my first ssd, OMG, it cost me to much pain!

[R1pper]

yes u heard me, i joined the ssd club today, yesterday, well, i dont know anymore.

 

 

stroy is like this: 3 month i bought ssd samsung 840, installed it 8 HRS ago, after learning that u must have AHCI enable.

and learned that "EASEUS to-do" free software is utter crap, ruined 1 of my partition, guys, any free software is utter ######, nothing works, and always something missing or get screwed, dear lord of what ever spirit out there, this SSD cost me 2 partitiones!!!!!!!!

 

first because of the free software of EASEUS todo, just ###### piece of software, never try to merge free space, with full partition, its just crappy and poor quality, will ruin ur day, i promise u.

the second is my own fault, the former master had similar size as my Games and Series partition, and i.....omg the pain is to severe.(my UT99!! )

 

anyway, i accepted the price, so i just wanted to ask u guys, after all the work, is it a good performances to samsung 840?

 

thanks for answering.

 

 

[Darrian]

I don't think you need AHCI enabled, but I do think it notably improves performance.  I don't know why you used 3rd party software to partition it instead of just using what is built into Windows, especially if you are going to install/have installed Windows on it since the installer will automatically partition it.  Your speeds look "ok," but around half of what the specs indicate on Newegg.  I have an 830 model, but I am not home so can't bench and see how my specs compare to yours.  Hypothetically your speeds should be faster than mine.  Does your motherboard have SATA II or SATA III?

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I have an 840 and I get ~550MB/s read, so no, those speeds aren't right.

 

You do need AHCI enabled, and you need to connect it to your main SATA ports (Which ideally should be SATA 3), no idea why you messed around with any random partitioning tools, Windows does everything correctly when you install it.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Sounds like you should have done some googling and researching before taking on this project.  EaseUS Todo does just fine migrating a windows installation to the SSD.  

 

I do not own a Samsung 840 but those numbers seem really poor...the Seq should probably be double and the 4K-64 Thrd should be multiple times faster.  

[sc302 Veteran]

I am sorry you don't know what you are doing with software. I have used the easeus product line for years and never had one problem with it. I have always merged free space with my drives and with windows 7 you can do that without third party utilities.

You certainly are not running as fast as you should be and this should have been a fresh install not a image over from a sata drive.

[Denis W. Veteran]

In the future, I would highly recommend saving a backup image of your disk to another larger disk, preferably a disk designated just for backups only. You should be keeping imaging your disk to backup medium on a semi-regular basis in any case. That way you won't lose anything if you screw up. How did you transfer your hard drive to your SSD anyway? Very likely you would've had to clone your hard drive, no? If it's any other method that messes with your original hard drive, then yeah that's very risky.

 

That being said, it seems like this is a SATA-II motherboard - in that case, the sequential read speed would make sense. I have two computers with SATA-II connections and it bottles out at around 260 MB/s.

[R1pper]

guys thank you for answering, let me explain:

 

1. i never knew till 3days ago, i can migrate my OS into the ssd, as is.

that's why i waited 3 month, waited for fresh install, or other malfunction that causes fresh install.

 

2. all the tech guides recommended to use EASEus to do free, i did exactly as they asked.

and it was utter crap, the drive never booted into windows, lacked so many minimal features, it is a joke, nothing else.

then i decided to use, guess what? paragon free tool, another crappy tool.

 

u know what saved me?

and it was all along in front of my face, but as a beginner, i had to listen to paid sites, just to download the crappy software that got NOTHING!

no matter the software, SSD never booted, change boot priority, removed the old driver, and NOTHING!

 

so i used the SAMSUNG MIGRATION TOOL, and OMG, dear sweet mother of drive, it took a minute longer, but IT COPIED my OS and BOOTED my SSD!! PERFECTLY!!!

 

so now i was so scared if ill plug the old drive, trouble will appear, so, before the ssd start loading the OS, i used win7 installation disc to format the old OS partition, well, my head so dull from over thinking(took me 3 HRS from the start, researching guides, plug it, bios setting ETC) and i was tired, so very much, i formatted the wrong partition. :crazy: :(

 

my main advice on OS MIGRATION IS:

if anyone want to migrate their OS to SSD, useSAMSUNG \ INTEL tools, they are DESIGNED to make it happen, dont need any favors from CRAPPY FREE and invalid tools, that their soul purpose is to make u BUY them, because the lack of features\crappy job.

