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  1. Member
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    I'm considering buying a new SSD, because I could always use faster speed to boot up Windows and load programs and such. I'd like to keep my old OS partition intact but I'm not sure what kind of performance hit would I suffer from cloning my partition to SSD?

    Is it worth getting an SSD in light of this or is it just better to start over fresh?

    My Specs are:

    Acer Aspire x3200 w/ AMD Phenom X3 (TripleCore) 8400 2.1 GHz (Stock speed & HS)
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    I have a 256 GB SSD from Crucial and I'm also running Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit like you. I love the SSD. The only thing is that you should install whatever firmware updates the device you buy has before you put anything on it. You can install them later, but it's safer to do it before using it and you want the latest and greatest firmware for sure.

    Note that for best results you need to keep about half the SSD unused. The more you get beyond using half of it, the more you should expect it to degrade in performance. I manually set up my paging spaces (Windows may call this "virtual memory" but it's paging space) to two 1.5 TB SATA drives I also have. Get paging space/virtual memory off the SSD for best results too. There's no need for it to be there and it just wastes space you'd be better off saving to make the SSD perform better.

    I can't think of any reason why you couldn't just clone the partition and I can't think of any reason why doing so would give you a performance hit. Win 7 starts very quickly from an SSD. I think you'd be happy with the decision should you do this.
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  3. Intel SSD can be cloned to for example. Intel has software for that purpose on their website. It will only work with Intel SSDs.

    Having said that I Cloned using Norton Ghost on two machines from 7200 RPM to SSD drives. EaseUS Todo Backup Free 3.0 can also clone. I used it to clone from one SSD to a Backup SSD. It has a check box to check if cloning to a SSD that is supposed to align the drive properly.

    Whatever drive you buy read users reviews. Some have terrible reviews and some needed firmware updates to work reliable.

    I've used Intel, Samsung and Kingston myself.

    Be sure to set AHCI and use Win7 to get the best results or something like the Samsung that has good garbage collection built in.

    OCZ for example seems to recommend a clean install of windows and even then some have problems. I myself noticed better performance on a Intel SATA port than the faster Marvell port supplied which resulted in lower speeds.
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  4. Originally Posted by jman98 View Post
    I have a 256 GB SSD from Crucial and I'm also running Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit like you. I love the SSD. The only thing is that you should install whatever firmware updates the device you buy has before you put anything on it. You can install them later, but it's safer to do it before using it and you want the latest and greatest firmware for sure.

    Note that for best results you need to keep about half the SSD unused. The more you get beyond using half of it, the more you should expect it to degrade in performance. I manually set up my paging spaces (Windows may call this "virtual memory" but it's paging space) to two 1.5 TB SATA drives I also have. Get paging space/virtual memory off the SSD for best results too. There's no need for it to be there and it just wastes space you'd be better off saving to make the SSD perform better.

    I can't think of any reason why you couldn't just clone the partition and I can't think of any reason why doing so would give you a performance hit. Win 7 starts very quickly from an SSD. I think you'd be happy with the decision should you do this.
    I keep plenty of room on my SSDs, My understanding is that doing so will extend drive life due to wear leveling having more free memory to work with beyond the spare memory amount.
    If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
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  5. Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    I'm considering buying a new SSD, because I could always use faster speed to boot up Windows and load programs and such. I'd like to keep my old OS partition intact but I'm not sure what kind of performance hit would I suffer from cloning my partition to SSD?

    Is it worth getting an SSD in light of this or is it just better to start over fresh?

    My Specs are:

    Acer Aspire x3200 w/ AMD Phenom X3 (TripleCore) 8400 2.1 GHz (Stock speed & HS)
    4 GB G·Skill DDR2 800 PC2-6400
    Onboard NVidia GeForce 8200/9200
    Asus Xonar DX
    WD 500GB (30 GB OS partition w/ 9 GBs free space)
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Build 7600
    I forgot to mention that cloning the existing win7 to a SSD resulted in a good bump in performance. Well worth it IMO. I only keep Windows and programs on the SSD. Everything else goes to a 1TB data drive. Except on the Laptop where it all goes to the SSD 160Gb SSD.

    Your biggest problem will be cloning only the Boot Partition.
    Last edited by TBoneit; 7th Oct 2011 at 18:24.
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    Originally Posted by jman98 View Post
    I manually set up my paging spaces (Windows may call this "virtual memory" but it's paging space) to two 1.5 TB SATA drives I also have. Get paging space/virtual memory off the SSD for best results too. There's no need for it to be there and it just wastes space you'd be better off saving to make the SSD perform better.
    What if I disabled the pagefile or reduced it to 16-200MB on the OS drive?

