It is best to install an SSD drive on your computer. They have a higher data read/write speed and are also less likely to fail compared to conventional hard drives. But to experience all the benefits of working with a solid-state drive, Windows 10 must be properly configured for an SSD.

What to check before optimization?

Before starting the optimization process, check whether the system supports TRIM and whether AHCI SATA mode is enabled.

You can check the controller's operating mode in the BIOS. Find the “SATA Operation” or similar section in the settings. If it is set to ATA operating mode, switch it to AHCI.

This may cause difficulties:

• The old BIOS version does not support the controller in AHCI mode. In this case, go to the motherboard manufacturer's website, find out if your model supports AHCI mode, then download and install the new BIOS;
• The OS won't boot because it doesn't have the required drivers. In this case, install drivers on your PC in advance. The best option is to immediately reinstall the operating system.

Enabling TRIM

The TRIM function when using an SSD increases its speed and ensures equal wear of memory cells. This has a positive effect on the performance of the solid-state drive.

At the command prompt running as Administrator, enter the command: fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify. If:

• 0 – parameter enabled;
• 1 – parameter disabled.

To enable, enter the command: fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0.

Setting up Windows 10 for SSD

If all the above points are configured, proceed to optimize Windows 10 on a computer with a solid-state drive.

Disabling features

When using a solid-state drive on your PC, disable some Windows 10 features that help with HDD operation. Below it is written in detail how to do this in several steps.

File indexing

Indexing is designed to speed up the OS. It provides quick access to the files you need. But an SSD drive has a high speed of information exchange with the system, and frequent rewrites will quickly damage it. Therefore, it is better to disable file indexing.

This PC → right-click on the SSD drive → Properties menu → uncheck the “Allow files on this drive to be indexed in addition to file properties.”

Search service

Hibernation

Hibernation saves an image of the working OS when the computer is turned off. It is written to the internal storage. This increases the subsequent loading speed of Windows 10. In the case of an SSD drive, it is not needed, because the system loading speed is high, and frequent overwriting of information negatively affects the service life of the drive.

In the command line (you can read how to work with it in the article “”), running as Administrator, enter the command: powercfg -h off.

Prefetch and SuperFetch

Prefetch speeds up startup of frequently used software, and SuperFetch predicts what program you're about to launch. In both cases, the OS preloads information into memory. If using SSDs, disable them.

Important! During a “clean” installation of Windows 10 on an SSD drive, these parameters are initially set to “0”. But when combining SSD and HDD drives on a PC, failures occur. Therefore, double-check these values ​​after installing the OS.

Defragmentation

Defragmentation increases the speed of HDD disk operation by arranging the arrangement of clusters of information one after another. A solid-state drive has the same access speed to all memory cells. Defragmentation is not relevant for him, so disable it.

Automatic optimization with SSD Mini Tweaker utility

A portable, free utility that optimizes Windows 10 for a solid-state drive. Because it is created by a third party, you use it at your own risk.

Download and run the program. In the window that opens, select the items that you consider necessary and click “Apply changes.”

Conclusion

After installing or transferring Windows 10 to an SSD drive, you need to optimize its performance. This can be done manually by disabling functions that are irrelevant for the solid-state drive, or using the special SSD Mini Tweaker utility.

It's no secret that installing an operating system from scratch is fraught with many pitfalls that can seriously spoil your nerves. This is especially true for installing an OS from a flash drive onto an SSD. Both media must be properly prepared and formatted, and the computer's BIOS must be configured accordingly. Otherwise, annoying errors may occur: the installation program will not see the disk or will not start at all.

Installing Windows 10 on an SSD - sleight of hand and no fraud

From the point of view of the operating system and computer hardware, a solid-state drive (SSD) is no different from a classic hard drive with magnetic platters. Accordingly, installing an operating system on an SSD will be no different from installing it on a regular hard drive.

The only nuances will be in setting up the disk subsystem for maximum performance and in creating partitions on the disk before installing the system. Since the disk is new, a clean copy of the OS will be installed.

Installing an OS on a blank disk will always be more difficult than updating, which will download itself from the Internet and carry out all the manipulations in the background, requiring literally a few mouse clicks from the user.

Installing a clean copy consists of several sequential steps that should go smoothly and without errors. Shall we get started?

Preparing bootable media (flash drive)

As practice shows, when installing Windows 10 on an SSD using a bootable DVD, errors often occur that prevent the normal installation of the OS. This happens especially often on laptops in which both the optical drive and the hard drive are connected to the same SATA controller: accessing the optical drive causes the computer to not optimally configure the controller, and the SSD may not work correctly.

