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Migrating to an SSD



 
 
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  #16  
Old March 24th 12, 11:28 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,291
Default Migrating to an SSD

In message , Yousuf Khan
writes:
On 24/03/2012 3:27 AM, charlie wrote:
Besides all of the above, there is another, perhaps quite important
consideration. SSDs are a good host for "static" files, and not so good
for dynamic ones. It would seem that windows should be reorganized on
that basis, with static directories and files on the SSD.
The registry will likely need manual editing to accommodate the changes.


That's actually something I was thinking about. Should I move things
like the swapfile, Thunderbird data, and just "User" folder in general,
off to regular storage?

Yousuf Khan


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

He spoke in sentences that made up paragraphs, with immaculate grammar and
punctuation. - Barry Cryer on Clement Freud 1924-2009, in Radio Times, 25 April
- 1 May 2009.
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  #17  
Old March 24th 12, 11:34 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Drew[_6_]
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Posts: 112
Default Migrating to an SSD

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.
  #18  
Old March 24th 12, 11:49 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 22:28:44 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Yousuf Khan
writes:
On 24/03/2012 3:27 AM, charlie wrote:
Besides all of the above, there is another, perhaps quite important
consideration. SSDs are a good host for "static" files, and not so good
for dynamic ones. It would seem that windows should be reorganized on
that basis, with static directories and files on the SSD.
The registry will likely need manual editing to accommodate the changes.


That's actually something I was thinking about. Should I move things
like the swapfile, Thunderbird data, and just "User" folder in general,
off to regular storage?

Yousuf Khan


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?).


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.
  #19  
Old March 24th 12, 11:59 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 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?


CrystalDiskInfo 4.3.0 will tell you Power On Hours. The FW update for
the Crucial SSD says it will assure there will be no more problems
when they reach 5000 hrs.

It seems many SSD manufacturers seem to quote 10,000 operating hours
for their warranties.

http://superuser.com/questions/32580...life-of-an-ssd


" Now assuming that this is lower than what the drives are actually
capable of that would still mean over a year of 24/7 running with
constant drive reading/writing. Now I don't have any stats as too
normal operating times but I doubt you'd be doing more than two hours
of constant reading/writing a day which would put the lives of the
drive at around 10 years of everyday use."

http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-St...ssd/td-p/32064

Intel's claim is actually "at least" 5 years at 20GBytes of writes per
day.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/26...ional-lifespan

  #20  
Old March 25th 12, 12:23 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,291
Default Migrating to an SSD

In message , Allen Drake
writes:
[]
Intel's claim is actually "at least" 5 years at 20GBytes of writes per
day.

[]
I presume that's 20G randomly spread around the drive.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

a little bit of me still feels that some southerners think we northerners are
issued at birth with doomed kestrels. - Alison Graham, Radio Times,
3-9/11/2007.
  #21  
Old March 25th 12, 01:20 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 Sat, 24 Mar 2012 23:23:20 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Allen Drake
writes:
[]
Intel's claim is actually "at least" 5 years at 20GBytes of writes per
day.

[]
I presume that's 20G randomly spread around the drive.


You know what happens when you presume don't you

  #22  
Old March 25th 12, 02:25 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Char Jackson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,449
Default Migrating to an SSD

On Sat, 24 Mar 2012 23:23:20 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Allen Drake
writes:
[]
Intel's claim is actually "at least" 5 years at 20GBytes of writes per
day.

[]
I presume that's 20G randomly spread around the drive.


My understanding is that it's taken care of for you automatically,
i.e., wear leveling.

--

Char Jackson
  #23  
Old March 25th 12, 04:33 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Yousuf Khan[_2_]
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Posts: 2,447
Default Migrating to an SSD

On 24/03/2012 6:08 PM, Allen Drake wrote:
Did you mention which SSD you have? I just received number 10 a few
days ago. I have mostly Crucial and have had to update firmware twice
so far. Not a problem though.


