SSD Drives - Phenomenal!

[Jimmy Neutron]

Hi - just thought I'd share my experiences with a new SSD drive I bought.

My Windows 7 was taking around 3-4 minutes to load windows from a SATA drive, and my system drive was the 'slowest' part of my system in the Windows Experience (performance) Index, restricting it to 5.7.

I had considered for some time buying an SSD drive because of repeated drive failures (over a number of years) caused, I'm certain, by all the unnecessary (IMHO) hammering that windows gives the system drive. I figured that having no moving parts, an SSD drive should be more reliable.

The only thing that put me off was the expense - SSD drives are very expensive, even for small capacity drives. Then I realised that for my system drive I didn't need a huge drive.

I decided to invest in a 120GB SSD drive at around £180 (I'm sure they'll be chaper in USA).

The read and write speeds of SSD drives vary considerably, so I looked for one with a reasonably fast write time (170MB/Sec).

I cloned my system partition from the old drive to the SSD drive and was amazed at the results. The Windows Experience Index is now restricted by my graphics card to 6.7, with the hard drive at 6.9 (not that that means much, but it shows a significant increase in drive speed). More importantly Windows now loads fully in just under 30 seconds instead of the 3-4 minutes it was taking, and ther's no incessant head rattling either !!!

What I can't speak for right now is reliability, but with no moving parts I would hope (expect) that it'll last much longer than a conventional drive.

Yes they're expensive, but I don't regret the outlay one bit.

 

[yodap]

3-4 minutes? Really? That drive must have had problems. I'm loading up 32bit W7 Home Prem. on a P- 4 and IDE drive in about 60-70 seconds. 64bit W7 HP on sata drive in under a minute. Both of my performance indexes' pale in comparison to yours. Do you have complex programs loading?

I'm jealous of your new SSD though.

 

[TorrentG]

Slightly on topic - check out this new thing - pushing 500 MB/s read speeds.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-revodrive-120gb-review/

RAID PCI-e SSD

 

[clifford_cooley]

My Windows 7 was taking around 3-4 minutes to load windows from a SATA drive.

You probably have to many things loading at startup.

Use CCleaner and check how many programs are being loaded at startup. The more programs loading, the slower your computer will be as well as taking longer to completely start.

The main two things I leave at startup is audio and video related, everything else is removed.

 

[Ian]

I'm glad you're happy with the purchase .

3-4 mins does sound like a long time, even for a mechanical drive - so you may be able to improve on your 30 sec SSD boot time a little with a few tweaks .

I'm really looking forward to getting an SSD, but I'm going to hold off for as long as I can - partly as SSD tech is advancing quite rapidly, but also as I'm saving for a house move (which is a bigger priority, unfortunately!).

How have you found loading times for games and other applications, have they also improved dramatically?

 

[Mychael]

I'm hoping for another jump in technology for SSD it's not the lack of moving parts that is limiting their life it's gauged by how many times they can handle read/writes. Having Trim is supposed to help and apparently the Sandforce controllors are supposed to be the ones to get.
I was reading about a new technology hybrid drive, useing both SSD technology and conventional platters. Be interesting to see how they go.

 

[Jimmy Neutron]

Hi all - batch reply,

I don't think there was anything wrong with the original drive - I did chkdsk it many times with no problems.
I guess I do have quite a lot going on at startup, MS office, Windows Calendar, Visual Studio, sticky notes, Norton IS, Acronis Non-stop Backup, Stardock Object Dock, Gadgets for monitoring my CPU, GPU and drive activity - Windows Update of course (but why that can't wait until it's finished booting is beyond me) - lots in my Quick Launch and System tray etc etc. You should've seen how long it used to take before I switched off Indexing, which for me is a complete waste of time.

But, Clifford, who defines 'too many things'? . I want them all running (though I could probably do without office startup).

The reason I mentioned my startup was simply to give an illustration of the REAL difference in speed. I just wanted to pass on my experience with these drives for anyone who might be contemplating one. I guess the purpose of my post was to say this - I know they're supposed to be fast; I got mine more for the claimed reliability (which I've yet to ascertain), but I was amazed at how much faster things are.

