Currently, an ever-growing number of users of Windows and other operating systems are choosing SSDs as the main storage devices in personal computers and laptops. This is due to the large number of advantages of this technology:

• high speed of functioning of the Windows operating system and applications in comparison with conventional HDD;
• low power consumption and noise even at maximum load;
• high resiliency in case of overloads and adverse external conditions;
• optimization of the latest versions of windows and non-windows-like systems for working with SSDs.

But besides the obvious advantages, there are some disadvantages of this type of media:

• high cost in comparison with the price of classic HDD;
• limited number of rewriting cycles, which reduces the "life" of the device;

Obviously, this type of media will become more widespread. Therefore, we will give a detailed sequence of steps for installing the Windows operating system on an SSD media.

Preparing your computer and media for a Windows installation

Before using the SSD, make sure the anti-static packaging is intact. Otherwise, the static voltage that occurs during operation can not only damage the stored information, but also disable the carrier. Avoid touching the connectors and exposed parts of the disc.

Update your motherboard BIOS to the latest version available and check that the SATA mode is set to AHCI. At this, the preparatory stage of setting up the system proceeds to the next stage.

Installing media into your computer

When installing into the case of a personal stationary computer, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the SSD disk has a 2.5-inch form factor. This means that it is necessary to have a suitable compartment in the rack structure of the system unit or to use special mounting brackets-screws. It should be added right away that unstable fixation of the SSD is highly discouraged. strong vibration can shorten the life of the device.

If you own a laptop, the fastening process will become much easier, since the storage media of this form factor is used in compact devices. So the installation of a new SSD will be limited to switching contacts from an already used disk.

In any case, after fixing the disk, you must connect it. For this, two cables are used. The first is the power cable and extends from the power supply. For user comfort, this cable is equipped with a recessed mount that will reduce the chance of misconnection. If your system does not have a suitable wire, an inexpensive "adapter" can be purchased.

The second cable is a signal cable and is used for data transmission. Most modern SSDs use a SATA connector, which is also equipped with a notch for proper connection. One end of the cable plugs into the connector of the data carrier, the other into the motherboard. Make sure your motherboard has SATA connectors before purchasing an SSD, as there are no data cable adapters.

Plug in the power cables and turn on the computer. At startup, the BIOS recognizes the media and you can proceed to the next step of the instruction. Otherwise, check the execution of all steps of this algorithm. If, after reconnecting, the media is not recognized by the system, then there is a high probability that the device is incompatible with your motherboard or that one of their devices is malfunctioning.

Installing the accompanying software

You can proceed directly to the installation of the Windows operating system itself. There are practically no peculiarities of this process from installing software products on HDD. The steps are almost the same, starting from formatting the disk and so on. The only important thing is to correctly configure the BIOS settings. After starting the computer and the system recognizes all the components, you must select the device from which the information will be read before installation. It can be like a CD or DVD, a bootable USB flash drive. To select, you can use BootMenu (keys F10-F12, depending on the brand of computer) or select the required SSD media as the first device in the BIOS settings.

Next, we follow the standard steps when installing Windows or another operating system - step by step we follow the instructions of the installer program (formatting the media, choosing regional settings, and others). An important point: if you install the system on a completely new disk, then it will not be divided into logical partitions. In this case, you need to think in advance about how best to do the partition and, at the stage before formatting, do this operation in the installer.

More interesting for the user may be the option of cloning an existing operating system onto a new media. This method is very convenient, since SSD media are highly integrated with the system and will allow the operating system to start without problems. The latest versions of the tools allow you to clone a large set of versions of Windows and other systems. To carry out this operation, it is convenient to use a tool such as Acronis® True Image HD.

To start it, you need to use a boot device, but the algorithm itself is very simple. Select the Tools and utilities tab> Click the Clone disk button> Select Automatic (recommended) to activate the fast system clone mode. In the process, the program will automatically format the media. For a more accurate copy, it is recommended to specify the type of operating system up to the Windows version. Select the source disk (HDD)> Click the “Next” button, then select the target disk (SSD)> Click the “Next” button. After rebooting the system, you can start Windows from the solid state drive.

Notes for different operating systems

Modern users pay much attention not only to windows, but also to other operating systems. Consider the specifics of installing them on a solid-state SSD drive.

