A Windows 7 Build with SSD, but a New Way

[SlipperyDuck]

OK, so first the reason for my rebuild.

Recently I upgraded my Nvidia Driver to 295.73 - while this is a good driver and boosts FPS in most games, I found a MASSIVE slow boot problem where the driver initialization adds 30 seconds to the boot after the welcome screen. There isnt a fix for this @ all, in fact this issue is actually quite rare for most people with Nvidia cards, so it may even be link to a certain driver update train eg; Driver xxx.xx  Beta Driver  WHQL Driver etc etc. A Driver sweep and old drivers does not cure the problem, it persists across all drivers versions now, so the only ‘cure’ in my eyes is a full reload, which is quick in-any-case when it comes to windows 7.

The ‘bright’stupid Idea behind this build.

SSD’s, I have a few, they are fast and amazing for any PC build, but they have a problem (albeit long-term) with write cycles, or a problem that they have a limited amount of writes before failing.
While you could argue that this would take forever and you’d replace the drive(s) long before it happens, I prefer the idea of maintaining a good standing with the drive and limit the volume or writes as much as possible, thereby improving the lifespan of these drives as dramatically as I can.
Ja, Ja, Ja, whatever, what’s the idea already? Ok, it’s simple but I’m hoping VERY effective;

The Idea
Build the Windows 7 install on RAID-0 Magnetic (Traditional or normal hard drives) drives, then use NTFS Symbolic link/Junction to move the Windows and Program Files Folders onto the SSD RAID-0 that I have.
This way, all non-static and temp files/logs/events etc, do not need to be considered and in-fact greatly simplifies the admin required to get the system up and running at high speed without having to consider where all these temp files are!

The Hardware.
Why on earth? Well, intel have yet to release Intel RST 11.5, the driver that supposedly finally implements TRIM in RAID-0. SSD’s tend to slow down after time without the garbage collection running(TRIM) and especially noticeable with RAID-0 where garbage collection is all but non-existent. So here’s my hardware.

Asus Sabertooth P67
Intel Core i7 2600k (oc’d to 4.5Ghz)
8Gb Corsair Vengeance 1866Mhz DDR3 CL9
2 X OCZ Agility 3 - - - In RAID-0 (SSD)
2 X Seagate 1Tb - - - In RAID-0 (Magnetic)
1 X Intel X-25 Gen2 80Gb - - - stand alone (SSD)
The rest is unimportant.

So, I’m currently doing the necessary backups before wiping things clean, secure-erase dumps etc etc etc. I will then set up the Magnetic Drive RAID-0 for primary Boot and install Windows 7, thereafter build the RAID-0 SSD with the two Agility drives and then boot with WinPE3 for the Copy of Windows and Program Files Folders, with a Junction, so that the actual DATA exists on the SSD RAID Volume, which makes the system boot faster. Yes there are some Log files and what have you there, but most of the small writes that cause the problems are in the Documents and settings which will stay on the Magnetic drive.

This is how it’s gonna start, I will update the progress and let you know if it works.

[J_Th4ng]

Interesting notion there Slippo, I'm keen to see how you get on. I'm particularly interested in how your boot times compare with having a traditional Windows install on the SSD.

One of the reasons that I've not considered running 2xSSDs in RAID 0 is the mentioned lack of TRIM on RAID 0. IMO though, if you have only one SSD to install onto, I wouldn't bother going with the approach above. The limit in the number of write cycles shouldn't be a problem, especially if your SSD is properly set up in Widows - i.e. no defrag, no superfetch etc. The wear leveling should manage write cycles in each chip well enough to prevent problems through the lifetime of the drive (still to be proved of course, but that's my belief).

[SlipperyDuck]

I've been monitoring the write cycles/Write actions and there are so many that it's mind boggling, most notibly in the [C:\Users] aka [C:\Documents and Settings] aka [user profile] - you are looking at hundreds (sometimes thousands) of writes ALL the time.

It's actually quite scary in terms of SSD write cycle hits.
[Just about every click you make is written to a file - yep, you can close your mouth now]

In anycase, I'm going to try this out and see what happens

[J_Th4ng]

That is quite shocking.

Hmmm, let me know how you get on...

[TygerBS]

Lol every click is an event and every event is recorded..... not that shocking... If you could isolate the clusters that is writing too, that may be more enlightening.

