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Ordered an 80Gb Intel X25-M SSD from Newegg as a gift to myself. I'll be using it to replace my current Velociraptor boot drive.

I have been warned that upgrading to an SSD is MUCH easier by doing a clean OS install in Win7, but I'm going to attempt to clone my old boot partition on my Win7 workstation. I have a very specialized setup and a fresh install would take me days to get everything put back the way I want it. I will only do it if I have to.

I have thoroughly researched this and I believe I have found the best, if somewhat tedious, procedure.

There are two issues to be aware of. First, SSDs perform better if your HDD controller is running in AHCI mode and no IDE emulation. I am running in IDE mode now, but there is a simple registry hack to change to enable AHCI in Win7 even if the OS was originally installed in IDE mode.

Second, you get better performance if the partitions are aligned correctly otherwise you take a performance hit. Win7 will properly align the partitions when you do a clean install (thus why a clean install is recommended). Acronis and most other imaging apps are unaware of partition alignment right now (Acronis says it will be added to True Image 2011 at a later date) and thus even if you pre-align the partitions, Acronis will generally change it back to default.

The basic procedure is:

1. Use Acronis to make an image of the Win7 boot (C) partition and save it to another drive.

2. Install the SSD and disconnected all other drives

3. Boot with the Win7 DVD and installed Win7 on the SSD which will create the hidden and boot partitions with the proper alignment. No need to enter the CD key as this is a throw away Win7 install that will later be overwritten. We're just doing this to have Win7 create the proper alignments. It shouldn't take long to install Win7 on an SSD.

4. When win7 is installed, shutdown the PC.

5. Reconnected the HDD with the saved image of your old Win7 boot partition. Boot from the Acronis boot CD.

6. Use Acronis to restore the image(volume restore) that was taken earlier of the boot partition onto the C partition of the SSD (there will also be a system reserved partition on the SSD as well but just ignore it).

7. Reboot PC (make sure your old Win7 boot drive is NOT connected because Win7 will make it non-bootable if it sees two bootable drives). The alignment should be correct since the Win7 installer set it up and you only restored the image of the C partition and you didn't clone the entire drive.

8. Run DiskPar alignment test utility: At command line type: DISKPAR.EXE -i {DISK #} to confirm that SSD partitions are aligned. The DISK # can be obtained from Windows Disk Management (Right click My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management). For each partition on the SSD the "Starting offset" number divided by 4096 should equal a whole number. Download link and instructions for DiskPar here: http://club.myce.com/f138/ssd-faq-297856/

9. Confirm that TRIM is enabled. Win7 should automatically enable TRIM for the SSD. This can be confirmed by typing the following at the windows CMD prompt Note: You must run CMD as an administrator):

Command prompt > fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

If DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled)
If DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)

10. Confirm that SSD is excluded from scheduled defrag. Win7 should automatically disable scheduled defragmentation of SSD partitions (and you definitely do NOT want to defrag an SSD or you will wear it out pre-maturely). This can be confirmed by looking at the defrag task scheduler to see if the SSD partitions are excluded as explained here:

All programs >> Accessories >> System Tools >> Disk Defragmenter >> (if not enabled check "turn on schedule" temporarily..) >> then check Run on a schedule >> then select disks button: look under (Select all Disks) listed here you will find any disks not excluded for defrag or you can select the (Select all Disks) check box. If SSD's have been detected they will be excluded and removed from listing under (Select all Disks).

Example screenshots: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... d7a1873d88


Yeah it's tedious, but nowhere as tedious as a clean install for me. Also, I'll be curious to see how long it takes to install Win7 on an SSD.

I'll report back...

Nice write up thanks! I just got an OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD but plan on installing it next week when I have some time off from work and Turkey Day is behind me. What kind of speeds are you getting? Are you happy with the speed increase?

I have a 30 gig OCZ SSD as my boot drive and like it. With win 7 pr0 64 the machine is up and running in about 15 secs and shuts down in about 8 secs. Big Change from the old 7200 rpm.

Win7 still aggravates me but figuring it out...

Haven't installed it yet. Going to install it tomorrow unless a client calls with an emergency.

I've done some stopwatch work to see how long it takes to boot right now and to open certain apps with the Velociraptor. I'll compare it to the SSD.

I wanted a premium performance drive that's rock stable and no flaky issues so I went with the pricier Intel drive. I'm considering getting one of the cheaper 60Gb SSDs for my laptop. I don't need much capacity on it since it's just for work. The nearly instant boot from hibernation using an SSD and the slight power savings would be welcome on the lappy.

I see the the Corsair 60Gb at $135 and the Corsair for $105 (after a $20 rebate). Not the fastest SSDs but greased lighting compared to what's in the laptop now.

I suspect in another year they won't even put anything but SSDs in mainsteam laptops the way prices are dropping.

Good "how to" FP.

Does one have to have SATAIII(6.0GBps) capability to make it worthwhile having an SSD? My board only supports SATAII.

From what I've been told you'll still see a big improvement with just SATA II support as most plattered hard drives can't come close to even maxing that out.

