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Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 20th 16, 04:36 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Norm X[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 107
Default Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties

Use the Toolbox for your SSD and record the total
writes today. Then check back after a week of your
typical usage and check again. Does ReadyBoost
result in a lot of writes ? That's what you have
to watch for.

Paul


Thanks Paul. As of now, ReadyBoost (ReadyBoot) survives reboot in accord
with theory.

I burned the .iso to optical disk. I have no idea what Parted Magic does or
why, but it does not work for me. Now I possess no tool(s) equivalent to
Partition Market. Partition Magic has been taken off the market just like
the electric car at the beginning of last century. I got Win10Pro by
download upgrade, I have no install DVD.

Even of I had an install DVD, it would be much better to clone/move my
Win10Pro partition, given all the updates. This message is Xposted. Does
anyone know of a tool like Partition Magic for moving partition to 240GB
SATA SSD?

I have two Win10 machines. Here's a question that might be universal. What
is the deal with two system partitions, one 100 MB (67% free) and one 450 MB
(100% free)? These were created at Win10 install time. Is that configuration
needed on a Win10 bootable SSD?

Thanks in advance.



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  #2  
Old September 20th 16, 06:20 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Maurice Helwig
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Posts: 164
Default Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties

On 20/09/2016 1:36 PM, Norm X wrote:
Use the Toolbox for your SSD and record the total
writes today. Then check back after a week of your
typical usage and check again. Does ReadyBoost
result in a lot of writes ? That's what you have
to watch for.

Paul


Thanks Paul. As of now, ReadyBoost (ReadyBoot) survives reboot in accord
with theory.

I burned the .iso to optical disk. I have no idea what Parted Magic does or
why, but it does not work for me. Now I possess no tool(s) equivalent to
Partition Market. Partition Magic has been taken off the market just like
the electric car at the beginning of last century. I got Win10Pro by
download upgrade, I have no install DVD.

Even of I had an install DVD, it would be much better to clone/move my
Win10Pro partition, given all the updates. This message is Xposted. Does
anyone know of a tool like Partition Magic for moving partition to 240GB
SATA SSD?

I have two Win10 machines. Here's a question that might be universal. What
is the deal with two system partitions, one 100 MB (67% free) and one 450 MB
(100% free)? These were created at Win10 install time. Is that configuration
needed on a Win10 bootable SSD?

Thanks in advance.