• MacOS. While holding down the Optoins button in the menu item, open the system boot window. Additional specification of the destination media type may be required to start the installation on an SSD. In some driver versions, this media type may be recognized as FDD or HDD. Therefore, he may not get out as the first device. The disk will be formatted before installing the OS.
• Unix systems. Installing the operating system will format the hard drive. Therefore, in the event of a transition from windows, it is recommended to copy important information to a third-party independent media.

The proposed optimization strategy is based on famous post from Habr from which everything that is doubtful in my opinion is thrown out; as well as a thoughtful analysis of the topic " SSD drives: choice, use, discussion". This article is just a personal opinion, not claiming to be unconditional truth.

There is a whole "cloud of myths" around Windows optimization, most of which are untenable. Windows was not developed by one person, not a fool, and not one day. In the overwhelming case, the default configuration of the Operating System is optimal, there are no world conspiracies and little magic keys-switches that speed up the system at times. "Tweaking" if it can improve the performance of the OS, then by a fraction of a percent. Especially - Windows XP on modern machines, which are 100 times faster than the computers that it was originally "targeted". See a good article " Optimizing Windows - myths and reality"Igor Leiko on this topic.

With SSDs, the situation is slightly different - this technology did not exist during the development of Windows XP, and it was obviously impossible to take into account its features. Therefore, I have adopted some of the tips from sources on SSD optimization. Some - unconfirmed, but not refuted by a Google search either - were skipped without comment. The same advice that found at least one refutation in any more or less convincing source was rejected with reference to the refutation.

The main optimization principle: "it works - don't touch it!". It is better not to change anything in the OS unless absolutely necessary.

So, after a successful installation or on an SSD, you should:

Be sure to do:

1. for motherboards on Intel chipsets, install (if not already installed) Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility and Intel Rapid Storage (Intel has an inconvenient site with software without direct links support, so it's easier to google the actual files);
2. for Intel SSDs install Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox, in the settings, schedule a weekly launch of the Intel SSD Optimizer (initializer of the built-in hardware trim function). For non-Intel SSDs, install proprietary utilities and configure them in the same way;
3. disable Wikipedia: Prefetcher... Advice is accepted: not needed on an SSD. access time does not depend on the physical location of the file, and the operation itself obviously causes some kind of excessive movement of electrons;
4. recommend "disable Indexing on the disk through Administrative Tools -> Services". You can agree with disabling indexing (all the more so if you have a properly organized disk subsystem and the system partition is completely separated from the data and, therefore, a quick search on it is not needed) - however, this should by no means be done by disabling the service entirely, but " in a simple way " only for the system drive through the properties of the partition (right-click on the drive C: \ -> Properties);
5. "enable write caching on disk via Hardware or Device manager -> Disk Drives -> your SSD -> Properties -> Enable write caching on disk and Enable advanced performance". This advice is unambiguously fair and is automatically performed when Intel Rapid Storage is installed;

Do after thinking (if you do not understand the essence of the processes, it is better not to touch anything):

• it is recommended to disable the Swap File. Oh, this poor swap file! As soon as they do not torture him. In general, the advice is not correct, but for my particular computer, I left 16 MB. swap file on SSD, 512-3072 MB. moved to a virtual disk created in an unused OS area of ​​RAM, and another 3 GB. threw it onto the scratch disk. Why I did it this way is described in the article ""
• advise to transfer the browser cache to a separate medium. A controversial point. For a desktop with a constant broadband 5-10 megabit connection, I would skip the browser cache altogether. For a laptop, the cache can be justified, but laptops usually have only one drive ... For now, I have removed the cache from the RAM to the RAMDrive, and later I will probably completely turn it off. Anyway, here's how it's done in FireFox:
  • open an empty tab, type about: config, press Enter, find the browser.cache. * keys. It is clear how to disable it, but you can transfer it by creating a new parameter browser.cache.disk.parent_directory, specifying the path to the parent cache folder as its value

Not worth doing:

• the NtfsMemoryUsage key is suggested to be set to 2 so that NTFS "starts using more RAM." It sounds unconvincing, perhaps you shouldn't do this, especially since there is negative review.
• recommend disabling hibernation. Doubtful advice - SSD hardware allows (should) neutralize the negative effects of a static file location for hibernation and frequent overwriting. Moreover, this function is more than justified for laptops. After all, the SSD is for us, not us for the SSD.