    Would it still be better to move it to a data drive?

    Oops I forgot to put this thread in Other > Computers forum.

    Can I duplicate this thread onto over there?
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  7. Useful Idiot Phlexor's Avatar
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    Never clone Windows 7 to an SSD, always install. Use a Win7+SP1 install media as well. Installing to a HDD and an SSD Windows 7 does different things like turning off a bunch of stuff that would normally wear out your SSD faster. I can't remember exactly right now because I'm half asleep. Go look it up.
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    Originally Posted by Phlexor View Post
    Never clone Windows 7 to an SSD, always install. Use a Win7+SP1 install media as well. Installing to a HDD and an SSD Windows 7 does different things like turning off a bunch of stuff that would normally wear out your SSD faster. I can't remember exactly right now because I'm half asleep. Go look it up.
    Is there a way to turn it on before or after to prevent this wear-and-tear you speak of?
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    Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    Originally Posted by jman98 View Post
    I manually set up my paging spaces (Windows may call this "virtual memory" but it's paging space) to two 1.5 TB SATA drives I also have. Get paging space/virtual memory off the SSD for best results too. There's no need for it to be there and it just wastes space you'd be better off saving to make the SSD perform better.
    What if I disabled the pagefile or reduced it to 16-200MB on the OS drive?

    Would it still be better to move it to a data drive?

    Oops I forgot to put this thread in Other > Computers forum.

    Can I duplicate this thread onto over there?
    I don't know if you can disable it in Windows. My suggestion is that you either make it very small or get it off the drive completely.

    Do NOT duplicate threads! I don't know about your other thread, but we dislike duplicate threads around here. If your other thread is basically covering the same subject as this one then you're lucky that it hasn't been closed by the moderators.
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    Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    Originally Posted by Phlexor View Post
    Never clone Windows 7 to an SSD, always install. Use a Win7+SP1 install media as well. Installing to a HDD and an SSD Windows 7 does different things like turning off a bunch of stuff that would normally wear out your SSD faster. I can't remember exactly right now because I'm half asleep. Go look it up.
    Is there a way to turn it on before or after to prevent this wear-and-tear you speak of?
    I hadn't considered what Phlexor said, but it makes sense. You need TRIM support to help the SSD to last longer. It makes sense that if you cloned that you wouldn't have TRIM on the SSD since the original hard drive wouldn't have it. I don't know if it's even possible to turn on TRIM afterwards but now that you know what it is I suppose you could search on the internet to see. A fresh install to an SSD would be a sure way to turn it on.
    Last edited by jman98; 11th Oct 2011 at 09:32. Reason: Fixed typo
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  11. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    Oops I forgot to put this thread in Other > Computers forum.

    Can I duplicate this thread onto over there?
    I'll move it there.

    Moderator redwudz
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  12. Originally Posted by Phlexor View Post
    Never clone Windows 7 to an SSD, always install. Use a Win7+SP1 install media as well. Installing to a HDD and an SSD Windows 7 does different things like turning off a bunch of stuff that would normally wear out your SSD faster. I can't remember exactly right now because I'm half asleep. Go look it up.
    You and I will have to disagree on clean install only. Recommendations on that seem to come mainly from the makers that use Sandforce controllers. OCZ for example says new installs only.

    I used the Intel SSD Toolbox to do the windows optimizations. AHCI is on and Intel even makes available a cloning software.

    I haven't even checked to see if trim is enabled. I suspect it is as the Intel SSD toolbox has a function that does garbage collection on the drive and it takes a few seconds to run rather than the minutes it warns about.

    So far no speed impact from cloning.