--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

Use Macrium Reflect -- Free Edition in place of Partition Magic

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maurice Helwig
~~~~~~~~~~~~
  #3  
Old September 20th 16, 06:32 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties

Norm X wrote:
Use the Toolbox for your SSD and record the total
writes today. Then check back after a week of your
typical usage and check again. Does ReadyBoost
result in a lot of writes ? That's what you have
to watch for.

Paul


Thanks Paul. As of now, ReadyBoost (ReadyBoot) survives reboot in accord
with theory.

I burned the .iso to optical disk. I have no idea what Parted Magic does or
why, but it does not work for me. Now I possess no tool(s) equivalent to
Partition Market. Partition Magic has been taken off the market just like
the electric car at the beginning of last century. I got Win10Pro by
download upgrade, I have no install DVD.


There are free partition managers out there.

Although Wikipedia doesn't list it, I found one
by Paragon.

pm_2014_free.msi paragon_partition_manager, cnet download

(I can find a 64-bit version of that now...)

http://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Par...-10904411.html

The Paragon page doesn't show a download link for pm_2014.
It looks like I got mine from CNET (and never tested it).
The feature set is impossibly basic (it allows "move" which
Windows Disk Management does not support, so that's the
only extra function). Modern Windows does "shrink" and "expand"
but you cannot move the origin of a partition. And the shrink
and expand functions, the Windows GUI controls kinda suck. Commercial
products are generally always better at it anyway.

https://www.paragon-software.com/hom.../features.html

*******

Parted Magic is mentioned here. It's likely to be
something like "Gparted" as a tool, loaded into
its own Linux LiveCD with some flavor of Desktop
Environment(DE). Generally Gparted is a bit more
basic than some of the other commercial tools. The
authors of Gparted (rightly so) are risk averse, and
at one point, they rewrote the code to take the
sketchy parts out. You're not likely to find a
dangerous "merge" function, like you might on a
Windows tool. Microsoft doesn't do "merge" either
on any of their tools. The "merge" function is used
to merge two partitions into one - as far as I'm
concerned this is dangerous as hell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parted_Magic

Generally, I just download a Ubuntu or Mint DVD,
and some of those have GParted right on the DVD,
ready to use. I probably have a Parted Magic here,
but haven't used it in a few years.

*******

Easeus is also missing from this list. Some of the Easeus
free offerings contain "half-hearted" adware. One of their
tools, had OpenCandy, but it wasn't armed! It refused to
download anything when tested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...oning_software

If we use this link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EaseUS

there is a review of the Free version listed.

http://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Part...-10863346.html

So that's two Windows freebies, plus the Parted Magic LiveCD
if you want a Linux based approach.

Always back up the target device, before testing a free
Partition Manager. I could find one report from a while
back, where Easeus corrupted a FAT32 partition during a
resize. Things like this sometimes happen because the
partition is not "CHKDSK clean" before the operation begins.


Even of I had an install DVD, it would be much better to clone/move my
Win10Pro partition, given all the updates. This message is Xposted. Does
anyone know of a tool like Partition Magic for moving partition to 240GB
SATA SSD?


Macrium Reflect Free has a "clone with resize and align" function.
Which is damn close to being a partition manager of sorts. Again,
like most "almost" efforts, it lacks the ability to move the
origin of a partition.

Starting at Frame 9 of this filmstrip, the Macrium resize and alignment
stuff are shown. You use the "Next", then the "Back" button when
setting up the clone operation, and the dialog in frame 9 is
the same. In Frame 10, you can see the red text
"In this case I moved the center divider to the right".
That dialog can align preferentially to 1MB boundaries
(suitable for Win10) as well as allow the partition size
to be adjusted. (You cannot clone, unless the actual
amount of data will fit on the SSD...)

https://s9.postimg.org/6mko7k7m5/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif

You can get Macrium Reflect Free (Backup/Restore/Clone) software here.
The green button gives you the ReflectDL.exe stub downloader,
and using that, you get the 40MB program installer plus
a WADK kit (hundreds of megabytes) for making a boot CD
for emergency restores.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx


I have two Win10 machines. Here's a question that might be universal. What
is the deal with two system partitions, one 100 MB (67% free) and one 450 MB
(100% free)? These were created at Win10 install time. Is that configuration
needed on a Win10 bootable SSD?

Thanks in advance.