Therefore, to install the system, you need to prepare a bootable USB flash drive, installation from which will allow you to carry out the process quickly and without errors.

To prepare bootable media with the OS distribution, you need to download the Windows 10 distribution image, format the flash drive and unpack the image onto it. And if there are no problems with downloading, then further preparation of the flash drive can be carried out by a dozen different programs, similar in function, but different in settings and interface.

We will focus on the official image deployment tool from Microsoft - Microsoft USB/DVD download tool. The program is so simple that it is impossible to make mistakes when using it.

1. Find the Microsoft USB/DVD download tool on the Internet and download it.
2. Connect a USB flash drive to a free USB port to which the system image will be deployed. Insert the USB flash drive onto which you want to burn the Windows 10 boot image into the USB port.
3. Open File Explorer and note the logical drive letter of the flash drive. In our case this is the letter L.
   The connected flash drive was mounted in the file explorer as drive L:
4. Launch the Microsoft USB/DVD download tool.
5. Using the Browse button, select the ISO image with the operating system distribution and click Next.
   Step 1: select the image that you will burn to the flash drive
6. Select the media type - USB Device (flash drive).
   Select the type of media that you will make bootable via the USB/DVD download tool
7. Select the disk (flash drive) to deploy the media from the drop-down list and click the Begin copying button.
   Select your flash drive from the available devices and click the Begin copying button
8. When asked about erasing media, answer yes. The program will format the flash drive and start copying files to it.
9. When the progress bar reaches 100% and a message about successful media creation appears, you can close the program.

The bootable USB flash drive has been successfully created, and the Windows 10 distribution files have been transferred to it.

The bootable USB flash drive has been created, and you can begin installing the operating system using it.

The occurrence of any errors while the program is running indicates a faulty flash drive. Change the media to a known good one and repeat the process of creating a bootable disk.

In addition to its simplicity, this method is good because using an official Microsoft tool instead of one of the “free” programs guarantees a secure installation. Using it, you will not infect your computer with keyloggers or annoying adware.

Video: creating a bootable USB flash drive with Rufus

Activating AHCI mode

In order not to find yourself in a situation where the OS installer does not see the disk on which Windows 10 should be installed (this applies not only to SSDs, but in general to all hard drives with a SATA interface), using BIOS settings, you need to switch the SATA controller to AHCI mode .

Preparing an SSD disk for OS installation

To avoid problems when installing the Windows 10 operating system, the disk on which the installation will be carried out must be completely cleared of partitions. If you do not do this, the system installation program may display a message stating that this disk cannot be used to install the OS. The reason will be the lack of space to create service partitions, invisible to the user, but vital for the operating system.

To prevent this from happening, remove all partitions from the SSD disk. You can do this using the console command diskpart:

All partitions from the SSD have been removed, and it is ready to install the Windows 10 operating system.

This method requires care and a lot of keystrokes, but it gives complete control over the process. If you are a fan of beauty and mouse clicks, you can find hard drive management programs with a graphical interface.

Video: how to manage disks using Minitool PartitionWizard

Installing Windows 10 OS - step by step instructions

The bootable USB flash drive has been created, the computer's BIOS has been configured, and the SSD drive is pristine. We start the operating system installation process:

1. Boot your computer from the previously created USB flash drive with the Windows 10 distribution.
2. Select your default interface language and input keyboard, then click Next.
   Selecting the default system language and keyboard when installing Windows 10
3. Click the Install button to start the Windows installation.
   Start installing Windows 10 using the “Install” button
4. “Read” and accept the terms of the license agreement. Without this, further installation will be impossible.
   Accept the license agreement to continue installation
5. Select the installation type "Custom: Windows installation only". A clean copy of the system can only be installed in this way.
   Installation of a “clean system” is only possible in custom installation mode
6. Since we have previously cleared the target disk (SSD) of partitions, in the dialog for selecting a partition for installation, you will need to click the “Create” button, and then set the maximum possible partition size (it will be this by default). Together with it, the system will also create service partitions for its needs. They will not be visible in File Explorer:
   • Section #1: Recovery Environment. Contains a recovery environment necessary for “rolling back” the system after critical errors or damage by malware;
   • partition #2: system partition (EFI). Contains the boot configuration store (BCD) and files needed to boot the operating system;
   • section #3: MSR (system reserved). Required for service operations of built-in and third-party software (for example, to convert a simple disk to a dynamic one);
   • section No. 4: operating system. The installed system will be located on this partition. The space not occupied by the operating system will be available for installing applications and storing files.
7. After selecting the disk, OS installation will begin. During the installation process, the screen may flicker and go dark, and the computer will automatically restart several times. This is required to complete some installation steps.
   Copying files and installing updates is the longest stage of OS installation
8. Now you need to select basic settings for personalization and location, as well as connection and error reporting. The option “Use standard settings (default)” will be most preferable for an inexperienced user. At this stage, it is advisable to have a working Internet connection.
   In this window, it is better to use the “Use standard settings” button
9. After entering the user password, the operating system is ready for use.
   The system waits for user actions on the lock screen

