Does Macrium free 5 know about SSDs?

If I image a system from HD, then restore it to SSD, will it give the
option to optimise for the latter, using Macrium 5?

An article
http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to...alling-windows
(http://bit.ly/1RdY01Z for short) uses EaseUS Todo backup, which
apparently has an "Optimize for SSD" function; however, I'm familiar
with Macrium 5 (and have a boot disc for it), so was wondering if that
has too. (Yes, I know it's not the latest Macrium, but - as well as all
the hassle of downloading 6 and then making, and possibly testing, boot
media for it, I've seen more than one user say they found 5 easier to
understand.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Who came first? Adam or Eve?" "Adam of course; men always do."
Victoria Wood (via Peter Hesketh)

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
If I image a system from HD, then restore it to SSD, will it give the
option to optimise for the latter, using Macrium 5?

An article
http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to...alling-windows

(http://bit.ly/1RdY01Z for short) uses EaseUS Todo backup, which
apparently has an "Optimize for SSD" function; however, I'm familiar
with Macrium 5 (and have a boot disc for it), so was wondering if that
has too. (Yes, I know it's not the latest Macrium, but - as well as all
the hassle of downloading 6 and then making, and possibly testing, boot
media for it, I've seen more than one user say they found 5 easier to
understand.)

I have done this with Macrium.

I had a copy of Windows 7, that I (cleverly) managed to
set up with MSDOS multiple-of-63 partitions. Moved the
original drive contents to a new 512e drive, and the
performance *sucked*. So I then kinda figured out
how I'd shot myself in the foot, by prepping the
original drive in WinXP, made a partition, then
installed Windows 7 in the partition. If Windows 7 does
automatic installation, it would have 1 megabyte alignment.
But with my help, of prepping the drive in an older OS,
I managed to screw up the alignment.

So I needed to realign during cloning. I wanted to
clone from malfunctioning MSDOS aligned disk to
new one-megabyte-aligned disk. And Macrium can
realign during the cloning operation.

http://s9.postimg.org/gwn36sxhr/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif

Click your (+) cursor to magnify that film strip.

In the picture with the instruction

"In this case I moved the
center divider to the right"

you will see "Alignment" as an option. By selecting
"Vista/7/SSD (1MB)" that will select a partition
re-alignment suitable for 4K or SSD drives. You would
apply that correction to each partition AFAIK. This
may leave an "air gap" between partitions, but the
alignment is more important than "making it look
pretty".

The above filmstrip, does not illustrate alignment.
It was a simple attempt at a restore, but it
does show the existence of a menu where you can
adjust partition size and alignment if you want.
And requires you to click "Next", then "Back", then
use the "Partition Properties" of each partition,
to get what you want.

Paul

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
If I image a system from HD, then restore it to SSD, will it give the
option to optimise for the latter, using Macrium 5?
[]
I have done this with Macrium.
[]
So I needed to realign during cloning. I wanted to
clone from malfunctioning MSDOS aligned disk to
new one-megabyte-aligned disk. And Macrium can
realign during the cloning operation.

(By "cloning" I hope you mean "restoring from [Macrium] image", but I
think from the filmstrip that's what you were doing. [It's what I will
be.])

http://s9.postimg.org/gwn36sxhr/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif

Click your (+) cursor to magnify that film strip.

In the picture with the instruction

"In this case I moved the
center divider to the right"

you will see "Alignment" as an option. By selecting
"Vista/7/SSD (1MB)" that will select a partition
re-alignment suitable for 4K or SSD drives. You would
apply that correction to each partition AFAIK. This

Thanks. (It's for a blind friend's 60th birthday: his wife and I have
bought him an SSD, which is going into his laptop.) I'll look into doing
it for each partition as you say: there seem to be three of them - "D:
system" which seems to be about 7G, "C: Windows" which seems to be the
main one, and "E;" (no name; these are the names and letters Macrium 5
64 bit free has given them) which is about 500 MB (not GB).

may leave an "air gap" between partitions, but the
alignment is more important than "making it look
pretty".

