Storage Solutions Fast HDD/SSD for OS win7 x64

[eternoMind]

@cranky, @Crazy_Eddy

Is it advisable to use CCleaner on an SSD?
Views on the web are mixed on this aspect.

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

CCleaner for TRIM? I heard its not advisable and just ends up increasing the writes to the disk.

 

[ranjan2001]

@cranky, @Crazy_Eddy

Is it advisable to use CCleaner on an SSD?
Views on the web are mixed on this aspect.

Whatever I have read & understood till now based on that the answer is NO, best is to stop some of the C drive functions such as indexing & page file & move the temp folder & My documents folder to another physical drive. That will save the ssd from degrading over time.

Expert on this may like to add their views.

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

best is to stop some of the C drive functions such as indexing & page file & move the temp folder & My documents folder to another physical drive. That will save the ssd from degrading over time.

I actually don't see the point of this. An SSD is supposed to boost performance. It may affect lifespan, but why buy an SSD if you're going to shift everything off disk? In my case with everything as is, I've still had only 2TB of writes after a year.

 

[Gannu]

Exactly! With an OS like Win 7 (which is optimised for the SSD usage; Win 8 - even better!), there isn't anything the user has to do to improve the overall experience. I've just left mine as such after installing the OS and works like a charm.

As for my case, most of the installations and uninstallations happen for the games I install to the disk. I don't use CCleaner - a simple uninstallation works just fine.

 

[eternoMind]

I was hoping to use CCleaner to get rid of the garbage (temp files, browsers' and other applications' trash etc.) that tends to accumulate with time. However, most seem to advise against using CCleaner's registry cleaning feature on SSDs.
I have disabled indexing on my SSD but didn't do the same for pagefile. Instead, moved it to a secondary hard drive and set it to system managed space.

Earlier, I did think of moving the heavier apps to a hard drive partition but with everything that I use installed, the partition size is still less than half the capacity of the SSD (64GB one). I might as well enable pagefile on the SSD itself ?

@Crazy_Eddy, how to know the volume of writes an SSD has undergone?

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

Oh CCleaner to just delete temp files is ok. Edit: Unless you're using the secure delete option - that is pointless on an SSD. Even my 64GB SSD has about half the capacity free, so I've left my pagefile on it.

I use CrystalDiskInfo to monitor my drives. It has a 'Total Host Writes' indicator.

 

[cranky]

CCleaner is absolutely fine on SSDs FWIW.

Do ensure TRIM is working though, the SSD can handle the additional write cycles as Windows does not physically overwrite anything except the allocation tables. Do *not* choose the 'wipe free space' option. Hibernate option is turned off and the file is deleted, but yes, pagefile stays and stays on SSD since that was kind of the whole reason to upgrade.

I do move as much stuff off the disk as possible except when there is only one disk in the system (2 of my 4 machines are like that). The main offender is actually the Mozilla/IE cache, moving those off disk reduces about 25-30MB of writes per day if you really are picky. I'm usually not.

 

[eternoMind]

Oh CCleaner to just delete temp files is ok. Edit: Unless you're using the secure delete option - that is pointless on an SSD. Even my 64GB SSD has about half the capacity free, so I've left my pagefile on it.

I use CrystalDiskInfo to monitor my drives. It has a 'Total Host Writes' indicator.

Yeah that was the idea. Deleting them could be done via the inbuilt Windows tools as well but CCleaner just makes things so much easier. And no, the secure delete option is unchecked in the settings.
I use HD Sentinel and that too showed the total number of writes undergone but there's a mismatch between what Sentinel and CrystalDiskInfo say; the former says 24GB while the latter displays 34GB for my day old SSD.

CCleaner is absolutely fine on SSDs FWIW.

Do ensure TRIM is working though, the SSD can handle the additional write cycles as Windows does not physically overwrite anything except the allocation tables. Do *not* choose the 'wipe free space' option. Hibernate option is turned off and the file is deleted, but yes, pagefile stays and stays on SSD since that was kind of the whole reason to upgrade.

I do move as much stuff off the disk as possible except when there is only one disk in the system (2 of my 4 machines are like that). The main offender is actually the Mozilla/IE cache, moving those off disk reduces about 25-30MB of writes per day if you really are picky. I'm usually not.

Yep, TRIM is working and "wipe free space" option has been disabled. Same is the case with Hibernation and the resulting Hiberfil.sys. Moved pagefile back to the SSD today and even then, I am only using up about 45% of the SSD space.
What kind of stuff (apps) you move to the hard drive? Does that stuff (app) go because of installation size or the unnecessary read/write cycles they cause?

I usually have multiple browsers running with a lot of tabs opened. Even then I'm looking to use CCleaner to flush out garbage around every fortnight or so.

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

I use HD Sentinel and that too showed the total number of writes undergone but there's a mismatch between what Sentinel and CrystalDiskInfo say; the former says 24GB while the latter displays 34GB for my day old SSD.

CrystalDiskInfo is probably right, since I get matching values in Samsung's SSD Magician tool. I'm not sure which SMART parameter they're referencing. A more useful parameter would be the 'wear levelling count', since that will tell you how many of the drive's rated P/E cycles you have used.