Video: Installing Windows 10

Proper preparation of two solid-state media: a bootable flash drive and an SSD disk is the key to a trouble-free and quick installation of Windows 10. In conclusion, I would like to dwell on the choice of system distribution. We strongly do not recommend using homemade OS builds, which are stored in large numbers on torrent trackers. Their authors promise mountains of gold and extraordinary features, but in reality everything can result in viruses built into the system, pop-up ads and hardware failures. Use only original images from Microsoft, even if you install a “pirated” version of the OS.

An SSD solid-state drive differs in its properties and method of operation from a hard HDD drive, but the process of installing Windows 10 on it will not be much different; there is a noticeable difference only in preparing the computer.

Preparing the disk and computer for installation

Owners of SSD drives know that in previous versions of the OS, for correct, durable and full-fledged operation of the drive, it was necessary to change the system settings manually: disable defragmentation, some functions, hibernation, built-in antiviruses, the page file and change a few other parameters. But in Windows 10, the developers took these shortcomings into account; the system now performs all disk settings itself.

You especially need to focus on defragmentation: before, it greatly harmed the disk, but in the new OS it works differently, not harming the SSD, but optimizing it, so you should not disable automatic defragmentation. It's the same with other functions - in Windows 10 you don't need to configure the system's work with the disk manually, everything is already done for you.

The only thing is that when dividing a disk into partitions, it is recommended to leave 10–15% of its total volume as unallocated space. This will not increase its performance, the recording speed will remain the same, but the service life may be slightly extended. But remember, most likely, the disk will last longer than you need even without additional settings. You can free up free interest both during the installation of Windows 10 (during the process in the instructions below), and after it using system utilities or third-party programs.

Preliminary PC setup

In order to install Windows on an SSD drive, you need to switch the computer to AHCI mode and make sure that the motherboard supports the SATA 3.0 interface. Information about whether SATA 3.0 is supported or not can be found on the official website of the company that developed your motherboard, or using third-party programs such as HWINFO (http://www.hwinfo.com/download32.html).

Switching to SATA mode

1. Turn off your computer.
2. As soon as the startup process begins, press the special key on the keyboard to go to the BIOS. Typically the Delete, F2 or other hotkeys are used. Which one will be used in your case will be written in a special footnote during the inclusion process.
3. The BIOS interface will differ in different motherboard models, but the principle of switching to AHCI mode on each of them is almost identical. First, go to the Settings section. To move through blocks and items, use the mouse or arrow keys with the Enter button.
4. Go to advanced BIOS settings.
5. Go to the “Built-in peripherals” sub-item.
6. In the “SATA Configuration” block, find the port to which your SSD is connected and press Enter on the keyboard.
7. Select AHCI operating mode. It may already be selected by default, but we needed to make sure of this. Save the settings made in the BIOS and exit it, boot the computer to proceed to preparing the media with the installation file.

Preparing installation media

If you already have a ready-made installation disk, you can skip this step and immediately begin installing the OS. If you don’t have one, then you will need a USB flash drive with at least 4 GB of memory. Creating an installation program on it will look like this:

