--and erasing a block makes
spinning drives look downright speedy.

If the block consists of all zeroes it can be written rapidly. If
there are 1s in the way you have to copy everything out of the block,
erase it and then write the good data back.

Thus the drive maintains a pool of empty blocks to be used for writes,
blocks that are released are queued for erasing as the drive gets the
time to do so. If you manage to write so much to the drive that you
deplete this pool you'll see your write performance plunge until it
catches up.

The drive maintains the pool by two methods. Part of it is that the
drive is actually a bit bigger than they tell you. If the drive is
listed at 100gb it's probably something like 105gb in reality. The
second part of it is the TRIM command. Windows tells the drive what
areas aren't being used, the drive can respond by erasing them against
future need. This is why TRIM support is considered a very good
thing.
  #41  
Old March 25th 12, 09:30 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Loren Pechtel[_2_]
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Posts: 18
Default Migrating to an SSD

On Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:34:47 -0700, Drew
wrote:

On 3/24/2012 2:28 PM, Loren Pechtel wrote:
On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:20:48 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

Okay, got myself an SSD now. So I want to migrate my Windows boot drive
to it. I have access to a couple of cloning utils that can properly copy
system disks and make them bootable, so that's not a problem. However,
I'm wondering if it's really that simple? I understand that there are
some tuning that needs to be done to SSD's, such as setting its cluster
sizes, etc. Also there is something called TRIM support that Windows 7
needs to implement. Is this something that's built into Windows 7 right
away, or is it something that needs to be installed? Anything else?


Windows 7 supports trim, no problem.

The issue that matters is that a simple copy onto the drive will
produce a misaligned layout that will be bad for performance. There
are programs out there that will take a drive and correctly align the
data, I have never looked into them.


Not trying to be argumentative but wondering where you got that info. My
ssd scores a 7.2 (older motherboard does not support higher speeds) on
the WEI and I would think that is pretty good for a 6 year old system. I
am running a Intel 320 series 120gig drive and my old Intel x25 40 gig
had the same score. Running any programs or even everything open and
doing any work is like changing channels on a tv, it is instantaneous.


The alignment problem only affects writes.
  #42  
Old March 25th 12, 11:12 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)
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Posts: 5,291
Default Migrating to an SSD

In message , Paul writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:


to "write amplification". Write amplification refers to needing to


I suppose we're stuck with it now, but whoever invented that phrase
should be ...


Write amplification covers the situation where a portion of a block
needs to be copied to a new block, because the block erasure operation
would take out both unused space, and space that is still used.
It's effectively read-modify-write, but using a new block that may
have been erased when the drive was quiet. By keeping a pool of
erased blocks, you don't have to pay for the erasure delay
while a sustained copy is taking place. If you'd used up all the
erased blocks, then you'd have to erase some while attempting to
complete a transfer.

Paul


It wasn't the concept I object to, it's the name. Whoever called it
"amplification" wasn't an electronic engineer.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"He hasn't one redeeming vice." - Oscar Wilde
  #43  
Old March 26th 12, 12:02 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Tom Del Rosso[_2_]
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Posts: 8
Default Migrating to an SSD


Allen Drake wrote:
On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:19:06 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
Cloning can create a new partition instead of using the existing
one, depending on what cloning tool you use.


Exactly and depending on how you have that application set up. All in
all I have been satisfied with the speed of my SSDs as I gradually
replaced the HDDs and had no idea of the alignment issue until I
stumbled on some threads related to that subject. I plan on a clean
install of Windows 7 to new SSDs sometime soon. That will take care
of any misalignment.
The biggest gain I see in speed are the systems that actually have
SATA III motherboards.


I mean you can follow the instructions to create an alligned partition and
it's all for nothing. I think Acronis can do what you want, although I'm
not sure how to verify that other than by dumping the MBR before and after
the clone to see if the table changed.


--

Reply in group, but if emailing add one more
zero, and remove the last word.


  #44  
Old March 26th 12, 12:59 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Allen Drake
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 451
Default Migrating to an SSD

On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 19:02:35 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
wrote:


Allen Drake wrote:
On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:19:06 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
Cloning can create a new partition instead of using the existing
one, depending on what cloning tool you use.


Exactly and depending on how you have that application set up. All in
all I have been satisfied with the speed of my SSDs as I gradually
replaced the HDDs and had no idea of the alignment issue until I
stumbled on some threads related to that subject. I plan on a clean
install of Windows 7 to new SSDs sometime soon. That will take care
of any misalignment.
The biggest gain I see in speed are the systems that actually have
SATA III motherboards.


I mean you can follow the instructions to create an alligned partition and
it's all for nothing. I think Acronis can do what you want, although I'm
not sure how to verify that other than by dumping the MBR before and after
the clone to see if the table changed.


You can use the DISKPART command to determine the alignment.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

https://www.equallogic.com/uploadedF...R1012_v2-0.pdf

http://lifehacker.com/5837769/make-s...ve-performance

  #45  
Old March 26th 12, 03:42 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul
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Posts: 18,275
Default Migrating to an SSD

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:


to "write amplification". Write amplification refers to needing to

I suppose we're stuck with it now, but whoever invented that phrase
should be ...


Write amplification covers the situation where a portion of a block
needs to be copied to a new block, because the block erasure operation
would take out both unused space, and space that is still used.
It's effectively read-modify-write, but using a new block that may
have been erased when the drive was quiet. By keeping a pool of
erased blocks, you don't have to pay for the erasure delay
while a sustained copy is taking place. If you'd used up all the
erased blocks, then you'd have to erase some while attempting to
complete a transfer.

Paul


It wasn't the concept I object to, it's the name. Whoever called it
"amplification" wasn't an electronic engineer.


OK, gotcha. Maybe "really bad writing method" covers it :-)

Still waiting for the memristors. We need competition.

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Art...sd-in-2013.htm

Paul
 




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