TorrentG, That looks a nice bit of kit - You could've told me about it earlier! - no good for people with laptops though.

Ian - I have loads of games but I install all my apps on another drive (because I prefer - where Windows allows me to - to keep non-Windows stuff on a separate drive that WIndows won't rattle to an early death). But I'm absolutely certain that if they were installed on an SSD, they would load in a fraction of the time.
As an SSD is unlikely to be rattled to death, I would have put more stuff on the SSD but the expense constrained me to a relatively small capacity. But backing up my C drive is faster, and as windows is constantly reading and writing to the C drive, no head movement means everything seems more sprightly.
Within windows, everything is visibly faster (probably due to the page file, system logs etc). For anyone with memory contraints, faster pagefile accessing would, I think, make a huge difference.

What I didn't mention is that SSD drives supposedly also run cooler - mine is mounted in a 2.5" to 3'5 bay adapter which, as it happens, is also a heatsink; all my drives are mounted behind front panel fans and all run cool, so I can't verify that claim - but if so I'd say they're really a must for laptops, I'm sure mine doesn't need a heatsink at all, but that just happens to be what I had.

There are other things that the manufacturers don't even seem to have thought about - secure deletion of files for example. I don't know, but I'm guessing, that it wouldn't need multiple overwrites to securely delete files.

 

[Digerati]

The more programs loading, the slower your computer will be

Ummm, sorry, but that's not true at all - not unless you have such a small amount of RAM that Windows has to constantly bang on the [relatively slow] hard drive's page file.

Yes, if you have lots of things loading at boot, it will slow down your boot times, but boot times are NOT an indication of performance, once the system has fully loaded. And so what if you have a longer boot time? If it means what you use regularly is ready to use when you want it, that improves YOUR performance, and that's what computers are for. After all, most people only boot their computers once a day, if that! Too many things affect boot times for it to be a measure of performance. Just some of the things that affect boot times include:

Choice of malware scanner (a HUGE factor)
Choice of firewall (another HUGE factor)
Choice of graphics solution (yet another HUGE factor)
BIOS settings
Wireless or Ethernet
USB keyboard & Mouse vs PS/2
HW Monitors (temp/fan speeds)
External drives
Mapped/Networked Drives
Multi-monitor support
Card Readers
PDA sync devices and program
Other attached USB devices​

For me, I also load a populated Quicklaunch toolbar, a UPS service and monitoring program and my spamblocker at boot. All the above affect boot times but have no effect on the computer's speed once fully loaded. This is easily confirmed. Just look in your Task Manager. If it were true that more things loading slows down your computer, then everything loaded would be consuming CPU resources. And as you can see, it is likely almost everything is using 00% CPU resources.

And yes, if you have conflicting programs (like multiple anti-virus programs) that can affect performance too. But we are not talking about that. If a computer's boot times suddenly, dramatically increase from the normal "baseline" for that computer, then that is an indication of a problem - and most likely a hardware or driver problem. But a computer can easily normally takes 3 - 4 minutes (even longer with XP) to boot, but run perfectly fine once fully loaded - that's no indication of a problem.

My advice, turn it on, go get a cup of coffee, and come back and be ready to go.

Jimmy Neutron is absolutely right and it is fine to run all that he does at boot (including Office which, if his includes Outlook, may provide New Mail notices - as my spamblocker does for me).

 

[clifford_cooley]

But, Clifford, who defines 'too many things'? . I want them all running (though I could probably do without office startup).

That would be the person running the computer. It looks as if you are happy with all your programs loading. If you are happy then I am happy for you. From a stand point of not knowing what was loading on your computer and suspecting the worse was why I suggested using CCleaner.

I have seen too many computers where people have installed anything and everything to there computer and wondered why it was slow. After removing a dozen entries from startup, the computer would then function properly. As for me and my computer, I can live without applications loading at startup. Especially when the applications still function properly when called upon regardless of whether they are in the startup list.