1. We insert the USB flash drive into the port and wait until the computer recognizes it. Open the explorer.
2. First of all, it is important to format it. This is done for two reasons: the memory of the flash drive must be completely empty and divided in the format we need. While on the main page of Explorer, right-click on the flash drive and select “Format” in the menu that opens.
3. We select the NTFS format mode and begin the operation, which can last up to ten minutes. Please note that all data stored on the formatted media will be permanently erased.
4. Go to the official Windows 10 page (https://www.microsoft.com/ru-ru/software-download/windows10) and download the installation tool.
5. Launch the downloaded program. Read and accept the license agreement.
6. Select the second option “Create installation media”, since this method of installing Windows is more reliable, because you can start all over again at any time, and also use the created installation media in the future to install the OS on other computers.
7. Select the system language, version and bit depth. You should take the version that suits you best. If you are an ordinary user, then you should not load the system with unnecessary functions that will never be useful to you; install Windows at home. The capacity depends on how many cores your processor has: one (32) or two (64). Information about the processor can be found in the computer properties or on the official website of the company that developed the processor.
8. In the media selection, select the USB device option.
9. Select the flash drive from which the installation media will be created.
10. We wait until the media creation process is completed.
11. Reboot the computer without removing the media.
12. During startup, enter the BIOS.
13. We change the boot order of the computer: your flash drive should be in first place, not the hard drive, so that when you turn on the computer, it starts booting from it and, accordingly, starts the Windows installation process.

Windows 10 installation process on SSD

1. Installation begins with choosing a language; set the Russian language in all lines.
2. Confirm that you want to start the installation.
3. Read and accept the license agreement.
4. You may be asked to enter a license key. If you have it, then enter it, if not, then skip this step for now and activate the system after installing it.
5. Proceed with manual installation as this method will allow you to configure the disk partitions.
6. A window will open with disk partition settings, click on the “Disk Settings” button.
7. If you are installing the system for the first time, then all the SSD disk memory will not be allocated. Otherwise, you need to select one of the partitions to install and format it. Divide unallocated memory or existing disks as follows: allocate more than 40 GB to the main disk on which the OS will be located, so as not to encounter it being clogged in the future, leave 10–15% of the total disk memory unallocated (if all the memory has already been allocated, delete the partitions and start forming them again), we allocate all the remaining memory for an additional partition (usually drive D) or partitions (drives E, F, G...). Don't forget to format the main partition allocated for the OS.
8. To begin installation, select the drive and click Next.
9. Wait until the system installs in automatic mode. The process may take more than ten minutes, do not interrupt it under any circumstances. After the procedure is completed, the creation of an account and installation of basic system parameters will begin; follow the instructions on the screen and select the settings for yourself.

Video tutorial: how to install Windows 10 on an SSD

Installing Windows 10 on an SSD is no different from the same process with an HDD drive. Most importantly, do not forget to enable ACHI mode in the BIOS settings. After installing the system, there is no need to configure the disk; the system will do it for you.

When you purchase and install an SSD drive, in order to transfer a copy of the operating system from a standard hard drive, you need to make certain system settings. In cases where Windows 10 is installed from scratch, many components are configured automatically. Therefore, most experts advise installing a “clean” version of the operating system.

The process of optimizing the OS for a specific SSD makes it possible to extend the life of the device, and even speeds up the operation of the system itself. The recommendations that the reader will learn about below are suitable not only for Windows 10, but also for some earlier versions (7 and 8).

There is no need to rush right away; you must first prepare and check whether all the necessary services are included.

ACHI SATA mode

You can check this indicator through the BIOS settings network. When the hard drive is in ATA mode, it needs to be changed to ACHI.

By the way, there are two nuances here:

1. The operating system will not turn on due to a lack of drivers. In this situation, you need to either install them first, or completely reinstall Windows 10.
2. On some computers (very old) there is simply no setting of operating modes in the BIOS. If this happens, you will need to update the BIOS (at a minimum, you will have to read the information on the company’s official website and find out if this is possible).

You also need to go to the device manager (this menu opens through the control panel) and open the item with IDE ATA/ATEPI modes. If the user sees a controller named SATA ACHI in the menu, then everything is fine.

This mode must be enabled in order for the SSD drive to work normally, without interruptions. The special TRIM function in ATA mode is needed so that the operating system is able to transmit information to the drive about blocks and the need to work with them. Such features must be taken into account, because in this case, deleting and formatting data occurs on a different principle than in HDD drives. Using the TRIM command will make the hard drive work more efficiently, and it will also contribute to uniform wear of the cells. Only the newest OS versions (7,8,10) work with this function. If you use the good old XP, you will have to update or buy a disk with this command.

Enabling the TRIM Command

To verify that this feature is enabled, you must open a command prompt. After that, enter the command fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify and press “Enter”. If the value next to the command name is set to 0, then it is enabled. If the value is set to 1, then we change the situation using the fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0 command.

Operating system optimization

This task occurs in 5 stages:

SSD Mini Tweaker

As you can see, all settings for how the operating system works with the disk can be done manually. But there is another way out of this situation - the use of special software (such programs are called tweakers). Experts recommend using the SSD Mini Tweaker utility.