[SlipperyDuck]

Some more thought - and well, a better way.

1. Install Windows 7 on SSD RAID-0 [success]
2. Boot into recovery mode off DVD, select command prompt
3. robocopy /copyall /mir /xj c:\users d:\users (D is my magnetic drive RAID-0)
4. rmdir /s /q c:\users (delete the users folder on the SSD)
5. mklink /J c:\Users d:\Users (create an NTFS hard link (junction) pointing c:\Users to the D drive
6. Restart and enjoy lack of massive writes.

[Megageth]

huh?

[NiteShade]

huh?


ditto

[flycatchr]

I understood 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, but not the words after them :p

me thinks that at some point I may need to learn more.

@ lee - wouldn't this work for normal install on SSD or is there an easier way? (to avoid write cycles)

[J_Th4ng]

I think we need to wait until Master Lee has finished what he's doing, tested it for perfect performance, and then written an 'SSD installation for Dummies' guide that we can all understand.

Until then, I've installed my OS on the SSD, and data on an HDD. Write-cycles be damned :)

[SlipperyDuck]

Some more thought - and well, a better way.

1. Install Windows 7 on SSD RAID-0 [success]
2. Boot into recovery mode off DVD, select command prompt
3. robocopy /copyall /mir /xj c:\users d:\users (D is my magnetic drive RAID-0)
4. rmdir /s /q c:\users (delete the users folder on the SSD)
5. mklink /J c:\Users d:\Users (create an NTFS hard link (junction) pointing c:\Users to the D drive
6. Restart and enjoy lack of massive writes.


Yeah - rush mode explaination of what i did.

1. Install Windows 7 on my SSD

2. Now that Windows 7 is installed all on the SSD, I boot off the Windows 7 DVD and go to REPAIR mode. Select my Windows 7 installation [coz thats what you will be presented with] and it will then present you with the set of repair options, one of them being the Command prompt.

3. Now the idea behind this is that the C:\Users folder is where all the user profiles, temp files, log files, application specific files, user specific registry and all horrbily write condusive files are located, this includes your Internet browser cache and writing of every click you make resides. So this is the #1 problem folder for SSD drives since it goes absolutely ballistic with writing small files and small changes to this folder all the time.
So what I do next from the command prompt is to do an exact mirror copy of this folder onto the Magnetic drive, where writing has no wear on the disk.
Robocopy is the tool to use for this, robocopy is a built in Windows7 tool that copies with extreme intelligence, I won't go into the details, just know that it's the best for this job.
This command:
robocopy /copyall /mir /xj c:\users d:\users

/copyall - - Guess what, it will copy everything, hidden, system, secured, normally-unmoveable.
/mir --- MIRROR, this option makes sure that the source and destinations are mirror copies as in they are EXACTLY the same, security and files attributes and all that jazz
/xj -- this just means don't follow junctions points, if it did we'd have a problem as we'd be copying things from all over without proper destinations, that would be bad.
c:\Users -- this is the folder with all the heavy writing in windows 7
d:\Users -- Tells robocopy to create a folder call Users on my D drive and copy all the stuff there.

So that's it, robocopy then goes off and begins copying like crazy, since we've booted off the DVD, no files will be locked, so there will be no problems with copying everything to the new drive.

4. Next up, what we do is to actually completely DELETE the c:\Users folder, don't worry we’ve made an exact copy on the D drive now, so c:\Users should no longer exist. To DELETE it, we use the rmdir command at the command prompt.

rmdir /s /q c:\Users

rmdir -- remove directory
/s -- this means this directory and all sub-directories that are contained within it.
/q -- quiet mode, this basically means don't prompt for files that are protected or hidden or system etc, just answer yes to the "Are you sure you want to delete" questions, then don't tell my about it, just do it.
c:\Users -- well, this is the directory we want to remove.

5. At this point, c:\Users does not exists, the system would fail to boot since it requires the Users folder for settings and User registry information.
We've move c:\Users --> d:\Users from the steps above.
NOW WE TRICK THE SYSTEM!!!
basically what we will do next is create an NTFS Junction, which is a fancy way of saying to the System that c:\Users IS ACTUALLY d:\Users without anyone
or anything having to really think about it.
mklink is the tool to do this (make link)

mklink /J c:\Users d:\Users

/J -- Make a junction, this is like pegging a stick in the ground for the hard drive, telling it that that folder is on this drive, when it is actually on another drive.
c:\Users -- this is the Folder that it will now create, *NOTE you do not actually create this folder, the mklink tool will automagically create it.
d:\USers -- this is what this link is urm, linked to. Whenever the system now tries to read or write to c:\Users and/or any of it's sub-folders, it's actually doing
it on the d:\Users folder

6. Any thats all folks. We're done! All we need to do is reboot and fogedabowdit.
From this point on, all the heavy hitting SSD life-span killing writes are on the magnetic drive, your performance is not affected, since these are small writes
and small reads, the BULK of the data sits on the SSD which is where the speed is needed. You'd be hard pressed to see any sort of drop in performance by
making this change to the system. The big improvement is lack of writes, giving your investment into that expensive SSD a massive boost to it's longevity.


So if you've paid big bucks for and SSD and want your investment quite a lot longer, you'd do well to impliment the above.

It takes less than 5 minutes, it's really quick, and the benfits should not be underestimated.

kthxbai

[TygerBS]

Very nice Lee :)

[J_Th4ng]

Looks good Lee. I think I might give that a go.

[SlipperyDuck]

I have one more TIP for SSD and temp files.

1. Open Explorer, navigate to your Magnetic drive, say "D" drive.

2. in the root folder create a folder called TEMP

3. Open the D:\TEMP folder by double clicking on it.

4. Now create another folder called SYSTEMTEMP

5. You may be wondering why, so lets find out shall we?
EXPLAIN: Another thing windows does, is write temporary files when installing software
Not only that, it uses the system and user temp folders for many other temporary tasks (some files copies even)
Now, we don't want these common writes on our SSDs either, now do we? So, we're gonna change that!
*Note this is a change to the system environment which requires a reboot to come into effect

6. Right-Click on "My Computer" choose PROPERTIES
On the Left Pane of the [>Control Panel > System] Window, CLICK on "Advanced system settings"

7. This will open up the good old [System Properties] box
There are several tabs at the top, click the third one named "Advanced"
and on the "Advanced" tab look near the bottom and click on "Environment Variables"

8. You will note TWO things in this pane.
User Variables and System Variables
If we look at User variables you will see two references of interest; TEMP and TMP
Currently under User, it will show something like %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp
Now if you did the previous move of the c:\Users folder, then hey-presto, your UserTemp
is now already on the D: drive
** The System TEMP is not!
Under the System Variables, scroll down until you see TEMP and TMP
Though I cannot confirm right now, it probably says something like %SYSTEM%\temp or C:\Windows\Temp
Double Click on TEMP and type in D:\TEMP\SYSTEMTEMP then click OK (<--the folder we created in Steps 2->4)
Do the same to TMP then click OK (yes it's fine to have them in the same place)

9. All done, reboot and the temp files will now also be moved off your SSD

[Megageth]

Cool. I am with the remapping now. I did the Temp move trick but didn't realise there was a SYSTEMTEMP one to do as well.
Thanks Duck, we shall follow in your digital footprints.
I see they are up to 480GB now...
NAG recommends the Plextor M3 256GB.
Anyone had good/bad experiences with SSD's lately?

[SlipperyDuck]

I've never had a problem, not yet @ least.

[J_Th4ng]

If you're looking for a new SSD, I'd go with either the Corsair Force GT or the OCZ Vertex III. Both use Sandforce controllers, I'd go for a 120GB capacity. Or, if you can live without TRIM, get 2x60GB drives and RAID 0 them for ultimate speed!!

[Phatso]

How interesting.. I am reinstalling my OS onto my brand new OCZ Vertex III SSD tomorrow actually and will give this a shot.

I want my SSD to last forever and a day and bought it for that purpose.

Seems very easy from the guide. Will let you know if I break anything.

Just for more info, I'll never have to worry about anything EVER again regarding keeping this tidy? Like installing stuff and MyDocuments and and and?

[Phatso]

Upon further inspection, I may not be able to do this. Checkkit out yo.

- I currently have 2 magentic drives, a 320GB and a 1TB.
- My OS is currently installed on the 320GB.
- I will be reinstalling Win7 to a new 120GB SSD drive this eve.
- I am not ready to wipe the old 320GB drive as I am never sure which files I forgot to backup.
- I will eventually wipe the 320GB and keep this as the drive where I install any non-critical games/applications and the 1TB will stay as a storage drive.
- I do not want to create the "D:\Users" to the 320GB if I am going to wipe the device in the future.

Is there a workaround for me? And would doing just "the second bit" (http://www.grrr.co.za/forum/index.php?topic=2837.0;msg=46714) help without doing the whole "Users" folder move?

YO I AM TRYING TO LEN THEES THINGZ. Very confuzzling to us non-genius-nabs.

[SlipperyDuck]

You could always use the E:\ drive instead (if thats the name of your 1Tb drive)

Substitute all the D:\yadayada with E:\yadayada and you'll be fine.

[SlipperyDuck]

also, it's not a MUST DO THIS IMMEDIATELY thing..... you can use it for AGES with everything on the SSD, find that you are completely happy with the SSD and OS and system stability, then eventually decide to format/wipe the 320 and only move the USERS and TEMP files then........ It's really no biggy.

Don't rush it. is the bottom line

[Phatso]

But I wanna keep the 1TB drive for purely storage. I want to put the "Users" folder on the 320GB.. :/

[Phatso]

Ignore above post, only saw your 2nd post now. Ok, imma go plain vanilla for now, but this is interesting stuff. Hoooah Leeho!

[Thor_23]

Hey Phats, what did you pay for the SSD?

[J_Th4ng]

It was R1537 Incl. VAT. One of Denis' suppliers had Vertex III's on special for a few days. Unfortunately they are no longer available at that price.

Right now I can get Corsair Force GT's in the same capacity (120GB) for about R2000, which offers pretty much the same performance. But it's obviously quite a bit more expensive.

[Thor_23]

:(

I am looking into getting a SSD end of this Month

[Phatso]

http://www.wootware.co.za/ocz-120gb-vertex-3-series-sata-iii-3-5-ssd-retail.html

OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 Series SATA III 2.5" SSD - Retail - R 1,609.00

Around the same price as what I paid.

[Thor_23]

http://www.wootware.co.za/ocz-120gb-vertex-3-series-sata-iii-3-5-ssd-retail.html

OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 Series SATA III 2.5" SSD - Retail - R 1,609.00

Around the same price as what I paid.


thanks dude, you RAWK!!

[J_Th4ng]

Nice find Phats. I should get the latest Frontosa pricelist and see if the Corsair prices have dropped at all. Seems that SSD's are getting cheaper :woot:

[Thor_23]

all pc equipment that is imported should have a price drop as the whole problem in Greece has setteled a bit.
I have see significant price drops on Items we order from the factories overseas in the last 3 weeks

[Skouperd]

Hi guys, sorry but I have not contributed on this topic yet and felt I just HAD to share my 2cents.

I agree with what you all say about trying to "preserve" your SSDs for as long as possible, but seriously, have a look at the below article:

http://www.storagereview.com/ssd_performance_review_270tb_written

Given the speed at which SSD's advances, I am pretty convinced nobody would WANT to run their current SSD's in 5 years time any more in any event. I am not so much talking about raw sequential read / writes (which is almost at the liimit of SATA III already), but I recon that the next big advances in SSDs will come from increasing the random read / write speed which is still hovering around SATA I speeds.

I am not proclaiming that you go and write unneccesary stuff to your SSD, but seriously is this worth all the effort?

[SlipperyDuck]

It's almost no effort at all IMHO (5 minute change) for peace of mind, well for mine at least.

[Skouperd]

Lee, I am curious about something else, have you ever considered to write your TMP files (and potentially user files) to a RAM Drive?

[Paul]

OK Questions

I have install my SSD it only had Windows and BF3 on it all other programs are on the another Driver and I have a third drive as storage.

So I do Lee's little process except right at the beginning I hit a "problem". You in win explorer it shows my Windows drive as C:, my programs as D: and storage as F:

I had to manually change this in Disk Management because when I installed it randomly chose different letters.

Now when I do the repair and go to command, I ran the line Robocopy exactly as Lee said. But then it said it couldn't find C:\users. I run a simple Dir search and find that c:\ has all the program directories and D: has the windows directories.

So my question is can I just reverse the C: and D: in Lee instructions? I was going to do this but part of the instructions is to delete the users folder which could fuck everything up

[TygerBS]

Hahaha paul so u made your SSD as drive D?