Migrating Win7 to new SSD..?

[GreigM]

dododo said:

I also forgot to mention that some of the optimisations are to reduce disk thrashing and therefore extend ssd life

What thrashing? Its solid state. There is nothing to thrash. That post shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what an SSD is.

You absolutely can reconfigure windows post-install, set trim correctly, switch off defrag etc. The only thing which you can't do in a cloned install is partition alignment, but the benefits of this have been hugely overblown and for 99% of home users will never be an issue.

What is it you believe windows is doing during the fresh install that you can't do afterwards (with the exeption of the aforementioned partition alignment)?

I have migrated many many machines from traditional HDD to SSD with tremendous success - most reporting up to 400% improvement in start-up times, so to say there is no benefit from this method is just nonsense.

If you follow this guide it will do everything required:
http://www.disk-partition.com/kb/tips-ssd-optimiza...

[tankslappa]

GreigM said:

What thrashing? Its solid state. There is nothing to thrash. That post shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what an SSD is.

You absolutely can reconfigure windows post-install, set trim correctly, switch off defrag etc. The only thing which you can't do in a cloned install is partition alignment, but the benefits of this have been hugely overblown and for 99% of home users will never be an issue.

What is it you believe windows is doing during the fresh install that you can't do afterwards (with the exeption of the aforementioned partition alignment)?

I have migrated many many machines from traditional HDD to SSD with tremendous success - most reporting up to 400% improvement in start-up times, so to say there is no benefit from this method is just nonsense.

If you follow this guide it will do everything required:
http://www.disk-partition.com/kb/tips-ssd-optimiza...

Thanks for this. Does it also apply to Windows 8?

I bought a new Yoga laptop on the weekend and changed the hybrid drive for a 250gig Samsung 840 Evo last night. The process was painless, I installed the Samsung migration software and wizard programme first, cloned both partitions across via USB, (carefully) swapped the drive over and it's worked flawlessly. Whole process took less than an hour and I didn't even change any bios settings.

Reading this thread has got me concerned that it should have been a more complicated and time consuming process. Have I done it right?

[furtive]

tankslappa said:

Have I done it right?

Yes

[GreigM]

tankslappa said:

Thanks for this. Does it also apply to Windows 8?

I bought a new Yoga laptop on the weekend and changed the hybrid drive for a 250gig Samsung 840 Evo last night. The process was painless, I installed the Samsung migration software and wizard programme first, cloned both partitions across via USB, (carefully) swapped the drive over and it's worked flawlessly. Whole process took less than an hour and I didn't even change any bios settings.

Reading this thread has got me concerned that it should have been a more complicated and time consuming process. Have I done it right?

Yes, applies to windows 8 too. There is nothing to "do wrong" - if your machine boots up then everything is ok - there are just certain optimizations you can do to extend the life and improve performance of the SSD, if you follow that guide thats all you need to do. No need to reinstall or redo anything.

[jimmyjimjim]

Wear leveling should be handled in the firmware of the drive.

[tankslappa]

Thanks all, I'll run through that web page tonight.

[8bit]

Thanks all. I did some Googling and found a post (possibly Win8 specific but it doesn't say to do different on 7) that suggests to get Windows to optimise itself for the SSD then just re-run the Windows Experience Index assessment (source - http://www.lifehacker.co.uk/2014/06/02/migrate-sol... under "Proper SSD maintenance, about 3/4 down the page). There's also a link there with some more info.

[trashbat]

My top tip is enable AHCI in the BIOS before installing Windows.

(If you're wondering what AHCI is, look it up - it's the alternative SATA mode to IDE for faster disk access)

If you do it afterwards, Windows probably won't boot. It can then be fixed by either disabling the option or pissing in the registry, but you can save yourself that trouble.

[furtive]

trashbat said:

pissing in the registry, but you can save yourself that trouble.

It doesn't take much pissing - just change one entry to zero and reboot...

[trashbat]

furtive said:

It doesn't take much pissing - just change one entry to zero and reboot...

Aside from identifying the problem enough to get you there, you have to find which one. Normally it's msahci but for me at least it was amdsata.

[dododo]

GreigM said:

dododo said:

I also forgot to mention that some of the optimisations are to reduce disk thrashing and therefore extend ssd life

What thrashing? Its solid state. There is nothing to thrash. That post shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what an SSD is.

