How do you configure Windows on an SSD?

[Lord Method Man]

When I setup Windows on an SSD I've always done a list of things:

 

-Disable Hibernation

-Disable System Restore

-Disable Defrag

 

-Move personal folders (My Music, Downloads, My Documents, etc) as well as the Desktop directory onto secondary HDD

-Move Temp directories onto secondary HDD

-Move IE Temporary Files folder onto secondary HDD

 

Getting ready to setup a new system and Im wondering what others do nowadays? I know Windows 8 now has SSD optimization isntead of Defrag so obviously that should be left on.

[Astra.Xtreme]

I disable the paging file.  It's a waste of space and doesn't cause any harm (contrary to what anybody else claims).  Windows will automatically create a paging file if it absolutely needs it anyway.

 

If you have 8GB+ of RAM, you can gain back a considerable amount of space this way.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

Don't do anything - let Windows configure itself.

Which means Trim will be on, and defrag will essentially be off.

 

I never had a problem with my computers or the SSDs in them.

[Lord Method Man]

Don't do anything - let Windows configure itself.

Which means Trim will be on, and defrag will essentially be off.

 

I never had a problem with my computers or the SSDs in them.

 

Yeah obviously with Windows 8's new features the defrag disabling is obsolete.

 

Though I put my desktop to sleep and wake it multiple times a day, so leaving Hibernate on would result in many large I/O operations being done on SSD every day.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

Yeah obviously with Windows 8's new features the defrag disabling is obsolete.

 

Though I put my desktop to sleep and wake it multiple times a day, so leaving Hibernate on would result in many large I/O operations being done on SSD every day.

 

Defrag disabling was also obsolete in Windows 7 - most were just too paranoid to trust it.

Hibernation will not kill your SSD - again just paranoia.

[Boo Berry]

I like to keep a paging file (min 800 MB to max 1024MB).

[Xenomorph]

SSDs are supposed to be drop-in replacements for HDDs.

 

You're not supposed to baby them; don't disable things, move files out of your profile, disable the pagefile, etc. It defeats the purpose of quick file access if you're moving all the files off the SSD!

 

The only thing to check into is to make sure the drive is "4K aligned" on older operating systems.

 

I know Windows XP and Ubuntu 10.04 will format a drive starting at sector 63. Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 will format to the 1MiB mark, sector 2048.

If you're going to use an older OS, make sure to partition the drive first with a tool that will let you set where the partition starts (such as GParted). If you're not using an older OS, then you don't have to worry about this, as the built-in partition/format tool will set it up correctly.

[Max Veteran]

I just clone the drive then make doubly sure that TRIM is enabled. The rest will just sort itself out. SSD's are designed to last for ages even with several GB's worth of writes per day - of course, just like normal hard drives, some kick the bucket before others.

[Astra.Xtreme]

Bit off topic but you should leave the page file alone. Disabling the page file results to high CPU usage

No it does not...  Don't spread FUD.

[Lord Method Man]

SSDs are supposed to be drop-in replacements for HDDs.

 

You're not supposed to baby them; don't disable things, move files out of your profile, disable the pagefile, etc. It defeats the purpose of quick file access if you're moving all the files off the SSD!

 

 

If I dont move my Documents/Media directories off of the SSD my 256 GB drive would be filled rather quickly.

[Max Norris]

I have four systems here with SSD's, 3 of which had nothing special done with them.. had zero reason to monkey with it, not into placebo effects, Windows manages things just fine on its own. The fourth has a smaller SSD, only 128GB, so I relocated the Users directory during the installation via audit mode as I know space would have been problematic down the road, but other than that, no changes. The only time I'd get a bit more hands on if I were feeling nostalgic/masochistic and wanted to put a legacy OS on the thing.

[Noir Angel]

Windows already configures itself for SSD usage, if you have 7 or newer, you don't need to do anything. Not to mention if you disable hibernation on Windows 8 you lose fast boot. You don't need to disable defrag either, Windows won't try and defrag an SSD.

[Phouchg]

Try and google "Pushing the Limits of Windows Virtual Memory" to see a statement by Microsoft that not all applications work correctly without a page file.

 

Either you're misinterpreting the article or I'm having a hard time to find the statement that confirms your idea.

In fact, I'm afraid it actually advocates to find what the commit limit is on one's system and then use that number to set the size of the paging file, therefore according to one's demands.

[philcruicks]

Yeh as you're talking about Windows 8 just leave Windows to configure itself, only thing is to move Docs music etc off to a HDD for space savings.

