Intel 330 60GB SSD with Windows XP ?

[idata]

I have an ageing Dell Dimension 9150 PC running Windows XP. I have two hard drives, one containing data, the other has the operating system & other programs on it. This drive is on it's last legs & needs replacing.

I'm trying to decide whether to just get another regular hard drive or an SSD to replace it. I intend to replace tihs PC before Apr 2014 when I beleive support for XP ends so dont want to change XP for Windows 7 at the moment.

I'm wondering if an SSD with XP is just too much hassle or not? From my limited knowledge of what I've read, XP doesn't support 'TRIM' but with Intel SSDs, the 'Intel Toolbox' performs a similar function?

The main problem (I think!) appear to be XP not partitioning the SSD correctly? Now this is where things get rather confusing for me - again, I beleive that there are ways to partition the drive before installing it?? I've also read about the 'Acronis Align Tool' - can this sort out the partitionong problem after the SSD is fitted & XP installed??

Can I just swap over the exisiting drive for the SSD, install XP, install drivers & windows updates, then install 'Toolbox' & finally 'Acronis Align Tool' & then align the SSD? Is it that simple or not?

Thanks Folks

[UHans]

lesc wrote:

Can I just swap over the exisiting drive for the SSD, install XP, install drivers & windows updates, then install 'Toolbox' & finally 'Acronis Align Tool' & then align the SSD? Is it that simple or not?

Yes, it is that simple.

lesc wrote:

I believe that there are ways to partition the drive before installing it??

Yes, the issue with XP and earlier versions of Windows is that it starts the first partition at 32256 bytes, which is not optimal for SSDs. It works with that offset and you can install windows and such, but performance will be better by aligning it to an even binary number. It should be possible to create a properly aligned partition on the bare drive with a gparted boot CD. But you can also just align it with the tool after installing Windows.

After aligning the drive, you can check it this way:

[idata]

Thanks for the info

Is 'creating a properly aligned partition on the bare drive with a gparted boot CD' easy to do or indeed necessary if the Acronis Align Tool will do the job afterwards?

[UHans]

You only have to do one or the other. But yes, creating a partition with for example a 1MiB offset and marking it active in gparted is easy. http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ GParted -- About

[idata]

Thanks again

I think with my limited knowledge, best to go for the Acronis Align Tool method unless there is a distinct benefit it using the gparted method...