Indeed. (I can only assume "E:" was the result of some previous such
activity! Macrium included all three in the image anyway, no problem.)

The above filmstrip, does not illustrate alignment.
It was a simple attempt at a restore, but it
does show the existence of a menu where you can
adjust partition size and alignment if you want.
And requires you to click "Next", then "Back", then
use the "Partition Properties" of each partition,
to get what you want.

Looks good though. I'd trust a Paul throwaway example more than I'd
trust more specific ones from many other people, anyway.

Paul

I've hear/read/whatever that W7 and later are happy with SSDs, which I
assume means TRIM [whatever that is (-:!] and anything similar, but the
reassurance that Macrium 5 free knows about alignment, or really just
that I'll see some mention of SSDs, is most reassuring - and the tip
about going back a step is good too. (Yes, I could have just tried
making an image and restoring from it to see, but [a] it takes a while
to do so [on a laptop with only one drive bay], [b] it's nice to have
the reassurance, and [c] I'd probably not have spotted the "back"
anyway.)

Thanks again. If I have time, I'll report how we get on.

Anything else I should advise my friend about using an SSD? I've already
told him not to defrag it. Especially if you have any thoughts specific
to the blind. (Who have the advantage over us, when it comes to SSDs,
that their collections tend not to include any video, so are small!)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

.... unlike other legal systems the common law is permissive. We can do what we
like, unless it is specifically prohibited by law. We are not as rule-bound
and codified as other legal systems. - Helena Kennedy QC (Radio Times 14-20
July 2012).

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
If I image a system from HD, then restore it to SSD, will it give the
option to optimise for the latter, using Macrium 5?
[]
I have done this with Macrium.
[]
So I needed to realign during cloning. I wanted to
clone from malfunctioning MSDOS aligned disk to
new one-megabyte-aligned disk. And Macrium can
realign during the cloning operation.

(By "cloning" I hope you mean "restoring from [Macrium] image", but I
think from the filmstrip that's what you were doing. [It's what I will
be.])

http://s9.postimg.org/gwn36sxhr/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif

Click your (+) cursor to magnify that film strip.

In the picture with the instruction

"In this case I moved the
center divider to the right"

you will see "Alignment" as an option. By selecting
"Vista/7/SSD (1MB)" that will select a partition
re-alignment suitable for 4K or SSD drives. You would
apply that correction to each partition AFAIK. This

Thanks. (It's for a blind friend's 60th birthday: his wife and I have
bought him an SSD, which is going into his laptop.) I'll look into doing
it for each partition as you say: there seem to be three of them - "D:
system" which seems to be about 7G, "C: Windows" which seems to be the
main one, and "E;" (no name; these are the names and letters Macrium 5
64 bit free has given them) which is about 500 MB (not GB).

may leave an "air gap" between partitions, but the
alignment is more important than "making it look
pretty".

Indeed. (I can only assume "E:" was the result of some previous such
activity! Macrium included all three in the image anyway, no problem.)

The above filmstrip, does not illustrate alignment.
It was a simple attempt at a restore, but it
does show the existence of a menu where you can
adjust partition size and alignment if you want.
And requires you to click "Next", then "Back", then
use the "Partition Properties" of each partition,
to get what you want.

Looks good though. I'd trust a Paul throwaway example more than I'd
trust more specific ones from many other people, anyway.

Paul

I've hear/read/whatever that W7 and later are happy with SSDs, which I
assume means TRIM [whatever that is (-:!] and anything similar, but the
reassurance that Macrium 5 free knows about alignment, or really just
that I'll see some mention of SSDs, is most reassuring - and the tip
about going back a step is good too. (Yes, I could have just tried
making an image and restoring from it to see, but [a] it takes a while
to do so [on a laptop with only one drive bay], [b] it's nice to have
the reassurance, and [c] I'd probably not have spotted the "back" anyway.)