The 450MB partition provides materials for this. The partition
is used two ways. It might be used during "boot repair". It
is also used to make a boot CD when you want to restore an
image made with "Windows 7 Backup" (see the control panels
on Win10 for this - Windows 7 Backup is a program which
lives in the Win10 Control Panels interface).

http://s14.postimg.org/bi2rht501/done_like_dinner.gif

The 450MB one is a hidden NTFS (partition type 0x27 instead of the
normal 0x07). It has a ~300MB winre.wim and the partition is an
emergency boot OS for repairing the OS. It isn't big enough
to reinstall anything. I think there is a way to put that
thing into the boot menu, so you could then select it
during boot (as a multi-boot). The winre.wim (or winpe.wim
on a Windows 7 backup boot CD), those are very basic pre-install
environment OSes (no Metro) where the WIM is read sequentially
off the media and into RAM. You'll see the rotating balls
or rotating circle boot thing, so they look similar to the
regular OS booting. But the similarity ends after that.
A favorite reason for that to be present, is to repair the
OS when it doesn't boot.

Note that, it doesn't need its own partition. There is also
a place to store the contents, right on the C: drive, but
if you do that, if C: is corrupted, you cannot expect the
WinRE.wim to boot from a corrupt partition. That's the reason
it has its own partition. The partition is "hidden" in the
hope that less will befall it, than the visible partitions.

The keyword for working with WinRE is "reagentc". Reagentc
allows moving the partition, then telling BCD where it is
loaded, so the appropriate things happen if your Win10
won't boot. In this picture, I used Linux (fdisk command)
to change the partition type to 0x07, then mount the partition
for a look. Presumably the reagent.xml helps reagentc
when you point the OS at the thing. So that's in case
you were wondering what hides in there. And that picture
is also intended to show why the partition is 450MB. It
contains a 300MB emergency boot OS, plus the other folders
have more config info (small files).

https://s15.postimg.org/pwvs3fee3/re..._partition.gif

*******

I have no idea what a 100MB directory is, unless it's
the System Reserved from Windows 7 (i.e. not SP1). The
System Reserved (which contains /boot and BCD) contains
the boot menu for booting Windows 7. Again, that pig
can be moved into the C: main partition. The reason
it was given a separate partition, was in case the
user has used Anytime Upgrade to the Ultimate edition,
then the user wants to enable BitLocker full disk
encryption. The 100MB partition remains unencrypted
and supports the boot process, while C: is entirely
encrypted. If you move the contents of the 100MB partition
inside C: , then that BitLocker feature would no longer
work. I changed that on my laptop, zapped the System
Reserved (I no longer have that 100MB partition) and
I moved the files as described here.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

*******

The following recipe (took me a while to figure out why
I tested this) is because the Windows 7 Backup "make
a boot CD" function is broken in Windows 10. This procedure
demonstrates how to tell the OS there is a recovery
image available for the purpose of making the boot CD.
This is copied from a previous post.

The 0x27 partition really isn't visible to ReagentC.
So I have to make it visible with ptedit32.exe (no longer
available for download, so you better already have a copy).

reagentc /info --- mine is disabled

reagentc /disable --- this is superfluous as a result

# reagentc is apparently not magic, and cannot make the invisible
# partition visible. What a surprise...

(ptedit32, run as administrator, change 0x27 partition to 0x07, save, quit, reboot)

# Now that we're back, try the command, in the Administrator Command Prompt.
$ [This syntax is used because the drive has no letter.]

reagentc /setreimage /path \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition2\Recover y\WindowsRE

# Well, that one didn't work, because being a silly git, my backup drive
# is drive 0, and the Windows boot disk is drive 1. So, try again...
# [Partition2 is my 450MB hidden partition, temporarily made visible
# until this recipe is finished.]

reagentc /setreimage /path \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk1\partition2\Recover y\WindowsRE

reagentc /info

# Great, path is set, but recovery boot from the hard drive is
# not enabled. This is more for fun, than as part of getting our CD.

reagentc /enable

reagentc /info

# Now, my recovery boot is enabled and should be in
# the boot menu. I check to see if my BCD is changed.

bcdedit

# the "recoverysequence" has a new GUID
# the "recoveryenabled" remains "Yes"

The disc can now be burned. The first disc the Microsoft software
burned was bad. The second one was good. This is on a drive
that has never produced a coaster to date!

http://s14.postimg.org/bi2rht501/done_like_dinner.gif

[It's when I saw that picture, I remembered the problem I
was attempting to experiment with, and fix. It's because
the "burn a CD" thing was throwing an error.]

If you want to get rid of the 450MB partition, you can.
