SSD install - any problems?

[think2wice]

I'll be installing an intel X25-M G2 160GB as soon as I get my hands on my X100e (Wednesday). I have a USB enclosure, and a working USB Flash drive bootable with Win 7 Pro 64-bit installer, so I am generally prepared for the task of fresh OS installation. I don't want to use Win 7 Pro 32-bit, so I am not needing to clone in this case.

This is my first experience with an SSD. Other than disabling automatic defrag in Windows 7, what else should I do differently than with a standard disk?

1. Partitioning? I always keep my system drives in 2 partitions - one for Windows and Applications, one for my files. Still good idea with SSD, or immune to fragmentation problems, or what?

2. I am regularly adding and replacing large 720p or 1080p video files (movies for the road when business travelling), will this degrade performance of the SSD over time, or is that all solved by latest firmware?

3. Does an SSD perform the same if it's 25% full compared to 75% full? Many SATA disks I have had slow down if the drive is more than half full.

4. Anything else I should do to keep performance up?

Many thanks for the help!

[Jason404]

I'm wondering that happens to the ThinkVantage Active Protection System when you install a SSD. Wouldn't it be a good idea to make sure that the software for that is uninstalled?

[jvarszegi]

1. Partitioning may still be a good idea depending on your backup scheme. You can do system backups faster and they will take up less space, do separate file-based backups of your most important files only, etc. But due to the random-access nature of SSDs compared to hard disks, fragmentation is not a worry in the same way.

2. Writing large files will degrade performance over time and eventually could contribute to a failure, but the X25-M drives are highly rated for MTBF, as well as supporting TRIM which does wear leveling to prolong life of the drive.

3. I believe so for the X25-M, but am not so sure about how Sandforce drives work. In any event, in light of the huge performance advantage over traditional hard disks regardless of how full the SSD is, it's not a good reason to avoid using half of your disk unless you're doing scientific computing etc., which you won't be on an X100e. On an X25-M you will want to leave a certain portion of the disk free so that TRIM can work, but it's nowhere near 50%

4. You should update the drive's firmware if it is not the latest version. Windows 7 will do things like disable ReadyBoost and SuperFetch at installation, but you might check to make sure that happens. As long as you will be running enough RAM, you might consider disabling the page file to reduce use of the disk. You should turn off Active Protection or just not install it, because it will be useless. Depending on whether you let Windows manage it automatically or use the supplied Intel software, you may need to run TRIM every so often to keep performance up. Battery drain on the X100e is not bad in standby mode, so I have simply disabled hibernation completely.

[emeraldgirl08]

I'm wondering that happens to the ThinkVantage Active Protection System when you install a SSD. Wouldn't it be a good idea to make sure that the software for that is uninstalled?

I have a setup with both SSD and platter and can say that Thinkvantage APS does work for my T400 with platter in ultrabay.

If you have the SSD only I'd uninstall it. That program is only for mechanical/moving parts platter drives. If you have an platter HDD in the Ultrabay it may work for your series of Thinkpad. I say may b/c I'm not 100% sure how it would function with the other Thinkpad series.

I'd also strongly suggest buying the Ultrabay hard drive adapter so that you can use it for storage. I am by no means an expert on SSDs but from what I understand it's generally a rule of thumb never to fill your SSD to capacity. Media files can be quite huge so I've put all those files in my platter HDD. I have 20% of my SSD in use by the OS partition. I may shrink that but will have to read more about it. My W7 partition has been taking up a pretty consistent 13gb the last couple of weeks. I attribute that to disabling system restore (good time to learn how to clone etc), changing my page file to 1000MB, and forcing Firefox to memory cache instead of disk cache (128mb). I hope I'm making sense b/c I'm scaring myself with how techy I'm beginning to sound now

Good luck and have fun with your new toy

[Jason404]

Interesting, thanks, but remember that the X-series ultraportables only have one drive bay (they do not even have optical drives, apart from the X300/301).

[emeraldgirl08]

Interesting, thanks, but remember that the X-series ultraportables only have one drive bay (they do not even have optical drives, apart from the X300/301).

Oh dear. I overlooked your Thinkpad type

Today is blush day for me!

[visionviper]

I'll be installing an intel X25-M G2 160GB as soon as I get my hands on my X100e (Wednesday). I have a USB enclosure, and a working USB Flash drive bootable with Win 7 Pro 64-bit installer, so I am generally prepared for the task of fresh OS installation. I don't want to use Win 7 Pro 32-bit, so I am not needing to clone in this case.

This is my first experience with an SSD. Other than disabling automatic defrag in Windows 7, what else should I do differently than with a standard disk?

1. Partitioning? I always keep my system drives in 2 partitions - one for Windows and Applications, one for my files. Still good idea with SSD, or immune to fragmentation problems, or what?

2. I am regularly adding and replacing large 720p or 1080p video files (movies for the road when business travelling), will this degrade performance of the SSD over time, or is that all solved by latest firmware?

3. Does an SSD perform the same if it's 25% full compared to 75% full? Many SATA disks I have had slow down if the drive is more than half full.

4. Anything else I should do to keep performance up?

Many thanks for the help!

1. Unless you want multiple partitions it doesn't matter. SSDs don't have to deal with file fragmentation because a SSD is able to access any data stored on the drive is more or less the same exact time as any other piece of data.

2. Performance will not degrade but lifespan will. Even so, current drives are set to last so long (even MLC) it doesn't really matter.

3. Yes. The only thing is that TRIM does require free space to work properly. If you keep 10% of your drive free you shouldn't have any issues.

4. Not really.

[AMATX]

Did you turn off indexing on your partitions?