@Digerati - I can see your point. I will change my way of thinking and word my post differently in the future. Thanks for stepping up and correcting yet another forum member.

 

[Digerati]

Correcting someone is not my intent. I just want readers to have the correct information.

I have seen too many computers where people have installed anything and everything to there computer and wondered why it was slow.

No doubt this is true - especially if users don't pay attention to what gets installed when they install new programs. CCleaner, for example, one of my favorite programs, will attempt to foist the Yahoo Toolbar on you, if you are not paying attention. Other programs will attempt to install auto-updaters, download managers and all sorts or resource hogging things - some with malicious intent.

 

[davehc]

I would not entirely disagree with Digerati. But many third party programs, which load automatically into the startup, monitor the computer for various reasons. Image/backup programs, for example. Others, by default, have automatic updates selected. These can be of various periods, from a very short time to only once a day. If these are left unaltered, they will certainly impair the pereformance of the OS.
As far as I am aware, with Windows 7, the principal items which remain latent until called, are the majority of the services. Surprisingly, disabling these, in customisation, gets a lot of attention on the web.

 

[Digerati]

...with Windows 7, the principal items which rewmain latent until called, are the majority of the services.Surprisingly, disabling these, in customisation, gets a lot of attention on the web.

But sadly, often not for the right reasons. As you say, these items remain latent, which by definition means, "present but not evident or active, dormant". If they remain in that state until called, why disable them? If present but dormant, they can become active much faster from that state than from a totally disabled or unloaded state - and that's a good thing in my mind as it means I am not waiting as long for things to load when I call them up - and to the point I was making earlier, do not impact performance when "dormant".

Microsoft does not hire inexperienced, uneducated dummy programmers so it amazes me when folks who have very little, if any experience or formal programming education think they know better than teams of coders with years of experience, and years of formal and practical education. For 10 years I was a hardware guy in a major software company who did alpha and beta testing. Developers are some of the hardest people to work with, but I would never call them dumb.

Can you make Windows faster? Probably, but at what expense? The risk of tweaking Windows for performance by disabling services and applets is stability and security and I think the Win7 development teams, who THIS TIME listened to the hoards of beta testers and users, did an outstanding job of making the Win7 the fastest, most stable, and most secure OS possible.

many third party programs, which load automatically into the startup, monitor the computer for various reasons. Image/backup programs, for example.

And that's fine if they have a real and legitimate need to do that. But many programs really don't. Take backup and image programs, for example. Why do they need to be running all the time? They don't. Okay, a backup may be faster if the program has a real time list of changed or new files, and is doing an incremental backup, but not if you are imaging the entire drive. And especially if you are doing an unattended backup at 3 in the morning.

Others, by default, have automatic updates selected. If these are left unaltered, they will certainly impair the pereformance of the OS.

Depending on the updater that is true. Some updaters want to run all the time, and constantly go out and check for updates. Others run only when you first open the application. To me, the only updater that needs to be running all the time is the one for my real-time anti-malware scanner.

But the key thing you said was "by default" - and this is exactly why I always recommend choosing the "custom" install option - always! In this way you can deselect those options to install Ask, Yahoo, & Google toolbars, auto-updaters, usage tracking programs , etc. You can also choose where to install the program, instead of having everything jammed under c:\program files.

 

[davehc]

I am a little bemused by , what appears to be, a critique of my post?? Or maybe I miread?
Whilst very lengthy, it appears to agree, in a more verbose manner, with what I had pointed out?

 

[TorrentG]

I think it's not being considered that although I'm sure the world's greatest software engineers developed Windows 7, they did design it for the average pc users. This is a great move on thier behalf because it satisfies the masses and does so well.

Then there are "power users" that can and do benefit from tweaking the OS to their exact needs and wants. Such as disabling NTFS last access timestamp, disabling old compatibilities for increased disk performance....things of that sort...or disabling all unnecessary services which is an excellent practice for security reasons as well.