You could try reagentc /info, then reagentc /disable, and
then you won't be able to make an emergency boot CD
for Windows 7 backup.

*******

Finally, you did a Windows Update "upgrade install". If you
haven't housecleaned yet, look in C:\$WINDOWS.~BT\sources
and there should be a 2.5GB or 3.5GB WIM. You can use that
single file, plus this recipe, to make your own Windows 10 DVD.
I use this all the time, making Win10 Insider edition DVDs
for installation on a second OS partition.

http://deploymentresearch.com/Resear...y-tools-needed

So while you could just download 14393 from a Windows 10
download link (MediaCreationTool), you can also build a
DVD using that single (big) file. When you get to the
WADK download page, there is a stub downloader, and
all you need is a 50-70MB "tools" download, rather than
needing to download the whole thing. After the "tools"
are installed, you'll then have your very own "oscdimg.exe"
file for the project.

*******

Summary:

You must want to free up partitions badly, to do all this.

If you plan on multibooting, maybe it's worth while.

The easiest recipe to do, is probably moving the 100MB
System Reserved (containing /boot and BCD) into the C:
partition. So there will then be a C:\boot . Make sure you
have a backup of the disk you're modifying, before removing
the 100MB partition. The C: partition should then be "Active"
and have the 0x80 boot flag, and then C: depends on itself
for /boot and the BCD boot menu file.

Maybe freeing up one partition, will be enough at this point.

Paul
  #4  
Old September 21st 16, 09:26 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Norm X[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 107
Default Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties

"Paul" wrote
[snippage]

pm_2014_free.msi paragon_partition_manager, cnet download

(I can find a 64-bit version of that now...)

http://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Par...-10904411.html

[snippage]

Thanks Paul,

I downloaded that PM but the free version did not work for me. I went back
to my old Paragon PM bootable DVD and found that with some effort, I could
make it work. The GUI says it is moving the Win10 partition to the Kingston
SSD. There is a page somewhere that details necessary changes to run Win10
on an SSD. Among many other changes, it says that the pagefile should by
moved to an HDD to save the SSD from too many writes. After partition move
is finished in a few hours, I should use EasyBCD to put it on the boot menu.
Then in time, I will disable the HDD with Win10 and maintain it for
recovery. After adding up the size of three VMs and Win10 OS, 125 GB of 240
GB SSD are used. We are crammed. That is why it is a good idea to keep at
least one HDD working.



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  #5  
Old September 21st 16, 10:15 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties

Norm X wrote:
"Paul" wrote
[snippage]

pm_2014_free.msi paragon_partition_manager, cnet download

(I can find a 64-bit version of that now...)

http://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Par...-10904411.html

[snippage]

Thanks Paul,

I downloaded that PM but the free version did not work for me. I went back
to my old Paragon PM bootable DVD and found that with some effort, I could
make it work. The GUI says it is moving the Win10 partition to the Kingston
SSD. There is a page somewhere that details necessary changes to run Win10
on an SSD. Among many other changes, it says that the pagefile should by
moved to an HDD to save the SSD from too many writes. After partition move
is finished in a few hours, I should use EasyBCD to put it on the boot menu.
Then in time, I will disable the HDD with Win10 and maintain it for
recovery. After adding up the size of three VMs and Win10 OS, 125 GB of 240
GB SSD are used. We are crammed. That is why it is a good idea to keep at
least one HDD working.


You should look carefully at the source disk again in
Disk Management. For the cloning of C: alone to work, all
the "system,active,boot,pagefile" would have to be on C: ,
rather than spread around. That's why some of those
procedures come in handy, in case System Reserved
happens to be "System,Active" and you really want those
over on C: . That's what the TerabyteUnlimited recipe is for.

*******

I did some experiments with "Hard Faults", which should
equate to paging. If a Win10 machine is sub-equipped with RAM,
then the hard fault rate is measurable (400 per second, if you
run Win10 with only 256MB of RAM). At the 2GB level, you
won't see any at all.

Pictures of testing Win10 for memory usage...
The "Memory Compression" service plays a role...

https://s10.postimg.org/htiedl8p5/2_G.gif OS = 900MB Free = 1100MB

https://s12.postimg.org/x3sozu1h9/1_G.gif OS = 700MB Free = 300MB

https://s22.postimg.org/qermcuyq9/512_MB.gif OS = 434MB Free = 78MB

https://s9.postimg.org/a7qzhti3z/256_MB.gif OS = 235MB Free = 21MB

If you start a program which "chews up the RAM" until it runs
out, usually the program quits with an "Out of Memory" error,
if there isn't any more memory to be had. The Hard Fault counter
only starts to tick over, in the last second or two of that
ramp up in RAM usage.