You absolutely can reconfigure windows post-install, set trim correctly, switch off defrag etc. The only thing which you can't do in a cloned install is partition alignment, but the benefits of this have been hugely overblown and for 99% of home users will never be an issue.

What is it you believe windows is doing during the fresh install that you can't do afterwards (with the exeption of the aforementioned partition alignment)?

I have migrated many many machines from traditional HDD to SSD with tremendous success - most reporting up to 400% improvement in start-up times, so to say there is no benefit from this method is just nonsense.

If you follow this guide it will do everything required:
http://www.disk-partition.com/kb/tips-ssd-optimiza...

SSDs have a limited lifespan, which is far lower than a traditional spinning disk. In the Specialize phase of Setup.exe that only runs during WinPE the setup routines detect your SSD and disable all Windows 7 features that are not required when running on an SSD, such as prefetch, defrag, caching of runtimes, etc. On a spinning disk these features have a positive impact on system performance but on an SSD they have NONE.

My disk thrashing statement refers to the fact that by cloning the disk you bypass the Specialize phase of Windows Setup and therefore continue to have the non SSD friendly disk features enabled, resulting in more read/writes to the disk resulting in shorter disk life span. Yes, you get increased disk performance with your mickey mouse cloning technique but longer term you reduce the disks life expectancy because you botched the job. Annoying after you've shelled out a few hundred quid on a disk you assumed would last for a long time.

So your "that post shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what an SSD is" is actually untrue. I worked on the Microsoft team together with Samsung before Windows 7 shipped in order to get the disk optimisations right in WinPE so that SSDs could live for longer, we spent weeks and weeks testing it so that you didn't need to worry about it because it all worked invisibly. We were able to "burn out" SSDs (admitedly under strenuous testing) which resulted in disk errors that chkdsk can't fix, reduced performance and other odd disk behaviour. The conclusions we actually reached at the time that SSDs were probably not worth it in the long run, unless you really need the performance.


Please go ahead and follow some blog on how to do it, or do the job properly. Why hasn't Microsoft documented this fact? Because the only disk cloning tool that is supported by them is Microsoft IMAGEX. And when you clone a disk properly with imagex for deployment it ends up running Windows Setup. Oh, and guess what? That running of Windows setup triggers the disk optimisation checks. And if you use imagex then you can change partition alignment. But hey, guess what? Cloning with imagex means you run Windows setup, which also sorts out partition alignment for you. Wow, what a handy thing to happen behind the scenes...

Finally, you can follow articles you read on the web that talk about how to optimise it post-install. They cover most of the optimisations, but not all. There is only one way to truly do the job properly. Just because other methods work doesn't mean they are right.

You *need* to run setup.exe

There. I'm finished.

[trashbat]

dododo said:

SSDs have a limited lifespan, which is far lower than a traditional spinning disk.

Are you sure about this?

The technology has come a long way since the 2009 introduction of Windows 7.

I know where my money would be.

[8bit]

dododo said:

Lots of stuff

OK so please quantify this then; if I follow something like this which was posted above - http://www.disk-partition.com/kb/tips-ssd-optimiza... - in your experience, just how much difference will doing a clean install to the SSD (instead of cloning and tweaking) actually make, in both performance and longevity terms?

I'm not trolling, I'm just looking to weigh up the benefits vs. hassle and it sounds like you have done some extensive research on this subject.

[dododo]

8bit said:

dododo said:

Lots of stuff

OK so please quantify this then; if I follow something like this which was posted above - http://www.disk-partition.com/kb/tips-ssd-optimiza... - in your experience, just how much difference will doing a clean install to the SSD (instead of cloning and tweaking) actually make, in both performance and longevity terms?

I'm not trolling, I'm just looking to weigh up the benefits vs. hassle and it sounds like you have done some extensive research on this subject.

And this is problem. The product team never shared that information, it's intentional. Microsoft want you to follow procedure by reinstalling; it was the only tested, and therefore supported, scenario. Windows setup is a black box process, I.e. It does stuff that is not documented or reverse engineer-able. Any blog post covered the basics, and you'll live happy, but the disk life could be shortened. However, given the rate of technology change and the dropping price of SSDs you are better off weighing up hassle now vs. cost of new drive in the future.

[furtive]

dododo said:

Some words

Samsung drives come with a tool that do all that stuff for you once you have cloned it