The program allows you to configure the “ten” to work with this type of hard drive. Configuring the device using this utility significantly increases its service life. And thanks to some points, it is even possible to increase the performance of the operating system.

The benefits of the utility include:

• The entire interface is in clear, Russian (including even hints for all items).
• Performs functions on all new versions of Windows OS.
• There is no need to install the program.
• The utility is completely free.

If the user does not have experience with such things as the registry editor or BIOS, then it is better not to waste time and nerves and use the utility right away.

In contact with

So, you got a brand new SSD. You installed the system on it, armed yourself with an optimization guide you found on the Internet, and after a couple of hours you did everything possible to... slow down your work in the system!

Don't believe me? Think about what makes for high performance. Advantages SSD speeds you can feel in three categories:

• system, for example, the speed of its loading and operation
• programs, including web surfing and working with documents, images and media files
• your actions, including disk navigation and copying/moving files

How myths are born

I'm pretty sure your SSD tuning measures negatively impacted at least one of these components. Later you will find out why this happened, but first about the reasons for such optimization.

If you read the inscription “buffalo” on the elephant’s cage...

There are plenty of guides and even tweakers online for optimizing SSDs. In fact, the same information is used everywhere, and:

• outdated, since it is aimed at saving disk space and reducing the number of rewrite cycles, which is irrelevant for modern SSDs in home PCs
• useless, because Windows itself takes care of what it offers to configure
• harmful, because it leads to a decrease in the speed of work - yours, programs and system

Look critical on your guide or tweaker and think about which items fit into one of these categories!

There is another problem - unsuccessful presentation of information, including incorrectly placed accents.

If you have a HDD along with an SSD, measure the speeds of both drives and keep the picture in mind. I will return to her, and more than once!

Special Notes for Dissenters

After publishing the material, I decided to specifically clarify several points so as not to repeat them regularly in the comments when responding to opponents.

In this article:

1. All myths are considered solely from the point of view of speeding up the system, programs and the user.. If a measure is declared useless or harmful, this means that it does not contribute in any way to speeding up work.
2. Reducing the volume of disk writes is not considered as an optimization measure due to the irrelevance of this approach. If this is your goal, myths 3 - 11 are for you, as is storing an SSD in a sideboard.
3. Using a RAM disk is not considered as it is not directly related to SSD optimization. If you have excess RAM, you can use a RAM disk regardless of the type of drive installed in your PC.
4. All recommendations are given with a wide audience in mind, i.e. to the majority users. When analyzing advice, keep in mind that they may not correspond to your tasks, work skills and ideas about the optimal and competent use of the operating system.

Now - let's go! :)

Myths

1. Disable SuperFetch, ReadyBoot and Prefetch

This advice: controversial, can reduce the speed of program launch, and also in Windows 10 - increase the volume of disk writes and reduce the overall performance of the OS if there is insufficient RAM

Speed ​​of launching programs from the hard drive

When each program is launched, the prefetcher checks for the presence of a trace (.pf file). If one is found, the prefetcher uses links to the MFT file system metadata to open all the necessary files. It then calls a special memory manager function to asynchronously read from the trace data and code that is not currently in memory. When a program is launched for the first time or the startup script has changed, the prefetcher writes a new trace file (highlighted in the figure).

It is unlikely that SuperFetch is capable of speeding up the launch of programs from an SSD, but Microsoft does not disable the function, given the presence of hard drives in the system. If the SSD manufacturer's proprietary utility (such as Intel SSD Toolbox) recommends disabling SuperFetch, follow its advice. However, in this case, it is more than logical to keep all programs on the SSD, which will be discussed below.

Memory compression in Windows 10

This aspect is discussed in a separate article: The nuances of disabling the SysMain service in Windows 10. Earlier on this page there was a fragment from it published impromptu.

2. Disabling Windows Defragmenter

This tip: useless or harmful, may reduce disk performance

One of the functions of the CheckBootSpeed ​​utility is to check the status of the scheduled defragmentation job and the Task Scheduler service. Let's see how relevant these options are for the latest Microsoft OS installed on an SSD.

Windows 7

Windows 7 does not defragment SSDs, which is confirmed by the words of the developers in the blog.

Windows 7 will disable defragmentation for SSD drives. Since SSDs perform superior at random reads, defragmentation will not provide the same benefits that it does on a regular drive.

If you don't trust the developers, take a look at the event log. You won't find any entries there about defragmenting the SSD volume.