Thanks again. If I have time, I'll report how we get on.

Anything else I should advise my friend about using an SSD? I've already
told him not to defrag it. Especially if you have any thoughts specific
to the blind. (Who have the advantage over us, when it comes to SSDs,
that their collections tend not to include any video, so are small!)

There are a metric ton of silly optimizations for SSDs,
if you believe some of the web pages. (Turning off the
noting of "Last Accessed" being one of them.)

If Windows 7 was installed without tampering with the
partitions, then the hard drive it was installed on
would already have the correct (1 megabyte) alignment.
It's only in cases where you define a partition using
another OS like WinXP, where the alignment could be wrong for
an SSD. I happened to prepare a partition for the
Win7 OS install, using WinXP. I might have been searching
for an empty enough disk to use, on the WinXP machine, when
inadvertently making a mess of the Win7 setup.

The flash pages are on power-of-two on an SSD, and that's
why you're seeking any sort of power-of-two alignment. As
that is likely to be superior to an MSDOS divisible-by-63
alignment (which is all wrong).

Paul

| If I image a system from HD, then restore it to SSD, will it give the
| option to optimise for the latter, using Macrium 5?

This is only indirectly related, but may be
of some use: I noticed recently that Explorer
was repeatedly accessing Registry values
connected with DHCP service. (Which I don't
even have running.) Having a new SSD I
figured that can't be good, having pointless
disk reads almost constantly. After some research
I discovered the culprit: The icon in the system
tray that indicates network activity. If that's
set to display then Explorer keeps checking the
current status and may read the Registry in the
process!
I never noticed that before. Ironically, it doesn't
show an accurate display, anyway. I depend on
my firewall for that.

So I guess the moral of the story is that if
you're installing an SSD it might be worthwhile
running regmon/filemon or procmon to make
sure you're not leading it to an early death
unnecessarily, due to one or another process
hitting the disk repeatedly.

On 01/01/2016 08:34 PM, Paul wrote:

[snip]

There are a metric ton of silly optimizations for SSDs,
if you believe some of the web pages. (Turning off the
noting of "Last Accessed" being one of them.)

The "last accessed" field has no be written every time the file is read.
While caching may reduce the number of writes. That's still not good for
a SSD.

[snip]

The flash pages are on power-of-two on an SSD, and that's
why you're seeking any sort of power-of-two alignment. As
that is likely to be superior to an MSDOS divisible-by-63
alignment (which is all wrong).

Paul

divisible-by-63 alignment? That sounds like an oversimplification of
track alignment, which makes each partition start at the beginning of a
disk track (sector 1). Instead of 63, you'd use the number of sectors on
a track. It it's 63 (the largest number that field can hold, at the
time). you probably have an IDE drive that translates its geometry, so
that number is useless to you. The actual number of sectors may be
printed on the drive label.

Using 63 while having no idea of haw many sectors your disk has, is
unlikely to help.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"The statement that God created man in his own image is ticking like a
time bomb in the foundations of Christianity." -- Arthur C. Clarke

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 01/01/2016 08:34 PM, Paul wrote:

[snip]

There are a metric ton of silly optimizations for SSDs,
if you believe some of the web pages. (Turning off the
noting of "Last Accessed" being one of them.)

The "last accessed" field has no be written every time the file is read.
While caching may reduce the number of writes. That's still not good for
a SSD.

[snip]

The flash pages are on power-of-two on an SSD, and that's
why you're seeking any sort of power-of-two alignment. As
that is likely to be superior to an MSDOS divisible-by-63
alignment (which is all wrong).

Paul

divisible-by-63 alignment? That sounds like an oversimplification of
track alignment, which makes each partition start at the beginning of a
disk track (sector 1). Instead of 63, you'd use the number of sectors on
a track. It it's 63 (the largest number that field can hold, at the
time). you probably have an IDE drive that translates its geometry, so
that number is useless to you. The actual number of sectors may be
printed on the drive label.