    I just did a clone of my desktop boot drive from Intel to Samsung SSD and the EaseUS Todo Backup Free has a optimize for SSD box I checked. That I believe takes care of some of the optimizations windows does during the install. The Samsung is just in case the boot drive gets infected or develops some other problem. I did the same thing with my laptop too. I also hooked up the backup drive and made sure it worked.
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  13. Originally Posted by jman98 View Post
    Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    Originally Posted by Phlexor View Post
    Never clone Windows 7 to an SSD, always install. Use a Win7+SP1 install media as well. Installing to a HDD and an SSD Windows 7 does different things like turning off a bunch of stuff that would normally wear out your SSD faster. I can't remember exactly right now because I'm half asleep. Go look it up.
    Is there a way to turn it on before or after to prevent this wear-and-tear you speak of?
    I hadn't considered what Phlexor said, but it makes sense. You need TRIM support to help the SSD to last longer. It makes sense that if you cloned that you wouldn't have TRIM on the SSD since the original hard drive wouldn't have it. I don't know if it's even possible to turn on TRIM afterwards but now that you know what it is I suppose you could search on the internet to see. A fresh install to an SSD would be a sure way to turn it on.
    I'm not sure how much of a impact Trim support has on drive life. Wear leveling is what helps with drive life. Having plenty of free space on the drive will help with longer life as it gives more room for the wear leveling to use as I understand it. The amount of spare memory also will impact that. I believe the 120Gb Intel has 8Gb spare space for example. Their 320 series also has a 5 year warranty.

    My understanding of Trim is that it is more to help keep the drive up to speed. Samsung and Kingston have good garbage collection routines that do the same function.
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    Originally Posted by TBoneit View Post
    My understanding of Trim is that it is more to help keep the drive up to speed. Samsung and Kingston have good garbage collection routines that do the same function.
    You are correct. I cannot speak to the Samsung and Kingston routines as I know nothing about them. Not using TRIM can be fairly negative as if speed decreases enough you've got a situation where you bought a fast drive that's no longer fast. You are right that wear leveling is a bigger concern, but I still think that for most of us you'd rather have TRIM than not have it unless you are sure that you've got some kind of similar function like what you mentioned.
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    Hey check this out guys:

    Crucial SSD 64GB = 75 MB/s sequential write and Crucial SSD 120GB = 175 MB/s sequential write, so says the Newegg technical specs.

    My current OS 7200rpm HDD on native AMD SATAII = around 90ish MB/s sequential write (tested via Device manager)

    It appears mine is faster than the Crucial 64GB SSD !

    So, what kind of speeds really matter, say for, for general OS performance like loading up programs such as Adobe After Effects?

    In light of OS operations, does sequential speeds matter? What about random speeds? How often do write speeds matter as opposed to read speeds?
    "A computer is never finished, you just run out of money."
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  16. Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    Crucial SSD 64GB = 75 MB/s sequential write and Crucial SSD 120GB = 175 MB/s sequential write, so says the Newegg technical specs.

    My current OS 7200rpm HDD on native AMD SATAII = around 90ish MB/s sequential write (tested via Device manager)

    It appears mine is faster than the Crucial 64GB SSD !
    Now compare random access times.

    Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    In light of OS operations, does sequential speeds matter? What about random speeds? How often do write speeds matter as opposed to read speeds?
    Sequential read and random access are most important for OS boot.
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    Crucial SSD 64GB = 75 MB/s sequential write and Crucial SSD 120GB = 175 MB/s sequential write, so says the Newegg technical specs.

    My current OS 7200rpm HDD on native AMD SATAII = around 90ish MB/s sequential write (tested via Device manager)

    It appears mine is faster than the Crucial 64GB SSD !
    Now compare random access times.

    Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    In light of OS operations, does sequential speeds matter? What about random speeds? How often do write speeds matter as opposed to read speeds?
    Sequential read and random access are most important for OS boot.
    Ah so basically, my current setup as it is is already fast like a Crucial 64GB SSD, perhaps even faster, correct?
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  18. Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    Ah so basically, my current setup as it is is already fast like a Crucial 64GB SSD, perhaps even faster, correct?
    No, your random access times are gigantic compared to an SSD.
    Last edited by jagabo; 11th Oct 2011 at 23:22.
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    Ah so basically, my current setup as it is is already fast like a Crucial 64GB SSD, perhaps even faster, correct?
    No, your random access times are gigantic compared to an SSD.
    Please define 'gigantic.'
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  20. microseconds vs milliseconds

    Most boot benchmarks I've seen show windows booting about 1/3 faster with an SSD compared to a 10K rpm hard drive.
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    microseconds vs milliseconds

    Most boot benchmarks I've seen show windows booting about 1/3 faster with an SSD compared to a 10K rpm hard drive.
    Say by HDD takes 180s to loads.

    By those stats, SSD would load in 120s.

    That's a noticeable difference if I was waiting in front of the PC.

    But I guess if I were to do something else while it's loading then I wouldn't notice it really, huh?
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  22. Originally Posted by Stealth3si View Post
    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    microseconds vs milliseconds

    Most boot benchmarks I've seen show windows booting about 1/3 faster with an SSD compared to a 10K rpm hard drive.
    Say by HDD takes 180s to loads.