 

 

and yes, my mobo is sata 2, GA-MA790XT-UD4P (rev. 1.0), still a bit low, but il figure it out. -)

 

 

any advice for me guys, on what settings to check, that will make my ssd to be in optimal shape?

 

again guys, thank u for answering, all the best to you all!

:)

[articuno1au]

<snipped>

 

Scores look about right for that board.

 

Other than that, all I'd suggest is installing the Intel Rapid Storage Technology suite (a.k.a. Intel Matrix RAID).

 

Can get a bit more performance out of the chipset, but mightn't result in anything noteworthy.

[Darrian]

With SATA II you're pretty much maxed out.  I doubt you will get it running any faster than what it is now.  Your only real options are to buy a SATA III controller card or upgrade your motherboard to one that has SATA III onboard (I would get a new mobo).

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

Out of all the things you could of done, you didn't do the one thing that you really needed to do.

Ask on these boards.

These forums have some of the most tech minded people on the planet. 

In future when upgrading a component, I highly suggest asking the people here first.

[R1pper]

<snipped>

With SATA II you're pretty much maxed out.  I doubt you will get it running any faster than what it is now.  Your only real options are to buy a SATA III controller card or upgrade your motherboard to one that has SATA III onboard (I would get a new mobo).

 

truth to be told, i dont need it to be faster, the current speed is sufficed.(from POST to DESKTOP in 12 13 sec) :)

i'm not a gamer, or some power user, all i need to know is that i did all that can be done.

[Darrian]

Well, if you're happy with it... just be advised that it's only running at about half-speed right now.

[R1pper]

out curiosity, do you think running at half speed will some how make the SSD more durable?

i mean will make it live longer?

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Yes, but not because it's any more durable. You're just limited in how much data you can write to it at once.

[The Evil Overlord]

out curiosity, do you think running at half speed will some how make the SSD more durable?

i mean will make it live longer?

 

From what I've learned, I'm leaning towards yes,

finite number of read/write, amount of space used vs speed of writing etc...

 

But on a slightly off topic note,

I have a kingston ssd I bought used from ebay (it was cheap)

my pc's 12 years old and hardware doesn't support anywhere near those speeds, but it still made my pc boot faster (45 secs to desktop, where is used to take twice that windows 7 x64)

pc's no faster, but loading has become quicker

(and when I bought mine I didn't know about the finite writes, but ssd life did report I still have about 8 years left in it, so I guess it wasn't a total loss)

[Nick H. Supervisor]

I removed a couple of comments in the replies. There's no need to attack one another.

[Radium]

I don't think you need AHCI enabled, but I do think it notably improves performance. I don't know why you used 3rd party software to partition it instead of just using what is built into Windows, especially if you are going to install/have installed Windows on it since the installer will automatically partition it. Your speeds look "ok," but around half of what the specs indicate on Newegg. I have an 830 model, but I am not home so can't bench and see how my specs compare to yours. Hypothetically your speeds should be faster than mine. Does your motherboard have SATA II or SATA III?

AHCI is vital! The alternative to AHCI is IDE which emulates parallel ATA which is inferior to AHCI.

AHCI is required for TRIM (mandatory for SSD) and NCQ (ideal for drives that support NCQ, great for slow HDD).

Running an SSD without AHCI (in return, TRIM) will make the drive age much faster.

Modern RAID controllers actually run AHCI under the hood.

AHCI is vital, I'm stunned by how many still walk around and say that it's not required.

Of course, the drives are backwards compatible but ignoring AHCI will cause problems. It isn't required to get the drive up and running but AHCI is vital, especially for SSDs!

Sure, SSDs and controllers have improved but native AHCI support is vital to make the SSD last as long as possible and have persistent performance.