Using 63 while having no idea of haw many sectors your disk has, is
unlikely to help.


I'm just noting what comes out of the math using
the fake CHS used by modern hardware. Of course the
disk does not have a constant number of sectors
per track, and the drive is actually zoned.

If you use your copy of PTEDIT32, you'll find all the
numbers on an MSDOS partitioned hard drive, are divisible
by 63. (This assumes you have not artificially modified
it, but used the system utilities for the job. Like Disk
Management on WinXP.) My purpose was not to explain how
it happened, or what you could do to change it. It's just
better to fix it, and move on, if the storage device is
an SSD.

And "Last Accessed" can be turned off.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...e-windows.html

One of the early web pages for SSDs, was around
five pages long, and really went overboard on the
optimizations. "Last Accessed" was just one of
about a dozen things they decided to mess with.
You don't have to go that crazy. Another favorite
topic, is "should I turn off the pagefile". And so
on. I guess this is the fun of owning an SSD, is
pampering it.

And a word of warning. The housing of SSDs scratch
easily, and I feel this was done on purpose. Take
great care not to scratch the paint on the thing - if
you need to make a warranty claim, they could use
that as an excuse not to help you. Avoid tight
fitting trays, if at all possible. The one I bought,
used a sheet metal case with poor paint job on
the outside, and you could scratch the paint off
with a fingernail.

Paul

(Restore from image going now. I envy you the speed of your restore - if
I read your example correctly, it completed in 56 seconds! Mine's taking
about a minute a percent.

I used the "restore partition properties" _before_ doing Next and Back,
to check they were SSD-aligned [which they were anyway], though I did
check using Next and Back as well. [Also to reduce the size of the main
partition, of course, to fit onto the SSD {~240G replacing ~600G HD}.])


In message , Mark Lloyd
writes:
On 01/01/2016 08:34 PM, Paul wrote:

[snip]

There are a metric ton of silly optimizations for SSDs,
if you believe some of the web pages. (Turning off the
noting of "Last Accessed" being one of them.)

That one _does_ sound sensible; if the "last accessed" information is
stored somewhere other than the file itself, such as in a directory,
then it would be two writes per write (and possibly even a write when
only a read is taking place).

The "last accessed" field has no be written every time the file is
read. While caching may reduce the number of writes. That's still not
good for a SSD.

So how _do_ you turn it off? (And if you do, what do/does the date
field[s] show?)
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

W-E-H-T-H-U-R: This is the worst spell of weather in months!

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
And "Last Accessed" can be turned off.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...mestamp-enable
-disable-windows.html

Ah, thanks; I hadn't read that post when I made my previous one.
[]
You don't have to go that crazy. Another favorite
topic, is "should I turn off the pagefile". And so
on. I guess this is the fun of owning an SSD, is
pampering it.

Might give _that_ one a go.

And a word of warning. The housing of SSDs scratch
easily, and I feel this was done on purpose. Take
great care not to scratch the paint on the thing - if
you need to make a warranty claim, they could use
that as an excuse not to help you. Avoid tight
fitting trays, if at all possible. The one I bought,
used a sheet metal case with poor paint job on
the outside, and you could scratch the paint off
with a fingernail.
[]
Thanks for the warning, though too late (not that I think I've scratched
it). The drive we bought was an OCZ; it _looked_ reasonably robust. The
HD that came out was significantly (about two mm?) thicker, so the
mounting - two rails, one using side screws and one an end and a below -
aren't compressing it.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

W-E-H-T-H-U-R: This is the worst spell of weather in months!

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
This is only indirectly related, but may be
of some use: I noticed recently that Explorer

All input welcome, as I'm new to SSDs, but ...

was repeatedly accessing Registry values
connected with DHCP service. (Which I don't
even have running.) Having a new SSD I
figured that can't be good, having pointless
disk reads almost constantly. After some research

.... isn't the registry held in RAM, and only written back to disc when
you shut down Windows?

