SSD/Setup Questions.

[Gaate]

I just got my first SSD, and I didn't really do much research before i bought it, mainly because i got it for 60$ on a fire sale, its a Intel 320 Series 80 GB drive. Its never been used before or anything. I had heard a lot about OCZ and other brands causing crashes, and that Intel really was the only good SSD.

I have a few questions I was hoping to get answers to. I have done some research, but I am still unclear on these.

1) After I write something to the SSD, will the space become slower, for example if i filled up the ssd, wiped it, and filled it up again. Would the drive be going slower the second time?
2) If i just disconnected my main drive and booted windows 7 install on the ssd would this be fine? I saw all these things about creating the partitions manually and installing it through data transfer, but this seems much easier. Will this cause for more data then necessarily to be installed onto the SSD?

 

[Forceman]

1. No, writing to the drive will not make it slower - on drive garbage collection and the WIndows TRIM command (automatically sent) will keep that from happening.

2. For Win 7, which is SSD aware, your best bet is to do exactly what you said - install just the SSD and then let Windows install do the partitioning and formating just like any other install.

Don't worry about unnecessary writes to the SSD or anything - the write lifetime of new SSDs is significantly longer than you would possibly care about the drive. Since you are getting a relatively small drive, you should disable hibernation on your machine (unless it is a laptop) to remove the RAM-sized hibernation file and free up that space for programs.

 

[jwcalla]

If you ever need to wipe your SSD clean, you can use the ATA Secure Erase command (probably comes with the Intel software).

Before installing Win7 you might want to just hook the drive up and verify that the firmware is the latest. (You can probably check the firmware version with the Intel utility.)

Congrats on your first SSD.

 

[DonDon]

Yep, you are on the right track.

Install the SSD Toolbox from Intel's website. Hook the new drive to your old setup and run the Toolbox. It will let you know if the firmware is current.

Then hook up just the new drive and install windows. Win 7 should set it up properly.

Do not defragment, turn on disk indexing, or run hibernation. The new drive should be fast enough booting that you wont be too annoyed by the longer boot time without hibernation.

Your only problem will be that you will find it hard to use a computer with a mechanical drive after you get used to running with an SSD.

Don

 

[Gaate]

Ok, so i set up the Operating system and i have it running, my old hitatchi or whatever 1tb drive is running in the background. Now i am trying to figure out how to use the programs on it. Whenever i go to the google chrome shortcut on my old hard drive it does not respond. Is there something i need to do or am i just being stupid?

Also, i figure i will need to install display drivers and stuff like that on the ssd also? wanted to ask before i use the space.

EDIT: Other programs seem to work. Fraps gives me an error about a corrupt instalation.

EDIT EDIT: Ok, im stupid, all of the shortcuts still pointed to C:/ sorry.

 

[Gaate]

Ok, i have run into another question. Is there a way to transfer BF3 and Skyrim to the SSD without re downloading everything?

 

[DonDon]

You may have to reinstall your programs to get them to work. Just moving them to a new location will not always work as there are dlls and other components that get registered with Windoz during install.

Just install them over the location where they are currently living.

Don

 

[Forceman]

Ok, i have run into another question. Is there a way to transfer BF3 and Skyrim to the SSD without re downloading everything?

You can just move the Skyrim folder to the new Steam location and then run the executable from there - it should remap everything for you. There is also a way to move BF3 without reinstalling - just google for it.