If you start *two* programs simultaneously consuming RAM,
one runs out first, then the second is in the process of
running out, the transient hard fault behavior is extended
in time.

But generally speaking, there aren't any hard faults to
speak of in normal usage, so the pagefile is not a danger.
There aren't too many people running Win10 with only
256MB of memory (exclusive of frame buffer for video).

I set all my pagefiles here to 1GB, as I don't want to sit
around waiting in any case, for a pagefile to fill up.

The paging device will be beaten to hell and back,
if you set a large pagefile size and your application
has a footprint larger than system memory. I ran a program
that needed 80GB of RAM, on a 64GB machine. The pagefile
was set to 128GB, and at times, there was 30GB of fill in
the pagefile. If you expect to use the computer that way,
you're right, move the pagefile. But for light usage
(email/web surfing), there is no wear to be expected.
The caching of files in the web browser cache folder,
probably does more damage to the SSD, than the pagefile
does.

And when you write to any file, there is a level
of indirection inside the SSD, such that there is no
physical correspondence between the LBAs claiming
to be used at the file system level, versus the
physical addresses inside the flash chips. Wear leveling
sees to it, that even if pagefile writes were the only
writes, no two of them sequentially go to the same
flash cells. The "write head" is constantly moving
inside the device, to smooth out the wear. All cells
are, relatively speaking, written an equal number
of times. (If the drive loses the table that maps
external LBA to internal flash address, the drive
is *screwed*.)

For data at rest in a TLC flash drive, some TLC chips
perform so badly, that the SSD has to re-write the file
every three months, to "refresh it". So even when you
think your files are resting, they can be on the move.
And this is also why, an SSD isn't sitting in a 100mW
state all that often, because it's too busy amusing
itself doing maintenance.

Paul
  #6  
Old September 22nd 16, 06:58 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Norm X[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 107
Default Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties

"Paul"
[snippage]
Paul

[snippage]

Thanks again Paul,

I'll absorb your technical advice after a good sleep.

I migrated Win10 to SSD. I set up BCD to now boot from SSD. I did some
things suggested for SSD performance. I've disabled pagefile on SSD and made
one on Data disk D: I suppose that Win10 on SSD maintains it own disk cache.
I cannot update Kingston firmware. Maybe I already have the latest.

Since I selected to boot Win10 first, I thought it would be good practice to
power off the Win10 HDD for safe storage. But with no drive there, my PC
cannot boot. Maybe drive order is relevant. I made the SSD a slave to the
Win10 HDD, which is primary master. If so I am surprised. I'll need to swap
SATA date cables

I checked some performance issue. It seems the SSD SATA is working in SATA
3.0 mode, 6 Gbps? Good for nVidia

Tomorrow will bring greater clarity



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  #7  
Old September 22nd 16, 07:43 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties

Norm X wrote:


Tomorrow will bring greater clarity


While it is booted, look in Disk Management.
See where "System,Boot,Active,Pagefile" sit.

My guess is, some on one drive, some on the other.

It could be using the System Reserved boot stuff
from one drive, and the OS partition of the other drive.

If you unplug one of the drives, something will happen.

If all the important fields sit on one drive, you
should be able to unplug the other drive.

Paul
  #8  
Old September 25th 16, 09:23 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Big Bad Bob
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 793
Default Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties

On 09/19/16 22:32, Paul so wittily quipped:
http://s14.postimg.org/bi2rht501/done_like_dinner.gif

The 450MB one is a hidden NTFS (partition type 0x27 instead of the
normal 0x07). It has a ~300MB winre.wim and the partition is an
emergency boot OS for repairing the OS. It isn't big enough
to reinstall anything. I think there is a way to put that
thing into the boot menu, so you could then select it
during boot (as a multi-boot). The winre.wim (or winpe.wim
on a Windows 7 backup boot CD), those are very basic pre-install
environment OSes (no Metro) where the WIM is read sequentially
off the media and into RAM. You'll see the rotating balls
or rotating circle boot thing, so they look similar to the
regular OS booting. But the similarity ends after that.
A favorite reason for that to be present, is to repair the
OS when it doesn't boot.


Micro-**** needs to be more forthcoming about these things, call it a
"feature", and put it in the boot menu. Otherwise, another
"improvement" for 10 that's worthy of mention: recovery options that
don't need a bootable DVD.
(these used to be in XP but you needed the DVD and a couple of boot
fails to get to it)


 




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