I discovered the culprit: The icon in the system
tray that indicates network activity. If that's
set to display then Explorer keeps checking the
current status and may read the Registry in the
process!
I never noticed that before. Ironically, it doesn't
show an accurate display, anyway. I depend on
my firewall for that.

I use an ancient one called BitMeter - not really for accuracy, but I
have it set to beep every 100 kB transferred, which alerts me to any
unexpected traffic [none so far (-:] and gives me feedback on transfer
rates (up and down).

So I guess the moral of the story is that if
you're installing an SSD it might be worthwhile
running regmon/filemon or procmon to make
sure you're not leading it to an early death
unnecessarily, due to one or another process
hitting the disk repeatedly.

I fear my knowledge isn't that detailed.

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

W-E-H-T-H-U-R: This is the worst spell of weather in months!

| was repeatedly accessing Registry values
| connected with DHCP service. (Which I don't
| even have running.) Having a new SSD I
| figured that can't be good, having pointless
| disk reads almost constantly. After some research
|
| ... isn't the registry held in RAM, and only written back to disc when
| you shut down Windows?
|

Good point. I didn't think of that. I bet you're
probably right, as long as there isn't a changed
value involved.

"Mayayana"
Mon, 04 Jan 2016 02:28:28 GMT in alt.windows7.general, wrote:

| was repeatedly accessing Registry values
| connected with DHCP service. (Which I don't
| even have running.) Having a new SSD I
| figured that can't be good, having pointless
| disk reads almost constantly. After some research
|
| ... isn't the registry held in RAM, and only written back to disc
| when you shut down Windows?
|

Good point. I didn't think of that. I bet you're
probably right, as long as there isn't a changed
value involved.



Hmm..

I don't think it writes changes made to the registry back to the hard
disc right away. I suspect? it does this when the user logs off
and/or when the system is shutdown and/or restarted. It may possibly
rewrite the registry to ensure it matches whats in memory after a
specified period of time, but, I don't know that to be true.

I'm sure you've noticed that Windows has a tendency for forgetting
some settings you've changed recently (involving the registry) if an
improper shutdown occurs (such as a power loss or unexpected small
person hitting the hard reset button on the case) - I think it's
forgotten these changes you made because the registry isn't updated
on the HD when you initially made those changes.






--
Hey listen...
On your way back up, bring some popcorn...With salt.

| I don't think it writes changes made to the registry back to the hard
| disc right away. I suspect? it does this when the user logs off
| and/or when the system is shutdown and/or restarted. It may possibly
| rewrite the registry to ensure it matches whats in memory after a
| specified period of time, but, I don't know that to be true.
|
| I'm sure you've noticed that Windows has a tendency for forgetting
| some settings you've changed recently (involving the registry) if an
| improper shutdown occurs

I haven't noticed that, but what you say makes sense.
I know the old INI approach required flushing the file cache
in order to force a disk write.

Now if I could just figure out why Online Armor repeatedly
accesses its own files, and repeatedly tries to access a
file that doesn't exist. That's what I see in Filemon, and
have for years. But now with an SSD I wonder about it.

On 01/01/2016 9:46 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
If I image a system from HD, then restore it to SSD, will it give the
option to optimise for the latter, using Macrium 5?

An article
http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to...alling-windows

(http://bit.ly/1RdY01Z for short) uses EaseUS Todo backup, which
apparently has an "Optimize for SSD" function; however, I'm familiar
with Macrium 5 (and have a boot disc for it), so was wondering if that
has too. (Yes, I know it's not the latest Macrium, but - as well as all
the hassle of downloading 6 and then making, and possibly testing, boot
media for it, I've seen more than one user say they found 5 easier to
understand.)

Yes, Macrium has the ability to align to the proper sectors depending on
storage medium.

Yousuf Khan