Corsair Force 3 240GB.
  #24  
Old March 25th 12, 04:38 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Yousuf Khan[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,447
Default Migrating to an SSD

On 24/03/2012 6:20 PM, Allen Drake wrote:
I would think it would depend on the capacity of the SSD. I use 256GB
SSDs and so far I have only used 60 GB. I do have backup HDDs
installed along with USB3 external for large video and music, etc.


No, I'm not worried about space, I bought one big enough to accommodate
everything that I have in my current boot drive. I'm more worried about
writing too much to the SSD. My understanding is that SSD's wear down
with too much writing to them. Thunderbird and the swapfile would be
some major recurring write events.

Yousuf Khan
  #25  
Old March 25th 12, 04:41 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Yousuf Khan[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,447
Default Migrating to an SSD

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
  #26  
Old March 25th 12, 04:47 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Yousuf Khan[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,447
Default Migrating to an SSD

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
  #27  
Old March 25th 12, 09:48 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,291
Default Migrating to an SSD

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?
--
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
  #28  
Old March 25th 12, 10:30 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Dave-UK
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Posts: 596
Default Migrating to an SSD


"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message ...
On 24/03/2012 6:20 PM, Allen Drake wrote:
I would think it would depend on the capacity of the SSD. I use 256GB
SSDs and so far I have only used 60 GB. I do have backup HDDs
installed along with USB3 external for large video and music, etc.


No, I'm not worried about space, I bought one big enough to accommodate
everything that I have in my current boot drive. I'm more worried about
writing too much to the SSD. My understanding is that SSD's wear down
with too much writing to them. Thunderbird and the swapfile would be
some major recurring write events.

Yousuf Khan


I think you are worrying too much about wear and tear on an SSD.
This will tell you how long you've got left. :-)
(There's a free or pro version)
http://www.ssd-life.com/




  #29  
Old March 25th 12, 11:28 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,291
Default Migrating to an SSD

In message m, Dave-UK
writes:

"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
...
On 24/03/2012 6:20 PM, Allen Drake wrote:
I would think it would depend on the capacity of the SSD. I use 256GB
SSDs and so far I have only used 60 GB. I do have backup HDDs
installed along with USB3 external for large video and music, etc.

No, I'm not worried about space, I bought one big enough to
accommodate everything that I have in my current boot drive. I'm more
worried about writing too much to the SSD. My understanding is that
SSD's wear down with too much writing to them. Thunderbird and the
swapfile would be some major recurring write events.
Yousuf Khan


I think you are worrying too much about wear and tear on an SSD.
This will tell you how long you've got left. :-)
(There's a free or pro version)
http://www.ssd-life.com/

Interesting. Two things I note from that site:

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).

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.

Oh, and a third thing: individual cells can be written to about ...
originally, 10,000 times; recently revised down to 5,000. With the wear
levelling that's (I think) built into the drive's hardware (more likely
firmware), this translates to 20G writes a day for 5 years for some
Intel drive (it gives the model number but not what size it is).

It seems to me, though, that as SSDs become more common, there needs to
be a tweak to OSs, such that frequently-written files - the registry,
page files, etc. - are treated differently by the OS. (Though if SSDs
are expected to last five years, that'll probably not happen, as OS
manufacturers want us to replace the OS - and by extension the computer
- more often than that. But that's just me being cynical.) Actually, I
think this sort of behaviour - commonly-modified files being treated
differently - should have been around long ago anyway.
--
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
  #30  
Old March 25th 12, 12:29 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general
Andy Burns
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Posts: 246
Default Migrating to an SSD

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

individual cells can be written to about ...
originally, 10,000 times; recently revised down to 5,000. With the wear
levelling that's (I think) built into the drive's hardware (more likely
firmware), this translates to 20G writes a day for 5 years for some
Intel drive (it gives the model number but not what size it is).


As long as three years ago, Intel were guaranteeing that their SSDs
would last 5 years with 100GB of writes/day, the endurance of each cell
does reduce each time they switch down to smaller die sizes, but the
capacity goes up faster than the endurance goes down, so with wear
levelling, there is still an overall win.

 




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