That's all, good luck with your optimization and take care of your OS! My XP-shka has been alive since 2006.

ilya - 2013-07-23, 17:07

thanks for the good information

Nikolay Petrov - 2013-08-07, 11:08

for me in the article it would be better to have two lists:

1. Advice adopted
2. questionable and rejected

The first list could be used as a checklist when installing the system, otherwise you have to dig into a large list and still separate the grain from the chaff

Thanks for the advice, I've restructured the article a bit to improve readability and everyday use.

Ehduard - 2014-07-11, 23:40

Thank you, short and sufficient. I think that in addition to many, one more article will be useful, so that everything is in one place:

SSD: TRIM in Windows XP is now a reality (01/21/2014)

Well, let it be, well :)

I think that now (at the end of 2015) it doesn't matter anymore. SSDs have come a long way since 2011 (when this post was written) - auto diagnostic hardware has improved, price has come down. It seems that a modern SSD without any drivers will live under XP for several years.

Vlad - 2016-05-08, 19:39

It turned out to be a very useful infa for me. Oddly enough, some old programs for XP work with resources much more economically.) Many thanks to the author.

Please! My main working system is still Windows XP, installed in 2006, along with the purchase of a new platform, which has been running smoothly for almost 10 years. However, due to the sum of various circumstances (mainly - compatibility with modern hardware), I will probably rearrange it this summer.

So you've got a brand new SSD. You installed the system on it, armed yourself with the optimization guide found on the net and after a couple of hours did everything possible to ... slow down your work in the system!

Don't believe me? Think about what makes high performance. Advantages SSD speed you can experience in three categories:

• system, for example, the speed of its loading and operation
• programs, including web surfing and working with documents, images and media files
• your actions including navigating the disk and copying / moving files

How myths are born

I'm pretty sure your SSD tweaks have negatively affected at least one of these components. Below you will find out why this happened, but first about the reasons for this optimization.

If you read the inscription "buffalo" on an elephant's cage ...

There are tons of guides and even tweakers online for optimizing your SSD. In fact, the same information is used everywhere, and:

• outdated because it is aimed at saving disk space and reducing the number of rewriting cycles, which is irrelevant for modern SSDs in home PCs
• useless because Windows itself takes care of what they suggest to configure
• harmful, because it leads to a decrease in the speed of work - yours, programs and systems

Take a look critical to your guide or tweaker and think about which items fall into one of these categories!

There is one more problem - unsuccessful presentation of information, including incorrectly placed accents.

If you have an HDD along with an SSD, measure the speeds of both drives and keep the picture in mind. I will return to her, and more than once!

Special notes for dissent

After the publication of the material, I decided to specifically clarify a few points, so as not to repeat them regularly in the comments, answering opponents.

In this article:

1. All myths are considered solely from the point of view of speeding up the system, programs and users... If a measure is declared useless or harmful, this means that it does not contribute to speeding up work in any way.
2. Reducing the amount of writing to disk is not considered as an optimization measure due to the irrelevance of this approach. If that's your goal, myths 3-11 are for you, as is storing an SSD in a sideboard.
3. RAM disk usage is not considered as it is not directly related to SSD optimization... If you have an excess of RAM, you can use a RAM disk regardless of the type of drives installed in your PC.
4. All recommendations are made taking into account a wide audience, i.e. the majority users... When analyzing tips, keep in mind that they may not correspond to your tasks, work skills and ideas about the optimal and competent use of the operating system.

Now let's go! :)

Myths

1. Disable SuperFetch, ReadyBoot and Prefetch

This tip: controversial, can slow down the launch of programs, and in Windows 10 - increase the amount of writing to disk and reduce the overall performance of the OS when there is a lack of RAM

The speed of launching programs from the hard drive

When starting each program, the prefetcher checks for a trace (.pf file). If found, the prefetcher uses the file system MFT metadata references to open all necessary files. Then it calls a special function of the memory manager to asynchronously read data and code from the trace that are not currently in memory. When the program is launched for the first time or the startup script has changed, the prefetcher writes a new trace file (highlighted in the figure).

SuperFetch is unlikely to be able to speed up the launch of programs from an SSD, but Microsoft does not disable the feature, given the presence of hard drives in the system. If a proprietary utility from the SSD manufacturer (for example, Intel SSD Toolbox) recommends disabling SuperFetch, follow its advice. However, in this case, it is more than logical to keep all programs on the SSD, which will be discussed below.

Compressing memory in Windows 10

A separate article is devoted to this aspect of the Nuances of disabling the SysMain service in Windows 10. Earlier on this page there was a fragment from it, published impromptu.