[Darrian]

Blah blah blah blah. I never said don't use it, nor did I say that I didn't use it myself.  And he already said that he had it enabled.  However, obviously the drive is still going to function if it's turned off.  I've never heard any such thing about AHCI being necessary for trim, so I did some checking around and found that trim is not dependent on AHCI.  I was able to find many places that stated that but the entry regarding Windows from this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM) sums it up pretty well:

 

"Windows 7 only supports trim for ordinary (SATA) drives and does not support this command for PCI-Express SSDs that are different type of device, even if the device itself would accept the command.^[35] It is confirmed that with native Microsoft drivers the Trim command works in AHCI and legacy IDE / ATA Mode.^[36]"

 

Don't misunderstand, obviously AHCI is a better option if your controller supports it, but it's probably not going to kill his drive if it's not on.  Also, I seem to recall that my first SSD was required to be in legacy IDE mode in order to flash firmware updates.

[Noir Angel]

I have an OCZ Agility 3 in an old Dell Optiplex 745 and SATA 2 doesn't have as noticeable an impact on the performance of an SSD as you might imagine if you are using it as a boot / OS drive, the main advantage of the SSD is it's far superior small random IO performance, and as there aren't any SSD's that can bottleneck a SATA2 port in random IO yet, you still essentially get the full benefit of using one as an OS drive, it's only if you use them for gaming, and video / photoshop manipulation that you'd be held back by the interface.

 

Still, I would recommend a board upgrade, no geek likes to leave performance on the table :P

[Torolol]

I usually use the SSD to stores cd/dvd/blu-ray images, as those files are less likely modified, and will need to be reads repeatedly when i mount 'em on virtual drive.

The optimal scenario for SSD usages, which is: write once - read often.

 

And of course I set the OS to NOT write the last access time on that SSD volumes.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

I have always found it best to do a clean install when working with SSDs. Microsoft Windows 7's installer (and later OS versions) do a very good job of configuring the operating system to run from a SSD. Utilities like those provided by Intel and Samsung can help reconfigure an operating system migrated from a hard disk drive, but I always look at a hardware upgrade like this as an opportunity to get a fresh start on the installation.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[MillionVoltss]

Install Samsung Magician, then optimize and see if you get better results. As said above, you should consider a reinstall.

[Radium]

Blah blah blah blah. I never said don't use it, nor did I say that I didn't use it myself.  And he already said that he had it enabled.  However, obviously the drive is still going to function if it's turned off.  I've never heard any such thing about AHCI being necessary for trim, so I did some checking around and found that trim is not dependent on AHCI.  I was able to find many places that stated that but the entry regarding Windows from this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM) sums it up pretty well:

 

"Windows 7 only supports trim for ordinary (SATA) drives and does not support this command for PCI-Express SSDs that are different type of device, even if the device itself would accept the command.^[35] It is confirmed that with native Microsoft drivers the Trim command works in AHCI and legacy IDE / ATA Mode.^[36]"

 

Don't misunderstand, obviously AHCI is a better option if your controller supports it, but it's probably not going to kill his drive if it's not on.  Also, I seem to recall that my first SSD was required to be in legacy IDE mode in order to flash firmware updates.

My mistake!

 

TRIM is an ATA command but AHCI is still vital in my opinion. Buying an SSD and not use AHCI is like buying a Ferrari och only use the first two gears.

[ShadowMajestic]

My mistake!

 

TRIM is an ATA command but AHCI is still vital in my opinion. Buying an SSD and not use AHCI is like buying a Ferrari och only use the first two gears.

you can't use the other ones within a city though.

[Torolol]

just in case, for whomever using win 8.x with SSD: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/f97425f8-3857-4aa4-9cf5-437d5e212c9c/defragging-ssds-a-default?forum=W8ITProPreRel
 
 

Thanks to this post I decided to re-enable the defrag tool, however because of your answer it made it seem like the tool will automatically recognize SSD's and only send the TRIM hint instead of an actual traditional defrag. This is NOT true until you at least do one initial WEI run. I just ran the defrag tool in my eval of Windows 8 and it took over 5 minutes with 9 or 10 optimization/consolidation passes. I then realized that Windows was treating my Vertex 2 SSD just like a spinning hard drive. Not very happy about that...

To EVERYONE who finds this thread, please if you just installed Windows 8 fresh, make sure your system has run at least one WEI assessment as soon as you can, otherwise the default defrag setting is to optimize/defrag your SSD just like it does to a spinning drive.

overdosage (because of faulty task scheduler + defrag) of this might be dangerous for your SSD health: