Setting up SSD for Windows 7. Setting up a SSD for Windows 7

Now SSDs, or SSDs, are actively taking over the market and are replacing the good old HDD drives. They are gradually falling in price, and their volume is constantly increasing. But not everything is so simple. These drives have their drawbacks. The fact is that the service life of memory cells is limited, and the number of overwrites strongly affects it. That's why the proper setup of SSD-drive under Windows 7 directly affects the life of this device. Let us examine all this in more detail.

Service life of solid-state drives

This disk is an ordinary flash memory, i.e., a microcircuit. There are no mechanical, moving parts. This flash memory consists of cells, and they have a property to wear out. The more you write information on the disc, the more they wear out. Therefore, setting up an SSD for Windows 7 is very important. If you are reading from a disk, then it does not affect its wear.

There are various utilities with which you can get information about the operation and condition of the drive. One of them is CrystalDiskInfo. With its help you can learn a lot of characteristics and performance of the disk. For example, the firmware, the serial number, the total number of hours of operation, the number of inclusions, the rotation speed (when it comes to HDD), etc. We will be interested in the field showing the number of host records. The disk controller considers the total number of data written in the memory for the duration of its operation. This is due to the peculiarity of the work of flash memory. Therefore, the number indicated here in gigabytes will exceed the volume of your disk.

Configuring SSD for Windows 7

Modern flash memory (MLC) is designed for a sufficiently large number of rewriting cycles, for example 1000, 2000, etc. This means that you can completely rewrite the disk, for example, a thousand times. If you have 128 GB, then you multiply this value by one thousand and get the final result - the total amount of data that you can write to the drive for the entire period of its service. Here this indicator also appears in the column "Total host records". It indicates the amount of data written to the disc since the beginning of its operation. For comparison, it should be said that 128 GB SSDs are designed to record 40-70 TB of information. With a very active use of the disc for recording for the year, an average of about 10 TB of information. Thus, the term of his service will be about 4-7 years.

With a moderate use of SSD-drive, the amount of data written to the disk will be two or even three times less, and its service life, respectively, is longer. That's why they are recommended for the installation of the operating system. But first you need to get the correct SSD settings. Installing and configuring SSD for Windows 7 does not take long. But that is not all. In order to achieve the best results, another process is performed. This is a Windows 7 setup for optimal performance with an SSD drive.

How the system is configured

Above we learned how flash memory works and what kind of resource it has. Now let's see how Windows 7 is configured and optimized for the proper operation of the SSD drive. It does not require deep knowledge in computer science or a deep knowledge of the system. This is even for the novice user. It will be necessary to perform eight steps, after which there will be optimization of Windows to use the SSD-disk. Myths and reality are closely related to each other, and some may get a little confused. We step by step will tell you where to press and which commands to ask.

Disabling System Restore

We need to disable system recovery. You need to open the "Control Panel", then - "System and Security", then - "System". Then you need to open "Advanced System Settings". In the "System Protection" tab, click on "Configure". There are several items here: "Enable protection" and "Disable protection". Also, we can configure the number of gigabytes that we give to protect the system.

Here we mean the automatic creation of a copy of the system, the so-called recovery point, and how much space is allocated for this disk. The default is 2.5 GB to 10 GB. Accordingly, if we disable system recovery, then the specified amount of gigabytes will be freed from the disk. This setting makes sense to increase the free space of the SSD drive and at the same time reduces the amount of data writing to the SSD. However, system protection is a very useful feature, and it's up to you to disable it or not. If the volume of your SSD-drive is large enough, then you can leave it as it is. If not, or you do not use protection, you can turn it off.

Turn off indexing of data

This item has more practical value, which directly affects the speed of your SSD-drive and its durability. In the "My Computer" tab we find "System Disk" and go to "Properties".

At the bottom, by default, the option to enable indexing of files on the disk is enabled. This function was developed to optimize the operation of HDD-carriers. This was due to the specific operation of their magnetic plates and heads. For SSD-drives, this is not necessary, so remove the checkmark from this function. This eliminates unnecessary write operations on the SSD drive. If an error occurs, it will be associated with the swap file. It will need to be disabled, restart the system and restart the disabling of the above option.

Turning Off the Paging File

By default, Windows creates a special file on the system disk - this is the paging file. It is used to write some information from RAM into the area on the system disk. This is used in resource-intensive applications, such as Photoshop. Part of the information is downloaded from RAM to the hard disk, and when necessary, it is loaded back. If you have enough RAM (8 GB or more), then this paging file can be safely turned off. This will reduce the number of entries on the system disk. If the RAM is small, and the applications you use are quite powerful, then disabling this file can cause instability in the system. Here it is necessary to look individually.

To disable the file, go through the following path: "Control Panel", next "System and Security", then "System", then "Advanced Settings", then "Advanced", then "System Speed", "Options", further "Advanced" , "Edit". By default, it is enabled, you must uncheck the box, and then click "No paging file".

Turning off hibernation

Hibernation is a special hibernate mode, supplemented by a new function. It was developed for Windows Vista. In this mode, the data from the RAM is overwritten in the system partition, and we can turn off the computer from the network. After turning on, all information is restored, automatically read from the system media in RAM. Thus, all open programs appear on the desktop again. In normal sleep mode, the data will not be restored. If you do not use hibernation, you can turn it off. Thus, you reduce the number of entries on the SSD-media and free up additional space.