2. Disable Windows Defragmenter

This tip: useless or harmful, can degrade disk performance

One of the functions of the CheckBootSpeed ​​utility is to check the status of the Defragmentation Scheduled Job and the Task Scheduler service. Let's take a look at how these parameters are relevant for the latest Microsoft operating systems installed on SSDs.

Windows 7

Windows 7 does not defragment SSDs, which is confirmed by the words of the developers in the blog.

Windows 7 will disable defragmentation for SSD drives. Since SSDs perform excellently on random reads, defragmentation will not provide the same benefits as on a regular disk.

If you don't believe the developers, take a look at the event log. You will not find an entry for defragmenting an SSD volume there.

Thus, when the SSD is the only drive, the scheduled task simply does not run. And when there is also an HDD in the PC, disabling the task or the scheduler deprives the hard drive of worthy optimization by a regular defragmenter.

Windows 8 and newer

In Windows 8, the Disk Optimizer has taken the place of the defragmenter!

Optimizing hard drives, as before, comes down to defragmentation. Windows no longer ignores solid-state drives, but helps them by sending to the controller additional a set of TRIM commands at once for the entire volume. This happens on a schedule as part of automatic maintenance, i.e. when you are not working on a PC.

Depending on the SSD controller, garbage collection can be performed immediately upon receipt of the TRIM command, or delayed until a period of inactivity. Disabling Disk Optimizer or Job Scheduler degrades drive performance.

3. Disable or move the paging file

This tip: useless or harmful, slows down the system speed when there is insufficient memory

The hardware configuration must be balanced. If you have little memory installed, you should add it, as an SSD only partially compensates for the lack of RAM, speeding up swap compared to a hard drive.

When you have enough memory, the paging file is hardly used, i.e. this will not affect the lifespan of the disk. But many people still turn off the pumping - they say, let the system keep everything in memory, I said! As a result, Windows Memory Manager does not run at its best (see # 4).

As a last resort, the paging file is transferred to the hard drive. But if suddenly there is not enough memory, you will only benefit in performance by having pagefile.sys on the SSD!

V: Do I need to put the paging file on the SSD?

O: Yes. The main operations with the paging file are random writes of small amounts or sequential writes of large amounts of data. Both types of operations perform well on an SSD.

By analyzing telemetry focused on evaluating the writes and reads for the paging file, we found that:

• reading from Pagefile.sys takes precedence over writing to pagefile.sys in a combination of 40: 1,
• read units for Pagefile.sys are usually quite small, 67% of which are less than or equal to 4KB and 88% are less than 16KB,
• the write blocks in Pagefile.sys are quite large, 62% of them are greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% are almost exactly 1 MB

Generally speaking, typical paging file usage patterns and SSD performance characteristics fit together perfectly, and it is this file that is highly recommended to be placed on an SSD.

But in practice, the desire to extend the life of an SSD at any cost is ineradicable. Here is a blog reader shaking over his SSD, transferring pagefile.sys to the hard drive, although he himself can even see with the naked eye that this decreases performance. By the way, I can't install more than 2 GB of memory in my netbook, and with a solid-state drive it became much more comfortable than with a standard HDD 5400 rpm.

Finally, do not forget that completely disabling the paging file will prevent you from diagnosing critical errors. The paging file size is flexible, so you always have a choice between disk space and performance.

Tricky question: What was my paging file size when I took a screenshot of the Task Manager?

Special note

On the Internet (including in the comments to this entry), you can often find the statement: “The paging file is not needed if you have installed N GB RAM ". Depending on the fantasy N takes the value 8, 16 or 32. This statement is meaningless because it does not take into account the tasks that are solved on a PC with a given amount of memory.

If you have installed 32GB for yourself, and you are using 4-8GB, then yes, you do not need an FP (but then it is not clear why you bought 32GB of RAM :). If you have acquired such a volume of memory in order to use it as much as possible in your tasks, then the FP will come in handy for you.

4. Disable hibernation

This tip: Inaudible and harmful to mobile PCs, may decrease battery life and speed.

I would formulate the advice like this:

• stationary PCs - shutdown is normal, tk. you can just as well use sleep
• mobile PCs - turning off is not always advisable, especially with high battery consumption during sleep

However, people have turned off, turn off and will turn off the protection of the system, regardless of the type of disk, this is already in the blood! And no, I don't want to discuss this topic in the comments for the hundredth time :)

6. Disable Windows Search and / or Disk Indexing

This tip: useless, reduces the speed of your work

This is sometimes argued that SSDs are so fast that the index will not significantly speed up searches. These people just never really used Windows Search!

