SSD Optimized for WIN 7

[idata]

In Short, for Windows 7 you only need AHCI on in the BIOS. Pretty much everything is optimized right out of the box. The only thing I definitely would do is the Temp files moved to a faster write (Disk Drive Old School) The old school disk drives beat Intel's write speed however it's the READ speed that's most important to all Windows users not the Write. Write speed are important for Database base transactions or SQL, otherwise 99% of you will be happy with fast read speed and reliability w/o headaches that other known startup companies have.

If you want relibility stick with Intel. Hopes this helps. As always these speeds will go faster over time. Now I must go play Atari pong.

PS always make an image copy before any changes. Hope this helps anyone before you start tinkering wasting time. Also the Intel software is not needed so don't bother with win 7.

[idata]

Microsoft recommends the paging file tto remain on the SSD: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?

Yes. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well.

In looking at telemetry data from thousands of traces and focusing on pagefile reads and writes, we find that

• Pagefile.sys reads outnumber pagefile.sys writes by about 40 to 1,
• Pagefile.sys read sizes are typically quite small, with 67% less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% less than 16 KB.
• Pagefile.sys writes are relatively large, with 62% greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% being exactly 1 MB in size.

In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favorable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD.

[idata]

Paging file is not required for Solid State drives.Works just fine without it. However, some users can create a small paging file about 1/4 of your ram size (if you have the space on the ssd) that's fine its actually optimum performance to do this on the SSD for reads but the writes will simply speed up the defrag process.

Since you can't use defrag with SSD this can be tricky. If you can use the intel tool (I can't with this Nvida Video card) then you should be good to go.

I'm old school 2x ram paging <4 gigs then 4gigs> 1:1 if you send the paging file to a dedicated seperate disk drive. My only concern is reliability.

[idata]

Paging file requirement has nothing to do with SSDs.... but SSDs are the optimal place for them due to the large number of small file read (random) and relatively small writes.

What does defragging have to do with anything?

You might want to read this article about Paging File size: http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx

How Big Should I Make the Paging File? Perhaps one of the most commonly asked questions related to virtual memory is, how big should I make the paging file? There's no end of ridiculous advice out on the web and in the newsstand magazines that cover Windows, and even Microsoft has published misleading recommendations. Almost all the suggestions are based on multiplying RAM size by some factor, with common values being 1.2, 1.5 and 2.

[idata]

I have done a number of monitoring tests and for a single drive on ICH9 turning the page file off completely reduces average latency. If you have loads of RAM there is no need for a page file, it only slows down the SSD. (On my set up at least ).