Go to the command line: the Start menu, enter "cmd" in the search, run it as administrator. We enter the following phrase there: "powercfg-hoff", and then click on Enter. After that, we reboot the computer. If in the future you want to return everything back, then the command line will need to enter "powercfg-hon", and then restart the computer.

Disabling Prefetch (Files in RAM)

This function loads some data into RAM, if you often access them. The operating system itself tracks these files and anticipates this possibility. For example, you often use the text editor Word. Some of the files have already been loaded into RAM, and this program runs faster.

For SSD-drive no appreciable increase in speed you will not get, because it works faster than an ordinary HDD, so you can turn off this function. Most often, the operating system itself disables this feature when installing Windows on an SSD drive.

How can I check if this option is turned on and how to turn it off? This is done using the system registry. You must open the Registry Editor. Go to: Start menu, enter "Run" in the search bar and open the "Run" window in the results. We enter the word regedit there and click OK. The Registry Editor window opens. Here we go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE directory, then go to the SYSTEM tab, then the CurrentControlSet, then Control, then SessionManager, MemoryManagement and PrefetchParameters. Click the EnablePrefetcher with the mouse, select "Modify" and set the value of 3 to 0. Press OK, reboot, and the function will be turned off.

Turning off SuperFetch (disabled by default) and Windows Search

This feature can be turned off easier, without the system registry. Go to: "Control Panel", then "System and Security", then "Administration", then "Services" and look for Superfetch in them. Click the mouse and select "Properties". Then click "Startup type" and then "Disconnected". Then click "Apply", OK. After the reboot, the changes take effect.

If you want, you can turn off the Windows Search service. It helps you search for files on your computer. Accordingly, its deactivation will be at your discretion. If you still decide to do this, then in the above-described "Services" you need to find Windows Search, then "Properties", then "Launch type", then "Disconnected", OK. In principle, it is not necessary.

Turning off Windows cache cleaning

This step will positively affect the performance not for all drives. For example, on Intel's SSD disks, the company does not recommend disabling this option.

Choose: My Computer, System Disk, Properties, Hardware, the desired SSD, Properties, General, Edit Settings, Policy. Check the option "Disable clearing the cache buffer ...". If after these actions the performance of your disk has dropped, then this tick is recommended to be removed.

Disabling ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache (disabled by default)

The ClearPageFileAtShutdown option allows you to clear the paging file when the computer boots, and the LargeSystemCache option is the size of the cache memory of the file system. By default, when installing the operating system on the SSD-drive, these options should be turned off. Windows 7 itself turns them off. In order to check this, you need to log into the system registry.

Also we go to the editor of the system registry (how to do this, look above). In the branch, go to the following folder: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlSet / Control / SessionManager / MemoryManagement". In the right field, find the LargeSystemCache file. Click on "Change". If the field is 0, then it is off. We immediately find and check the ClearPageFileAtShutdown file. If the field is 3, then change to 0, then click OK and restart the computer. How to configure the SSD drive for Windows, you will learn further.

conclusions

That's basically it. Here the main settings were touched. It is definitely necessary to disable the option ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache, SuperFetch and Prefetch, data indexing. If desired, if RAM allows, you can turn off the paging file. System Restore and Windows Search are also disabled at will. To clear the cache, you need to look at the performance of your drive.

Configuring the SSD for Windows 7

Now let's talk about how to configure the SSD-drive, so that it optimally uses the resource embedded in it. What steps and items need to be met, so that the disk works as quickly as possible and its memory cells remain operational for a sufficient amount of time? Setting up an SSD for Windows 7 does not take much time and is fairly straightforward.

There are two modes of operation of the SATA controller. The first is the IDE, and it is usually enabled by default in the BIOS. The second mode is AHCI. It will allow us to use NCQ and TRIM technologies, which will increase the speed of random writing and reading from the SSD-drive. The TRIM instruction is sent by the system and allows the disk cells to be freed from physically deleted data, thereby increasing its performance.

Enabling AHCI controller mode

If you have not already installed Windows, you can change the mode from IDE to AHCI without problems in the BIOS. After that, you install and configure Windows 7 on the SSD-drive, and everything works. If you have already installed the system, the procedure will be described below.

We need to go to the Registry Editor by finding the regedit.exe file. How to do this, discussed above. In the system registry editor, you need to open the branch according to the following scheme. The SSD setting for Windows 7 occurs in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ services \ msahci directory. Here we need to find the ErrorControl parameter. Click and select "Edit". The default value will be 3. It is necessary to replace it with 0, then OK. A little lower we find the parameter Start. Also change the value from 3 to 0 and click OK. Then reboot the computer and go to the BIOS. Now we change the controller mode from SATA to AHCI, save the BIOS and load the operating system.

Now we need to check if there are any changes in the system. To do this, go to "My Computer", then "Properties", then "Device Manager" and find here the item IDEATA. It needs to be opened, and if you have the "Standard PCIIDE controller" line, nothing has changed. If you have AHCI on this place, then everything is fine, the SSD setting for Windows 7 was successful. You can do this before the registry and BIOS changes. Perhaps you already have AHCI mode enabled.

Now we have the TRIM command, which will allow the disk to function faster when data is littered, and NCQ technology is available, which allows to increase the speed of random reading and writing of information.

Thus, the optimization of SSD under Windows 7 has been successfully completed. The above tips should help you in setting up the system under SSD. All this will make the work of your computer as efficient as possible.