I find it pointless to deprive yourself of a useful tool to speed up everyday tasks.

If you fall victim to any of these myths, tell us in the comments if I managed to convince you of their uselessness or harm and in what cases. If you disagree with my assessment of "optimization", explain what the benefits of these actions are.

You can mark you interesting snippets of text that will be available through a unique link in your browser.

about the author

Vadim, in recent days I bought myself 4 SSDs to install in all my computers. Let's just say ... life has changed :-)

I also thought for a long time whether to buy a laptop with an SSD or a hybrid drive, the second won, I chose 340GB + 24 SSD. Surprisingly, the default Windows 8 install was on a 5400 drive, but not an SSD. After suffering for a long time, I rearranged Windows 8 to an SSD and got a little crazy, tk. about 3GB left on the SSD. Knowing that over time the W8 will swell and it will be necessary to fight for space, I returned everything back, transferred the TEMP and Page file to the SSD, plus I put frequently launched programs.

Still, you just had to buy a laptop with an SSD and not hover your brain. We presented an SSD for NG and now I will cram it into an old netbook, put the W8 and be happy.

Thanks for the articles about SSD, our entire department reads it.

Alexey

You, Vadim, have gone over SSD myths very well, hopefully there will be fewer SSD perversions now. I have Win8 on SSD, as I put it and plow, I am satisfied and do not bother myself with all sorts of optimizations, the exhaust from which is doubtful.

PS: Answer to the question: 1Gb.

• Alexey, thanks for your feedback. You can't put your head on everyone, but I'm not trying :)

  The answer to the question is incorrect. How did you come to him?

madgrok

Before I bought myself an SSD, I read a mountain of forums, benchmarks, etc. And I came to the conclusion that all the tweaks are in the furnace.
Why do people buy their SSDs? Of course that would be faster! :) And most of the optimization tweaks basically negate all the performance gain, as Vadim wrote about.
I use my Vertex 4 256 GB as a normal disk for the system. I bought it somewhere in the fall. The flight is excellent, health is 100%
An excellent article, I will recommend it to all my acquaintances, friends to read so that they do not suffer. :)
And in general, thanks to the author for a great blog. I really like the fact that the topic is trying to "disassemble the bones."

Andrey

Vadim, at the end of the article, a survey about the availability of SSD on our computers, I think that this topic is still relevant - there are those who are not getting ready, at least in the near future, to acquire a solid-state drive for a number of reasons - someone does not see the point of installing it on an old one the computer is saved up for a new one, or as in the polling point, it suits the HDD, or this is how Pavel Nagaev - he ponders for a long time which one to prefer….
What would you advise? Is it worth moving the OS to an SSD to "increase system performance," so to speak?

Andre

Hello Vadim, I think a lot of people are now looking at what to buy an SSD, and it would be very cool if you wrote an article on choosing an SSD!

Alexey matashkin

Vadim, thanks for the article.
In my practice, I didn’t have to deal with these myths, I only heard some advice separately, so I read it with pleasure.

I don't quite get into the poll :) The main PC is not home, and it has an SSD. And in the home, there is still enough of the usual.

There is nothing to add on questions, because I do not use tweaks, all installed SSDs work normally with the system.
An important detail, though, is the firmware update on the disk. In my practice, there are 3 cases of serious failures that were eliminated with firmware updates.

Valentine

Pavel Nagaev,

Your 24 SSD was most likely designed for caching, which is why it is so small, you may need to use it as a cache, in which case you will get the benefits of both media - volume and speed. Vadim, do you have an article concerning hybrid hard drives or combining HDD with SSD? I think many readers might be interested in such an article. I think the topic about 12 myths is very useful, as I have many friends who consider themselves specialists, but who make such mistakes and impose these mistakes on ordinary users, thanks to the link to this article it will be possible to convince them to make such mistakes

Vadims Podāns

Good and useful article.

Sergey

Yes, indeed, people are surprised who buy SSDs to speed up their work, but then they themselves transfer everything and turn it off and again lose performance.

MythBusters in action! We skated well on all these myths.