So, when the SSD is the only drive, the scheduled job simply doesn't run. And when the PC also has a HDD, disabling a task or scheduler deprives the hard drive of worthy optimization by a standard defragmenter.

Windows 8 and later

In Windows 8, the defragmenter has been replaced by the disk optimizer!

Optimizing hard drives, as before, comes down to defragmentation. Windows no longer ignores solid-state drives, but helps them by sending additional a set of TRIM commands for the entire volume at once. This happens according to a schedule as part of automatic maintenance, i.e. when you are not working on your PC.

Depending on the SSD controller, garbage collection may occur immediately upon receipt of the TRIM command, or it may be delayed until a period of inactivity. By disabling the disk optimizer or task scheduler, you reduce drive performance.

3. Disable or move the swap file

This tip: useless or harmful, reduces system speed when there is insufficient memory

The hardware configuration must be balanced. If you don't have much memory installed, you should add more, since an SSD only partially compensates for the lack of RAM, making swap times faster than a hard drive.

When you have enough memory, the page file is hardly used, i.e. This will not affect the life of the disk in any way. But many people still turn off paging - they say, let the system keep everything in memory, I said! As a result, the Windows Memory Manager does not work in the most optimal mode (see #4).

As a last resort, the swap file is transferred to the hard drive. But if suddenly the memory is not enough, You will only benefit in performance by having pagefile.sys on the SSD!

IN: Do I need to place the page file on the SSD?

ABOUT: Yes. The main operations with the paging file are random writing of small volumes or sequential writing of large amounts of data. Both types of operations work fine on an SSD.

By analyzing telemetry focused on estimating writes and reads for the pagefile, we found that:

• reading from Pagefile.sys takes precedence over writing to pagefile.sys in a 40:1 ratio,
• read blocks for Pagefile.sys are usually quite small, 67% of them are less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% are less than 16 KB,
• The write blocks in Pagefile.sys are quite large, 62% of them are greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% are almost exactly 1 MB

Generally speaking, the typical page file usage patterns and SSD performance characteristics fit together very well, and it is the file that is highly recommended to be placed on the SSD.

But in practice, the desire to extend the life of an SSD at any cost is ineradicable. Here is a blog reader fretting over his SSD, transferring pagefile.sys to the hard drive, although he himself can even see with the naked eye that this reduces performance. By the way, my netbook cannot install more than 2 GB of memory, and with a solid-state drive it became much more comfortable than with a standard 5400 rpm HDD.

Finally, don't forget that completely disabling the pagefile will prevent you from diagnosing critical errors. The paging file size can be flexibly adjusted, so you always have a choice between disk space and performance.

Tricky question: What was my page file size when I took the task manager screenshot?

Special Note

On the Internet (including in the comments to this post) you can often come across the statement: “A swap file is not needed if you have installed N GB RAM". Depending on your imagination, N takes the value 8, 16 or 32. This statement does not make sense, since it does not take into account the tasks that are solved on a PC with a given amount of memory.

If you installed 32GB for yourself, and 4-8GB are used, then yes, you don’t need FP (but then it’s not clear why you bought 32GB RAM :). If you have purchased such an amount of memory in order to use it as much as possible in your tasks, then the FP will be useful to you.

4. Disable hibernation

This advice: vague and harmful for mobile PCs, may reduce battery life and speed of your work

I would formulate the advice like this:

• stationary PCs - shutdown is normal, because you might as well use sleep
• mobile PCs - turning off is not always advisable, especially when battery consumption is high during sleep

However, people have, are, and will continue to disable system protection regardless of the type of disk, it’s already in the blood! And no, I don't want to discuss this topic in the comments for the hundredth time :)

6. Disable Windows Search and/or Disk Indexing

This tip: useless, slows down your work speed

Sometimes this is argued by the fact that SSDs are so fast that the index will not significantly speed up the search. These people simply never really used real Windows search!

I believe that it makes no sense to deprive yourself of a useful tool that speeds up everyday tasks.

If you have fallen victim to any of these myths, tell me in the comments if I managed to convince you of their uselessness or harm and in what cases. If you disagree with my assessment of "optimization", explain what the benefits of these actions are.

