how hard is it to "Move" install to another hdd?

[DirtyElf]

do you have any literature on superfetch and why i should disable it? that is the only thing the ssd tool box suggested - i want to know what i am doing before i do it

from the reading I did, it seems like it would stop preloading my programs into RAM - which should still be faster than my ssd, no?

 

[whs]

Superfetch should not be disabled - you are right with your logic. Here is some reading: SuperFetch: How it Works & Myths

PS: and throw this "tuner" into the bin.

 

[Dave76]

After a little searching on the Intel Acronis Migration tool it has been mentioned it has the same issues as you experienced with the other Aronis software. Can't clone a large partition to a smaller one, not able to clone only one partition on a physical drive, etc.
Also read several sites talking about alignment problems when restoring image backups to SSDs.
Acronis has said they are working on this issue, but for now if you only restore one partition on a drive it will re-align it during the restore to a un-aligned state. Restoring the entire drives partitions will keep the correct alignment.​

As usual the superfetch debate has proponents for both sides of the discussion.​

I have ran it enabled and disabled and have not noticed any performance difference, YMMV.
Intel states that the SSDs perform fast access to programs and superfetch is not needed, disabling it will save writes to the SSD.
IMHO, it's not enough to worry about.
Enable/disable as you prefer.​

I have found good general SSD information on the OCZ forum, obviously they are focused on OCZ SSDs.​

Just what tweaks are needed in win7 with SSD?

There are some that think you should turn off System Restore.

Trim/ToolBox Difficulties With System Restore - X25m G2 Owners​

I have turned mine off on the SSD, I make weekly image backups, so am protected against disaster.

 

[whs]

This Acronis story regarding the alignment is interesting. I never had this sort of trouble with Macrium. You have to, of course, align the SSD in the first place. But if I remember right, the OP had checked the alignment after the installation and it was still intact.

 

[DirtyElf]

alignment pic attached. i'll make image backups on my own.. how do i disable system restore? also, how do i enable disk defrag only for my HDD partitions?

 

[Dave76]

whs, noticed that also, in my search last night I found several cases stating that it didn't keep the alignment.
These were recent discussions but, maybe Acronis has applied a fix.
Only searched Acronis issues, would be interesting to see how the other image apps perform.

 

[whs]

alignment pic attached. i'll make image backups on my own.. how do i disable system restore? also, how do i enable disk defrag only for my HDD partitions?

For defrag, type defrag into start/search and go to the Disk Defragmenter where you can make the settings. For system restore, see the picture. And never forget Apply.

 

[Dave76]

I'll post some links on SSD tweaks.
Disclaimer: Not all tweaks are necessary, it's best to find sites that explain what they do and why they need to be tweaked.
Be careful, some older sites give tweaks for Gen1 SSDs, these are not needed for Gen2 SSDs. If it's a long list of tweaks it's likely for Gen1 SSDs.

You can run a search on SSD Tweaks, there is a lot of info, most of it contradicting.
This way you can be confused just like the rest of us

whs, a lot of sites say to disable superfetch, as I explained previously I'm on the fence. I do have superfetch enabled now.


Solid State Drive (SSD) Tweaks for Windows 7

SSD and Tweaks

Superfetch will not wear an SSD; as all it does it keep record of which apps you use often and write that (once) to a location on the C drive, so that when you boot this can be read sequentially. While without this feature, it would require the HDD to seek alot when starting apps like Firefox etc.

So after booting, when you start your usual programs, thes Superfetch feature had already loaded these in RAM; so they are "pre-loaded". In essence, it has converted Random I/O access to Sequential I/O access - something that will benefit HDDs alot since they have crazy high seek rates.

But the access to this Superfetch-file is often read-access, and its only written to when the Superfetch profile is updated; when your usage behavior changes. Read access is harmless to an SSD; only writes will wear the drive. With modern SSDs, it doesnt matter if you write alot to the same sector or that you spread your writes; as they got advanced wear leveling that swaps flash cells that have been written to alot; and just remembers this 'bypass' internally without Windows or the rest of the system ever knowing.

The SSD Optimization Guide
I don't use all of the tweaks on this site, just for reference.

SuperFetch and SSD
Interesting explaination.​

 

[DirtyElf]

have defrag and restore turned off now. thanks.

doesnt appear to let me select the ssd to defrag

 

[Dave76]

Did you run the AS SSD benchmark?

I'm curious what it will give you for read speeds.


You can check other AS SSD scores listed here:

AS SSD Benchmark thread​

Only a couple 120GB Intels, your scores should be the same as the 160GB SSDs.​

EDIT: Just saw your post in the SSD performance thread.​

The sequential reads/writes are where they should be, access times could be better.​

I would be happy with that, you can tweak a little bit and get the access times better, disable C states in BIOS and run the benchmark from safe mode. This will reduce the services that are running.
Change your power settings to High Performance.​

 

[DirtyElf]

what are some things i can do to tweak the times and speeds, and what really matters in terms of performance? obviously i want all the numbers to be as high (or low) as possible.. but will i really notice a difference of 0.025ms? and a 4k read speed of +20mb/s?

 

[Dave76]

If it feels fast, you're good.

The tweaks you can do now to eek a little speed and 0.01-0.02 ms on the access times will not be noticeable.
You will have to run a benchmark to see the difference.

I would set your Power Options to High Performance and call it a day.
Sit back, relax and enjoy that fast SSD.
I'm still amazed everytime I bootup and shutdown

I'm patiently waiting for the Intel G3's to come out, it's tough waiting and that 120GB you have looks very tempting
My dual bay laptop is getting tired of waiting for this X25-V.

 

[whs]

what are some things i can do to tweak the times and speeds, and what really matters in terms of performance? obviously i want all the numbers to be as high (or low) as possible.. but will i really notice a difference of 0.025ms? and a 4k read speed of +20mb/s?

Your numbers are good. I would not stand on my head for another couple of nanoseconds.

 

[DirtyElf]

its a desktop, i assume its always on full power (i could be wrong)

and, i do enjoy the hell out of it

 

[whs]

its a desktop, i assume its always on full power (i could be wrong)

and, i do enjoy the hell out of it

The power settings you cannot "assume". Check in Power Settings and set it to high.

 

[Dave76]

Desktops have three options, Power Saver, Balanced and High Performance.

You want consistant power to your SSD, use High Performance.
HDDs function just fine on reduced or adjustable power, SSDs don't.

 

[Faroth]

Thanks for the info on this. Bought a Corsair SSD Force Series 120GB and used Seagates version of Acronis to clone my System partition to it. Had two problems with it though, first boot I got a BSOD after some drivers got automatically installed (hasn't happened again since). The other problem I had I consider more serious - two out of three encrypted drives got their volume headers corrupted and couldn't be mounted until I restored them from backup. I don't know the cause for this but the timing would suggest Acronis was messing about with drives that hadn't been formatted by Windows (the drive that wasn't affected was formatted before encryption) so I'd recommend anyone using encrypted drives to disconnect them prior to installing Acronis, do the cloning, uninstall the software and then reconnect the drives.

 

[whs]

That is useful additional information. I wonder though, what Acronis had to do with the "other" drives where it was supposed to only image and restore the C partition.