Alexey G

The first time I got caught on disabling hibernation, but then I realized that it was inconvenient.
I remove the 8.3 labels. Because I use new versions of the program, and I don't need it)

From real life: when I assemble a PC with an SSD, I transfer user files to a hard disk drive. If the PC for some unknown reason (naughty hands, viruses) starts to not boot, then if I am nearby, then I will restore the configured image of the installed system (thanks to the blog), but if a person called another "master", then the first thing to do is format the disk: (More Unfortunately, I haven’t come across a smart way in my city, so this is a forced necessity to keep the user's files.

The answer to the question is: 2834MB?

Dima

Thank you Vadim.
As always, lucid and with a light sense of humor.
As I promised, I easily part with myths and see them off on their last journey. I'll turn everything back on.
Best regards, Dima.

PGKrok

I agree on all points, but I myself had to transfer the index files, some programs and personal photo videos to the HDD, tk. SSD - only 60 GB (which I mastered :))
For comparison (to the question of "keeping the picture in mind")
CrystalDiskMarc Result (HDD)
http://pixs.ru/showimage/HDD1301020_6347406_6812031.png
CrystalDiskMarc result (SSD)
http://pixs.ru/showimage/OSZ3010201_4238885_6812055.png

controller SATA-3 SSD - SATA-6

dawn

I bought ssd 60gb, left only Windows 8, program files, appdata, program data on it. The rest is on hdd.
Reason: the system partition is growing too quickly, and look, it will go to zero.
When buying, there was one task: to speed up the cold boot of the system. Which he achieved - 8 seconds.
Vadim, the article is transcript, thank you!

Ruby

About transferring TEMP and cache - put them stupidly on a gig ramdisk - this is a real speed increase, incomparable with an SSD.

Denis Borisych

I have been working in IT for a long time and I still never cease to be amazed at the grief of optimizers.

I have ssd in my home computer for a year now and everything is a bunch. 7 starts in 10 seconds, programs load quickly and easily without any optimizations. Well, except that the folder of necessary and important documents is not on ssd (its sizes are over 500 GB). And in the folder "My Documents" there is usually a turnover.

As a person, well, very close to IT, sometimes I am not enthusiastic about the innovations of the MC (just the inability to use the conductor without a mouse is worth it). But I must objectively admit that in terms of optimizing the OS on ssd and the stability of the work, they are undoubtedly great.

Ruby

I would also transfer the search index, but in the Windows blog they write that it is still kept in memory, so it makes no sense.

SuperFetch is needed in any case, it preloads files into RAM in advance, increasing the speed and reducing the number of calls to the drive.

Valery

Vadim, I read your articles quite regularly and often apply the advice from them in practice.
Having bought an SSD (Intel 520 120GB), I also first read about all sorts of optimizations and even applied some, but now I left only the indexing transferred to the HDD and Intel's recommendations for my disks, and here some of your Intel's advice and recommendations diverge:
http://123foto.ru/pics/01-2013/42746566_1358157387.jpg
Who should you listen to?))

Alexey

Vadim Sterkin,

Came by typing :-)
My paging file occupies 1 Gb of 16Gb of RAM (size at the choice of the system). Moreover, the system monitor shows almost zero% load. I decided that 8Gb should have at least 1Gb.

Oleg

Hello Vadim. I always look forward to new articles from you, this article was VERY useful for me and for my friends. To my regret, my arguments and advice do not reach some friends, for some reason they trust more forums where they do not always write useful information.
Hope this article will convince you.

I will wait for an article on choosing an SSD.
Thanks.

George

Thank you for the article.
To be honest, I didn't quite understand about Superfetch - what is the increase in performance on an SSD?

And about the size of the swap file, the answer seems to be this: 10.7 GB is written on the line. Subtract the amount of RAM from this figure.

Alexander

Recently bought a Kingston Hiper X 3K 120GB SSD. Installed Seven sp1. I did not see an increase in download speed and program operation.
Previous configuration: Asus P5Q, 2 WD 500Gb Raid 0, DDR2 2, 1GB each.
My conclusion: when the SSD is connected to the "slow" Sata 3Gb / s port, the performance gain of the system, compared to the one set for stripping, is insignificant. We'll have to upgrade to a motherboard with Sata 6Gb / s and at least 8GB DDR3 memory.

GlooBus

Pavel Nagaev,

There is no sense from SSD disks soldered on laptop motherboards in 16-32 GB. The best thing in this case would be to take a laptop in a simple configuration with an HDD and make the upgrade yourself. I did just that, took an ASUS X301A with 2 GB of memory, 320 GB HDD and upgraded to 8 GB of memory and 128 GB of SSD. The laptop worked in a completely different way! Loading the computer from pressing the button until the password entry window appears 6-7 sec. I did not make any tweaks, except that I turned off indexing, tk. I do not use search.

Alick

The other day I installed VERTEX 4 128Gb Win 8 on it, applied optimizers and after a week I realized that in vain, incl. will have to be reinstalled. And then there's also a sensible article.

Michal

Vadim Sterkin,

I think this is due to the fact that most people simply have not yet had specific practice in using SSDs, as you do.
and there are really a lot of myths.
for example, I am from RUz, we have just got SSD here.
no experience with them yet. and very expensive.
I just read your article, I realized that I shouldn't have moved the paging file.
thanks for the article, I hope not the last :)

As you already know, an SSD is much faster than a regular hard drive, and allows Windows to work with the file system almost instantly, I mean with small files.

It is the work with small files that is the weakest side of a regular disk, and the linear speed, as many people think. An SSD might even be 100 mb / s, and it will still be faster than even a new hard drive. But what if you love the benefits of an SSD but don't want to leave Windows XP? In this case, you can try configuring Windows XP for your SSD.

In this article, I will provide the main points, as well as give recommendations for the operation of an SSD on an old but still beloved XP.

TRIM SSD support in Windows XP

Perhaps the main problem in XP is the lack of a TRIM command (in fact, it's garbage collection). What is TRIM? In short, so that you understand, this is a special interface command with which Windows notifies the SSD which blocks no longer contain data, and therefore they can be physically removed from the SSD. Modern versions of Windows support this command, but in the days of XP, SSDs were not even thought of.

What happens to the SSD if there is no TRIM command? First, if you have a SandForce controller, its performance will degrade over time, but it will still be much faster than any hard drive.

The good thing about SandForce-based drives is that they use all free disk space as a backup. Therefore, if in most cases you have a lot of free space, then you will not notice problems with a drop in performance. SandForce, unlike other controllers, is in no hurry to delete files with the TRIM command, since the data may still be needed for some time. Nevertheless, SandForce architecture (as well as Indilinx, jmicron, Marvell, Phison) tends to use active garbage collection instead of background garbage collection over time.

What to do? Choose an SSD on a Marvel controller, they have a good internal algorithm and TRIM support is not critical. You can also pay attention to drives with an Indilinx Everest 2 controller (mainly from OCZ), there is a utility on the official forum to enable TRIM support in Windows XP. Well, and the simplest thing is to buy the O&O Defrag program, this is the best defragmenter in my opinion, which ensures the work of TRIM with any controller.

The TRIM command only informs the SSD controller that data at certain addresses can be deleted. And how the controller itself will process this command depends on the manufacturer and the SSD firmware.

That is, we can conclude that for Windows XP you need an SSD with "internal self-cleaning", that is, with TRIM support. You do not need to defragment the SSD, disable it immediately and never enable it. If possible, reduce the activity of working with the file system, by the way, you can look towards the PrimoCache utility (works at the driver level).

The size or partition boundaries on the SSD must be multiples of 1 MB, for example, the GParted manager can do this (in LiveCD mode, the markup is created automatically).

I advise you to buy not the cheapest SSD for working in Windows XP (I advise the manufacturer Intel), as well as, if possible, leave at least 20% of free disk space.

Installing Windows XP on an SSD drive

The first thing to understand is that AHCI mode is required for support, IDE mode will not work (or rather, the SSD will simply work slower). Therefore, before installing, go to BIOS and switch SATA to AHCI mode.

The second thing to do is to embed the SATA AHCI drivers in Windows XP, in general, you will have to download the drivers and embed them in the installation disk, this can be done using the nLite utility. Since, by and large, SATA controllers are manufactured by Intel, we go to their website and look for our motherboard. If you suddenly do not know your chipset, then you need to go to the Device Manager and in the IDE ATA / ATAPI Controllers section you will see its name.

You may be interested in the cache from the SSD-drive, which can be done even in Windows XP using the Primocache utility.

As a last resort, you can try to install some kind of assembly of Windows XP with built-in SATA AHCI drivers, but I do not recommend that. Just to make sure it works with your motherboard, you can try. Do not forget to install the O&O Defrag defragmenter on the installed system, which, as I already wrote, will execute the TRIM command (there is a section "automatic optimization" in the program settings, where you can enable SSD optimization once a week). The developers of O&O Defrag report (this can be found in the documentation for the program) that, in principle, even in IDE mode, TRIM can work, but it is not guaranteed.