    By those stats, SSD would load in 120s.

    That's a noticeable difference if I was waiting in front of the PC.

    But I guess if I were to do something else while it's loading then I wouldn't notice it really, huh?
    Maybe not. But if your computer takes 180 seconds to boot I suspect you'll see more than a 30 percent improvement with an SSD. I've seen many games have much faster level load times -- a place where you notice it a lot. Ie, instead of waiting 20 seconds for the next level to load you might have to wait only 10 seconds. Some examples:

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching-review/4

    Even with fairly fast starting applications the system feels peppier when apps start in 1 second instead of 2.

    Personally, I don't think it's worth the extra cost for the things I do. But I can understand why some people care.
    Last edited by jagabo; 12th Oct 2011 at 08:13.
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  23. Anecdotal on my part, I used a Intel 320 series 120Gb or maybe 160Gb when I built my brothers I7 2600 PC. Not using a stop watch but counting by the thousand 1, thousand 2 method I would get up to 20 for windows to be loaded with the A/V running not counting the time the motherboard spent doing it's P.O.S.T. Clean install of Win7 w/AHCI enabled in the bios and having run the Intel SSD toolbox to optimize windows

    From benchmarks I've seen the 300Gb is faster. Something to do with the memory bandwidth internally due to more memory ships as I remember it.

    Anecdotal on my part again, I used another Intel SSD on a slower single core AMD running win7. I cloned the old drive to the SSD. Boot time is much better and applications open much faster. It performs more like a dual core with 5400rpm now. Th performance boost was worth it to me.

    On my cloned from the original 7200 to a SSD the performance boost is great. Applications that used to take over a minute to load are now ready in a couple of seconds.

    Bottom line for me cloned from original to SSD gives a nice boost as did a clean install.

    Raid Striping can speed up the computer even more. No Trim from what I've seen with raid however.

    On a P4 3Ghz that I tested a SSD on here at work the boost was not near as good as on newer machines. No AHCI for example and a slower overall architecture such as DDR vs DDR and DDR3, No Win7 drivers for the older built-in Intel graphics .

    Bottom line I love the boost in speed, reduced start-up & application load times. I'd hate to have to go back.

    Partially it may be because I only have one day to use my main computer so I want speed.
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  24. Originally Posted by TBoneit View Post
    Applications that used to take over a minute to load are now ready in a couple of seconds.
    What apps are you running that take over a minute to load from a hard drive? Most apps I run start in a second or two.
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  25. I meant to say that an Application instead of applications. I plead being in a hurry and not proofreading completely.

    One that opens a bunch of different databases. A contributing factor may be that my old boot drive was getting a bit old. Another factor could be that I cleaned a lot of junk out of the databases. Think over 100,000 items down to 6,000 now. But I see a big bump on everything I open.

    I went SSD & I7 for the same reason I have Optonline Ultra for internet on my Home Computer. I don't use the computer a lot. Mainly one day a week so I want it fast when I do.
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    Now I'm not a naysayer of the SSD revolution but I just realized that those who are saying they have noticed a vast improvement from HDD to SSDs have machines faster and better than mine to start off with. This leads me to suspect that this is so because you guys have faster CPUs, better video cards and RAM, etc which allow the SSDs to shine whereas my machine which is slow and outdated may not show similar noticeable improvements, if at all.
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  27. I cloned a cheap laptop hard drive to a Intel 320 series SSD and got a good bump in performance. OTOH a Old gateway P4 3Ghz didn't benefit much even with 2GB DDR and Win7. My guess is because in part no AHCI and older chipset. Also on the laptop going from a 5400RPM to SSD did help too.
    With the SSD the laptop starts much quicker and applications open much faster.
    YMMV

    Specs are AMD TF-20 1.6ghz, Radeon HD3200, Windows 7 and 3Gbmemory, 15.6" Display

    As can be seen the TF-20 is not an impressive processor.
    - AMD Athlon 64 TF-20 Single-Core Processor
    - 1.6GHz, 512KB L2 cache, 667MHz FSB
    - relating to AMD M690V Chipset
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    If someone is waiting more than a few seconds for an app to open, even on standard spindles:

    - You may have memory issues (low) and are paging/swapping.
    - You may be badly fragmented.
    - You're waiting for your drive to spin back up.
    Have a good one,

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