MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: Computer HDD/SSD Question

> > If he restores an image from his current setup, he shouldn't have to do anything
> with
> > drivers, right? Does the SSD need special drivers that are not in Windows 7?
>
> There aren't special drivers, but when you install on an SSD, Windows turns off
> certain features like defrag on an SSD drive. If he clones his old drive to the SSD,
> those settings will need to be changed manually.
>
> Windows Vista/7 is very sensitive to the way SSDs are formatted. If you don't format
> them correctly, the partition(s) aren't aligned right to the SSD and your performance
> will suck. You can format it with the Windows 7 disk.
>
> Also, for an SSD you want to check your BIOS and make sure that ACHI is enabled,
> assuming your motherboard supports it. Though if it's not enabled and you don't plan
> on re-installing, you need to change it in the Windows registry first, THEN change it
> in the BIOS...
> http://tweaks.com/windows/44119/improve-sata-hard-disk-performance-convert-from-ide-to-ahci/
> Note that this has a minimal effect on SATA IDE drives, but it can make a very large
> difference with SSD drives.
>
> Finally, there's a decent utility for tweaking SSD drives...
> http://elpamsoft.com/Downloads.aspx?Name=SSD%20Tweaker

Yup, I'm already on an AHCI system, so no worries there. I have actually been using an SSD in it since I built the thing in early November, but only as a cache drive with Intel's Rapid Storage Technology driver to accelerate the HDD. It basically caches the most frequently used files to the SSD, up to the storage limit of the installed SSD, 64GB in my case. The cached files basically run at close to full-SSD speeds, but you don't get the full benefit across-the-board, hence the upgrade.

Sector offset has been one of my main concerns, but I think that the methods I'm looking at right now will take care of that. Will check out the util's you've linked.

Cheers