How to check if TRIM is working?

You can check if TRIM actually works using the TRIMcheck utility. How? It's very simple - run this utility on the disk you want to check and press enter. Then close the window, wait a few minutes, and then run the utility again.

If TRIM works, then you will see the following inscription in a black window (that is, in the console) - TRIM appears to be WORKING!:

But how does TRIMcheck work? It's very simple - at startup, it writes a certain amount of data to disk and marks the addresses of the virtual blocks into which the write was made. Then these addresses are saved in a JSON file in the folder with the utility, after saving, the previously recorded data is deleted - this checks the work of TRIM. When you run it again, TRIMcheck checks if there is data at the addresses that are in the JSON file, if there is none, then the SSD controller successfully processed the TRIM command and the files were deleted.

Maybe you should disable Prefetcher for SSD?

Let's think, what is a Prefetcher in general? This is a special Windows component that can speed up the boot process and speed up the launch of programs. It first appeared in Windows XP, and starting with Vista there were also additional technologies - ReadyBoost and SuperFetch. What does Prefetcher do? I will try briefly so that they say “do not load” you - the Prefetcher technology analyzes the operation of programs and tries to predict the data that they will need at a certain time (for this, the technology simply puts this data into RAM). This allows you to speed up the launch of programs, loading modules.

If possible, it is better to test the operation of the system with the Prefetcher disabled, then enable the Prefetcher and draw a conclusion. Perhaps you will not notice the difference, in which case I recommend not disabling this technology.

It is possible to disable it - the benefit for the SSD from this is dubious, but you can try. To do this, open the registry using the key combination Win + R(then we enter the command there regedit), and go along this path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager \ Memory Management \ PrefetchParameters

There will be a key EnablePrefetcher(DWORD), the value of which can be changed to:

0x00000000- disabling Prefetcher
0x00000001- acceleration of application launch
0x00000002- acceleration of system loading
0x00000003- Acceleration of application launch and system loading

After changing the parameter EnablePrefetcher you don't need to reboot, but if possible, do it better.

This article describes the specifics of installing Windows XP on new HDD or SSD disks with 4k sectors (4096 bytes, the so-called Advanced Format disks).

The peculiarity of using such disks is that partitions on these disks need to be aligned at the boundaries of multiples of 1024. That is, the beginning of the first (system) partition should not be in sector 63, as it was on old disks, but for example in sector 2048.

This is where the problem lies when installing Windows XP. Two situations are possible here:

1. Partitioning the disk by the Windows XP installer.
2. Partitioning the disk using the Windows 7 or 8, 10 installer, as well as alternative programs, such as gparted.

In the first case, there will be a drop in disk speed, because the partitions will be aligned on odd boundaries. This is due to the fact that the Windows XP installer does not "know" anything about 4K disks and does not know how to work with them correctly. And for example, he will start the first section from sector number 63.

And in the second case, the Windows XP bootloader will not be able to start. This is due to the fact that the first part of the bootloader code, which is written in the MBR sector, will "climb" into sector 63 behind the second part of the bootloader. And there is empty, because the aligned section begins in a completely different sector (for example, 2048).

That is, the algorithm for installing Windows XP on a 4K disk should be as follows:

1. Create NTFS partitions on a disk using programs that can work with 4K disks. It is best to use Windows 7 for this purpose, but something else is also possible.
2. Start installing Windows XP. After the first step, text mode - copying files, then the installer will restart your computer and you will get a black screen. There will be no downloads to the second stage.
3. Now you will need to install an alternative bootloader.

The simplest option is to use the bootsect program, which is included in Windows 7, 8, 10. You need to start the computer from the installation disk of any of these versions, when the installer starts, press the Shift + F10 keys - this will open the Windows terminal (command line). Run the command in the terminal:

bootsect / nt52 c: / mbr

In the command line, you need to specify the letter of the drive on which the installation of Windows XP is started. You can find out the drive letter by first running the diskpart program. Or based on the rule of assigning letters to disk partitions. If there is only one disk and there is only one partition on it, it will be the letter C :. If there are two partitions, then the first section will receive the letter C: and the second section will receive the letter D:

Alternatively, in the installer window, you can select "System Restore" and then use Windows Boot Repair

Another option is to start the computer in some kind of Live Windows assembly and run the program from there. Bootice.

After installing the bootloader, you need to boot the computer from the disk and the Windows installation will continue.

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