 

System restore I'd only disable if you have some other system backup methods etc.. just clean it out every few months.

Same goes for Temp directories, don't move them off, just clean them out every now and again with ccleaner or similar.

[Astra.Xtreme]

Try and google "Pushing the Limits of Windows Virtual Memory" to see a statement by Microsoft that not all applications work correctly without a page file.

Give me some specific examples.  I've been running SSDs since the very first ones came out 7-8 years ago, and I've never had a single crash or instability with the page file off.  As I mentioned before, Windows will create one regardless if it really needs it.

 

I've never seen a single bit of proof that shows that disabling it has adverse effects.  I'd be curious if you can find anything, but my years of experience doing so have been without flaw.

[Lord Method Man]

Windows already configures itself for SSD usage, if you have 7 or newer, you don't need to do anything. Not to mention if you disable hibernation on Windows 8 you lose fast boot. You don't need to disable defrag either, Windows won't try and defrag an SSD.

 

Windows won't configure for SSD until winsat is ran will it? Does a fresh 8/8.1 install do this automatically?

 

Disabling hibernation was more to free up the 16GB (over 10% of my current SSD capacity) than anything. I really don't want fast boot. I just use S3 sleep for my PC and only Shut Down when I actually want it to completely Shut Down.

[cooky560 Veteran]

When I setup Windows on an SSD I've always done a list of things:

 

-Disable Hibernation

-Disable System Restore

-Disable Defrag

 

-Move personal folders (My Music, Downloads, My Documents, etc) as well as the Desktop directory onto secondary HDD

-Move Temp directories onto secondary HDD

-Move IE Temporary Files folder onto secondary HDD

 

Getting ready to setup a new system and Im wondering what others do nowadays? I know Windows 8 now has SSD optimization isntead of Defrag so obviously that should be left on.

 

I can understand disabling the automatic defrag but why Hibernation and System Restore, both can be incredibly useful and since they involve simply writing data rather than any sort of structural change surely enabling them would leave you better off.

 

This is off topic slightly, but isn't Optimization essentially the same as Defrag for non SSD drives?

[Lord Method Man]

Optimization runs TRIM command on the drive.

 

Disabling Hibernate and Restore are from a time when SSD space was extremely limited.

[fusi0n]

install and forget :D

[YouWhat]

I install, then enter audit mode, move user data over to mechanical drive, then create user accounts and update

[_neutrino Veteran]

I map as much as possible to alternate drives and keep only the OS and certain programs on the SSD itself.

I always disable System restore regardless of HDD type, and as far as defrag you dont really need to disable it as it will try to run and simply fail.

[0sit0]

Whats the point of having an SDD drive if you are going to move everything to a slow drive  :/

[Astra.Xtreme]

Chances are you wont see crashes but you will stress your machine. An example is the fact that the .NET CLR pushes a lot of the heap memory space to the page file. If there is no page file, then it will be moving memory around all the time. Photoshop is another example that has a strong dependency on the page file. So managed applications and photoshop are good examples of programs that will be impacted by not having a page file.

Once again google "Chapter 17 - Tuning .NET Application Performance", Microsoft KB 314482.

I have done investigation on this and I am not just making it up

It doesn't work that way.  Like I said, if Windows absolute needs a paging file, it will create what it needs.  Disabling it doesn't truly disable it. In 7-8 years, I've never seen any irregular CPU spikes or any instabilities on any of my PCs.  A simple Google search brings up absolutely no proof of anything you're claiming.  Show me some dicrete proof.  Testimonials from Microsoft, charts, graphs, etc.  I've seen nothing about it, so I'm classifying this as nothing more than a conspiracy, no offense.

[Odom Member]

I don't do anything special with SSD's. Windows does that for you. I just make sure that Windows configured those settings.

 

I have a second 3TB drive that I redirect the "My Documents" to, as I have a lot of data in there that I don't need to access as fast as an SSD goes.

Any other application or game that I want to perform fast I install on the SSD.

Anything else also goes on the 3TB drive.

 

There is an article on Techspot about the recommended settings. They post that with every SSD review they do. Find it here.

 

As to the large amounts of reads/writes a day, I wouldn't be worried about it either, unless you actually do exceed those limits every day, every year for multiple years. Also a nice article from Techspot explaining it easily is found here. You are most likely to replace your drive than wear it out due to using up the cycles.

[Lord Method Man]

Related question: Should defrag be ran on a RAID 0 drive? Is it good/bad/pointless? Ive always left it on but Ive been told my others its not practical because the RAID controller handles things like that itself.