You can mark fragments of text that interest you, which will be available via a unique link in the address bar of your browser.

about the author

Vadim, in recent days I have bought myself 4 SSDs to install on all my computers. Let's just say... life has changed :-)

I also thought for a long time whether to buy a laptop with an SSD or a hybrid drive, the second one won, I chose 340GB + 24 SSD. What was surprising was that the standard installation of Windows 8 was on a 5400 drive, but not an SSD. After suffering for a long time, I moved Windows 8 to an SSD and was a little freaked out, because... There is about 3GB left on the SSD. Knowing that over time the W8 would swell and it would be necessary to fight for space, I returned everything back, transferred the TEMP and Page file to the SSD, plus installed frequently launched programs.

Still, you just had to buy a laptop with an SSD and not worry about it. They gave me an SSD for NG and now I’ll stuff it into an old netbook, install W8 and be happy.

Thank you for the articles about SSDs, our entire department reads them.

Alexei

You, Vadim, have done a great job of going through SSD myths; we can hope that there will be fewer fans of SSD perversions now. I have Win8 on an SSD, it works just the way I installed it, I’m happy and I don’t bother myself with all sorts of optimizations whose output is questionable.

PS: Answer to the question: 1Gb.

• Alexey, thanks for your response. You can’t put your head down on everyone, but I’m not trying to :)

  The answer to the question is incorrect. How did you come to him?

madgrok

Before buying an SSD, I read a mountain of forums, benchmarks, etc. And I came to the conclusion that all the tweaks are in the firebox.
Why do people buy SSDs for themselves? Of course it would be faster! :) And most optimization tweaks basically negate all the performance gains, which is what Vadim wrote about.
I use my Vertex 4 256 GB as a regular disk for the system. I bought it sometime in the fall. Excellent flight, 100% health
Excellent article, I will recommend it to all my acquaintances and friends to read so that they don’t suffer. :)
And in general, thanks to the author for an excellent blog. I really like the fact that he tries to “disassemble the topic to its bones.”

Andrey

Vadim, at the end of the article there is a survey about the presence of SSDs on our computers, I think that this topic is still relevant - there are those who do not intend, at least in the near future, to acquire a solid-state drive for a number of reasons - someone does not see the point of installing it on an old one computer - saving for a new one, or as in the survey point - satisfied with the HDD, or like Pavel Nagaev - he thinks for a long time which to prefer...
What would you recommend? Is it worth moving the OS to an SSD to “increase system performance,” so to speak?

Andre

Hello Vadim, I think a lot of people are now looking at buying an SSD, and it would be very cool if you wrote an article on choosing an SSD!

Alexey Matashkin

Vadim, thanks for the article.
In my practice, I have never encountered these myths, I only heard some advice separately, so I read it with pleasure.

I don’t quite fit into the survey :) The main PC is not a home PC, and it has an SSD. But at home, the usual is enough for now.

There is nothing to add regarding questions, because I don’t use tweaks, all installed SSDs work normally with the system.
Although, an important detail is updating the firmware on the disk. In my practice, there are 3 cases of serious failures that were resolved with firmware version updates.

Valentine

Pavel Nagaev,

Your 24 SSD was most likely designed for caching, which is why it is so small, maybe you needed to use it as a cache, in which case you will get the benefits of both media - capacity and speed. Vadim, do you have an article regarding hybrid hard drives or combining HDD and SSD operation? I think many readers might be interested in such an article. I think the topic about 12 myths is very useful, as I have many friends who consider themselves experts, but make such mistakes and impose these mistakes on ordinary users, thanks to a link to this article it will be possible to convince them to make such mistakes

Vadims Podāns

Good and useful article.

Sergey

Yes, it’s really surprising people who buy SSDs to speed up work, but then transfer everything and turn it off and again lose performance.

MythBusters are in action! We had a great run through all these myths.

Alexey G

At first I fell for disabling hibernation, but then I realized that it was inconvenient.
I remove the 8.3 marks. Because I use new versions of the program, and I don’t need it)

From life: when I assemble a PC with an SSD, I transfer user files to the HDD. If the PC for unknown reasons (playful hands, viruses) starts to not boot, then if I am nearby, I will restore the configured image of the installed system (thanks to the blog), but if a person called another “master”, then the first thing he will do is format the disk:(More Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a smart method in my city. So this is a necessary need to preserve the user’s files.

Answer to the question: 2834MB?

Dima

Thanks Vadim.
As always, intelligibly and with a light sense of humor.
As I promised, I part with myths easily and see you off on your last journey. I'll turn everything back on.
Best regards, Dima.

PGKrok

I agree on all points, but I myself had to transfer the index files, some programs and personal photos and videos to the HDD, because... SSD - only 60 GB (I've already mastered it :))
For comparison (to the question of “keeping a picture in mind”)
Result CrystalDiskMarc (HDD)
http://pixs.ru/showimage/HDD1301020_6347406_6812031.png
Result of CrystalDiskMarc (SSD)
http://pixs.ru/showimage/OSZ3010201_4238885_6812055.png

SATA-3 SSD controller - SATA-6

Dawn

I bought a 60gb ssd and left only Windows 8, program files, appdata, program data on it. The rest is on hdd.
Reason: the system partition is growing too quickly, and just like that, the space will go to zero.
When purchasing, there was one goal: to speed up the cold boot of the system. That's what I achieved - 8 seconds.
Vadim, the article is excellent, thank you!

Ruby

About transferring TEMP and cache - I stupidly moved them to a gigabyte ramdisk - this is a real speed increase, incomparable with an SSD.

Denis Borisych

I’ve been working in IT for a long time and I still never cease to be amazed at woe to optimizers.

I've had an ssd in my home computer for about a year now and it's still going strong. 7 starts in 10 seconds, programs load quickly and easily without any optimizations. Well, except that the folder of necessary and important documents is not on the ssd (its size is 500 GB). And in the “My Documents” folder there is usually a list of documents.

As a person very close to IT, sometimes I am not enthusiastic about MS innovations (the inability to use Explorer without a mouse alone is worth it). But I must objectively admit that in terms of optimizing the operation of the OS on an ssd and stability of operation, they are undoubtedly great.

Ruby

I would also transfer the search index, but on the Windows blog they write that it is still kept in memory, so there is no point.

SuperFetch is needed in any case; it preloads files into RAM in advance, increasing speed and reducing the number of accesses to the drive.

Valery

Vadim, I read your articles quite regularly and often put the advice from them into practice.
Having bought an SSD (Intel 520 120GB), I also first read about all sorts of optimizations and even applied some, but now I left only the indexing transferred to the HDD and Intel’s recommendations for its drives, and this is where some of your advice and Intel’s recommendations diverge:
http://123foto.ru/pics/01-2013/42746566_1358157387.jpg
Who should I listen to?))

Alexei

Vadim Sterkin,

Came at random :-)
My paging file takes up 1 Gb per 16Gb of RAM (size selected by the system). Moreover, the system monitor shows almost zero % load. I decided that 8Gb should have at least 1Gb.

Oleg

Hello Vadim. I always look forward to new articles from you, this article was VERY useful for me and for my friends. To my regret, my arguments and advice do not reach some friends, for some reason they trust more forums where they do not always write useful information.
I hope this article will convince you.

I'll be waiting for an article about choosing an SSD.
Thank you.

Georgiy

Thank you for the article.
To be honest, I didn’t quite understand about Superfetch - what is the increase in performance on an SSD?

As for the size of the paging file, the answer seems to be this: the line allocated says 10.7 GB. The amount of RAM must be subtracted from this figure.

Alexander

I recently bought a Kingston Hiper X 3K 120GB SSD. I installed Seven sp1. I did not see any increase in download speed or program performance.
Previous configuration: Asus P5Q, 2 WD 500Gb Raid 0, DDR2 2 1GB each.
My conclusion: when connecting an SSD to a “slow” Sata 3Gb/s port, the increase in system performance compared to that installed on stripping is insignificant. You will have to upgrade to a motherboard with Sata 6Gb/s and at least 8GB DDR3 memory.

GlooBus

Pavel Nagaev,

SSD drives of 16-32 GB soldered onto laptop motherboards are of no use. The best thing in this case would be to take a laptop in a simple configuration with an HDD and do the upgrade yourself. I did just that, took an ASUS X301A with 2 GB of memory, 320 GB HDD and upgraded to 8 GB of memory and 128 GB SSD. The laptop worked completely differently! Loading the computer from pressing the button until the password entry window appears 6-7 seconds. I didn’t make any tweaks, except that I turned off indexing, because... I don't use search.

Alik

The other day I installed VERTEX 4 128Gb on it with Win 8, applied optimizers and after a week I realized that it was in vain, incl. will have to reinstall. And here is also a sensible article.

Michal

Vadim Sterkin,

I think this is due to the fact that most people simply have not yet had concrete practice in using SSDs like you have.
and there really are a lot of myths.
For example, I’m from the Republic of Uzbekistan, and we’ve only just got SSDs here.
I have no experience working with them yet. and very expensive too.
I read your article and realized that I had moved the swap file in vain.
Thanks for the article, I hope it’s not the last :)