Help on proper setup and config for new SSD

[PONea]

I currently have an Intel DP55KG motherboard and WD VelociRaptor running Windows 7 and I ordered an Intel SSD Gen2 that I would like to swap out. I have loaded the base OS ,Office 2007, Intel drivers, Nvidia drivers and all updates. It would be nice to clone the setup over to the new drive if all things were equal.

I am confused as to the need for AHCI and how to format the drive properly.

If someone could help me out that would great. If it would be best to reload from scratch I can do that also.

[idata]

I cloned my vista setup on to my Intel drive and it was fine, maybe you could get a little more performance by tweeking things but I didn't feel the need to do it. I think the tweeks were very important for the early drives but not the newer ones.

You might get some more performance from AHCI, you can change this in the BIOS.

Windows 7 formats the driver properly when you install it, as did vista under most circumstances, XP typically didn't.

If you clone just remember to switch off defrag, in scheduled tasks.