Some of the cheaper SSDs are only SATA II anyway. This Intel drive is SATA III and my mobo is SATA III so expect to be very happy with the results.

Some useful links:

PCPER.COM has a very nice, and constantly updated, comparison chart of SSD features and performance: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=736

Nice SSD FAQ here although it's a bit out of date: http://club.myce.com/f138/ssd-faq-297856/

I'm waiting for $1/gb before I make the jump. As an added bonus, I will get a faster drive & hopefully, more robust. I do admit though that I'm getting tired of waiting. Good thing that my current drive is pretty snappy.

Again, thanks for links. I did some reading up on the subject. These look like they could be fun doing an SSD RAID 0 on the cheap. With kids in college, "on the cheap" is usually the order of the day around here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820139175

For right now I'll stick with what I have until the prices come down a little.

I installed a Kingston 64GB SSD in my ASUS net book that has Windows XP on it and since it is always on I really only saw negligible increases in speed since its not the the latest greatest SSD drives. I did see incredible increases in boot speed but thats all. I removed it and put it in an USB powered 2.5" enclosure and am using it as a thumb drive alternative and it blows the doors off my other thumb drives so this is what I stash in my bag now for large mobile file transfers.

Good idea on the mobile SSD. Hate doing large transfers.

Yeah boot time is the biggest effect. You will also see big apps load faster, and apps that access the TEMP files, registry and the swap file often (like Photoshop) will see a big improvement. The desktop will also be snappier overall if you have search indexing, System Restore and icon thumbnails enabled (more noticeable in Vista and Win7).

Also be aware that XP is not SSD aware so that an SSD won't be optimized under XP unless you manually aligned the partitions and you regularly run the TRIM utility yourself.

I really don't think an SSD is worth it unless you have Win7 since earlier versions of Windows really aren't optimized for it, and can even kill your SSD (if defragging is enabled for the SSD for instance).

Which also bears repeating for those of you that are using SSDs or planning to use one:

- Never defrag an SSD or allow Windows to schedule a defrag

- Never run a sector scan on an SSD (same goes for Spinrite or any other disk repair utility)

- Never perform a full format on an SSD, only a Quick format (a full format performs a sector scan)

- Never run a drive eraser on an SSD (deleting the partition or a quickl format will suffice).

- If you use a file shredder app, use only a single pass

Okay, done deal. The procedure outlined above worked like a charm. Only snag was that my mobo's BIOS did not make the SSD the primary boot drive even though it was plugged into the SATA1 connector. I had to manually change the primary boot drive in the boot order in the BIOS menu.

FYI: It only took 12 minutes to install Win7 on the SSD.

I confirmed that the partition alignment is correct using a utility called DISKPAR.EXE instead of the Paragon tool which is no longer free. I've corrected my checklist above to include that.

Windows also automatically enabled TRIM and excluded the SSD from the scheduled defrag.

I also had no problem using the registry hack to enable AHCI mode in Windows and then enable it in BIOS, and let me tell you it's worth it. There was a measurable improvement in performance going from IDE mode to AHCI mode. Doing that alone jumped the Windows performance index for the drive from 7.3 to 7.7 (it was 5.9 using the Velociraptor).

Now keep in mind my previous boot drive was a WD Velociraptor - no slouch for a plattered hard drive.

Curiously, load times weren't all that great an improvement at first (not as much as I was expecting anyway). I was booting in 42 seconds using the Velociraptor (counting from after the POST screen to when Outlook opened which is just about the last thing my computer loads during boot) and 24 seconds with the SSD. Not bad, but after some experimentation I realized that having an external USB HDD was adding 10 seconds to the boot time. Disconnecting the USB HDD cut the boot time to 14 seconds. Seems like windows needs a lot of time to initialize a USB drive. No big deal - this system stays on 24/7 so boot times are not a concern.

The desktop feels much snappier and app load times are faster although not dramatically faster. Again, the Velociraptor that preceded this SSD was no slouch either. Also keep in mind that my data is still located on a regular 7200 RPM plattered drive:

Load times: Velociraptor / SSD

Photoshop: 2.00 sec / 1.85 sec
Firefox: 1.69 / 1.23
Front Page: 1.22 / 0.78
iTunes: 2.60 / 1.79
PaperPort: 4.18 / 3.17
Word: 1.32 / 0.79

I am upgrading from windows Vista to 7 and doing a fresh install, after switching to ACHI only steps 8, 9 &10 are still in order correct?

No need to do anything else if you're installing WIn7 clean on an SSD. A clean Win7 install will alway setup the alignment properly, enable TRIM, and exclude the SSD from scheduled defrag. You can go through steps 8 - 10 if you just want to confirm that everything is correct.

To be safe I would have Win7 delete all existing partitions when you run the installerto force it make new partitions that are aligned. I don't know what will happen if you do a clean install to an existing non-aligned partition.

An SSD is a no-brainer for a laptop if you can spare the money. Boot times will be very quick and even better, hibernation will be VERY fast.

Thanks FP, when you say have Win7 delete all existing partitions when you run the installer to force it make new partitions that are aligned. I would think with a brand new untouched drive that wouldn't be necessary correct?