 

[cranky]

What kind of stuff (apps) you move to the hard drive? Does that stuff (app) go because of installation size or the unnecessary read/write cycles they cause?

Frankly, only games because they tend to be too big. Also 'system utility' software - CPU-Z. Basically, any app which either takes a lot of space or starts up quickly enough from a hard drive goes on a hard drive, if available. Laptops, for example, we have no choice so I was using a Vertex4 256GB SSD for pretty much everything.

Here's a shot of my 'D' drive on the only system using SSD+HDD operation, as you'll see it's mostly games:

 

[eternoMind]

Oh well that makes sense. I have installed everything on the SSD (Win 7 x64) including all the minor utility programs and have quite a bit of space to go.

And so far, loving the SSD's performance. Boot time is under 15 seconds while the PC shuts down in 3-4 seconds flat. Everything is quite snappy.

 

[ranjan2001]

I am making a list of programs which I use the most & they do read write operation & one of them is portable firefox, will it be advisable to use installable firefox on C drive or move the portable firefox to another drive?
Portable programs do lot of temporary read/ write then delete it when I close them.

 

[eternoMind]

I am making a list of programs which I use the most & they do read write operation & one of them is portable firefox, will it be advisable to use installable firefox on C drive or move the portable firefox to another drive?
Portable programs do lot of temporary read/ write then delete it when I close them.

It's safe to say you are over-thinking this part!
Just try and install all that you use on the SSD and see how it goes. If space isn't an issue, I mean if you are getting a bigger SSD, skip the thought of moving stuff off the SSD. The sole reason I haven't moved utilities off my SSD is because I have the space.

 

[ranjan2001]

Great to know that, I will have plenty of space.
On my present HDD I have a 60gb partition & only 38gb is used where as I am getting 120gb ssd so that will give me good amount of free space on C drive.

 

[ranjan2001]

Need some help!
I was about to order the samsung 840 ss when I realized that samsung has 2 different models
http://onlyssd.com/samsung-120gb-840-series-ssd
another one is Pro
http://onlyssd.com/samsung-128gb-840-pro-series-ssd

Read the difference & users have been recommending the pro series though its costing 3000/- more, since my usage is for mainly image editing work the PRO series have faster write times than the normal ssd which are indeed required for editing operations.
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3339407?page=2#forum-post-50415108

IOW, I'd either stick with the older Samsung 830 (using MLC); or move to the 840 Pro (also using MLC); and avoid the standard 840 (non Pro) model in the Samsung lineup using lower endurance TLC memory cells, especially if going to a smaller 120GB model, as the performance difference is much greater (in favor of the 830) in the new drives when looking a write speeds for the smaller drive models (830 Series 128GB versus 840 120GB).
The 840 Pro would be a good bet though (it doesn't have the endurance and speed problems you find with the new 840 series standard model).
Basically, the new 840 Pro excels in virtually all areas. But, the new 840 standard series drives have much lower endurance (as well as lower performance when you look at the smaller 120GB drive size when compared to the older Samsung 830 series 128GB drives).
So, personally, I'd avoid the new 840 drives, unless going to an 840 Pro model.

So if I make a budget of 9500/- then I have to choose from better performing disk
(costing 9050/-) http://onlyssd.com/samsung-128gb-840-pro-series-ssd
vs
(costing 9400/-) http://onlyssd.com/corsair-120gb-neutron-gtx-ssd

Which out the 2 should I get one?

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

Obviously the 840 Pro. You should've said your budget was 9k from the beginning

 

[ranjan2001]

Obviously the 840 Pro. You should've said your budget was 9k from the beginning

Frankly I am still thinking that if I have to spend 9K then 2Tb wd back hdd 7200 rpm are the choice which I should consider or think of 1TB fast 10000rpm drives.
This comes to my mind
http://www.ebay.in/itm/WD-VelociRap...5?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_203&hash=item4170ef5bb7[DOUBLEPOST=1372674464][/DOUBLEPOST]Finally ordered the samsung 840 120gb as I found that my old hardware will not be able to make use of speed of the 840 Pro version.
onlyssd would ship it in 2 days.

 

[ranjan2001]

Got the ssd last evening nicely packed. Got the system installed this morning the smasung magician ssd software which reported a FW update,did that & got the following benchmark.


Which proves that 840 Pro ssd would not have helped me much. With this older system, this ssd itself running in AHCI SATA2 (3Gb/s) is giving me half the transfer speed of this ssd is capable of, all these test were done after performance optimization via samsung software.

Clean windows booting happened in 16 seconds
after installing KIS & other software booting is taking 31 sec.

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

Finally ordered the samsung 840 120gb as I found that my old hardware will not be able to make use of speed of the 840 Pro version.

With this older system, this ssd itself running in AHCI SATA2 (3Gb/s) is giving me half the transfer speed of this ssd is capable of

SSD Myth #1 : Buy a slow SSD because I don't have a SATA III port
SSD Myth #2 : An SSD's performance is measured only in sequential speeds

I don't know what sort of IO activity photoshop has - maybe you can check on this - but I highly doubt its only sequential read. Your sequential write speeds are not even half the 300MB/s limit (even an old 64GB 830 is a bit quicker at ~150MB/s). Random speeds will be even lower. Anyway, atleast you still got an SSD, I was when you said you were considering a WD black instead.