 

[TrainableMan]

My house has a light in the attic and a light in the cellarway but I use them so rarely that I find it advantageous to turn them off when not in use; I think it was wise of the builders to put in the option but I appreciate they were smart enough to realize I might not always need them and provided a method to turn them off.

Windows 7 has options I don't need and they provided ways to turn them off or uninstall them. I don't care if it only saves me 1/100th of a second on boot-up or 4kb of harddrive space; it's still my computer and I like to tweak it for my needs.

What I have found to be a problem when deciding what services to disable is that many websites don't prominently display a date on their web-pages and you get outdated information or incomplete information as to the actual function of the service and what programs/features depend on it. If you do research and know what you are doing then I say tweak till it's broken, right Elmer Befuddled?

I also know HP thinks I need about 3 services and 3 other start-up programs just to install f***ing printer and scanner drivers - I don't need their monitors or their automatic updates and it pizzes me off everytime they slip that crap into my start w/ no notice and no option to customize the install.

 

[davehc]

"many websites don't prominently display a date on their web-pages and you get outdated information or incomplete information"

Oh YES. I go along with that. Within the last few days I have had a heated exchange with the owner of a very well known page over this issue.

 

[Digerati]

Windows 7 has options I don't need and they provided ways to turn them off or uninstall them. I don't care if it only saves me 1/100th of a second on boot-up or 4kb of harddrive space; it's still my computer and I like to tweak it for my needs.

I accept that. As I mentioned, I have disabled Win7's automatic defrag and I don't let Windows Update automatically update my main computers either (although it does auto-update my other Win7 (not XP) computers and so far has caused no problems). I also have restored the Quicklaunch toolbar and cannot understand why on Earth MS would think folks don't want it.

My concern is about disabling features simply because it made a difference with XP. There are still people who claim the Windows Firewall is no good (even though it never was bad) yet their complaint about it not being 2-way was resolved with SP2. People disable Indexing because it bogged down XP so much. Same with Windows Update and many other services. My concern is not with recognized experts such as the other VIPs participating in this thread, but with others reading who may think the various components in Windows 7 suffer from the same limitations as those in XP - and that is simply not true. MS had 10 years to work out the kinks.

I agree wholeheartedly with your comments about HP - I generally love their printers, but not their software. Fortunately, Win7 recognized my HP OJ-6500 and installed only the basic drivers for it and surprise, it scans, faxes, copies and prints via my wireless network with no problems. Note for future reference - HP has the basic drivers without all the other fluff available on their website for download and that's what I used for my remaining XP systems.

I also agree that sites that publish documents without dates should be taken out back and shot. I also don't like those that don't list the OS it applies to. And of more recent importance, if 32 or 64-bit specific.

Oh, and I agree too about the comments about lights to the basement - but then, unlike my teenage granddaughter, I'm not afraid the boogeyman will get me.

And my apologies to Jimmy Neutron for my part in driving this thread totally OT.

 

[davehc]

As the whole of new tasbar takes care of all quick launch additions now, I would imagine that is why MS decided to drop it.

 

[Digerati]

As the whole of new tasbar takes care of all quick launch additions now

That's the problem, it doesn't - at least not how I use Quicklaunch. For example, I have 15 forum shortcuts at 7 sites I visit daily on my QL. The new taskbar does not allow me to have all 15 shortcuts on the taskbar as it pins them to my browser's icon. The new taskbar is great for launching and managing applications like Word and open docs, and it is great for managing open web pages, but it does not allow me to manage my commonly used shortcuts. Yes, I could put them on my desktop, but (1) my desktop gets covered and (2) too many shortcuts on the desktop can drastically slow boot times as each must be loaded with the desktop.

So I really like the new taskbar, but it does not take the place of Quicklaunch.

 

[yodap]

I also have restored the Quicklaunch toolbar and cannot understand why on Earth MS would think folks don't want it.

I agree 100%. I spent very little time on Vista but I liked that feature.

I keep 5 Icons in the normal Taskbar (large view) and a dozen or so in the Quicklauch. it suits me well.