Force SSD's Have Brackets As Standard? Plus Do You Format SSD's or What? SSD Noob!

[UseItNow]

Hi!

I purchased a Force F80 or F120 a while back and was going through an upgrade process but with diffculties in getting hold of my case the build was delayed!

Now I took everything out of its boxes and as such arent sure if the Force SSD drive came with a fitting bracket or not as I don't see one, if not I'll have to order one so I can fit the drive in one of the 3.5" bays!

Now, my final Q is what do we do in ters of formattng the SSD as in your standard HDD format/partitioning, how does this work on SSD's, I've also been told don't defragment or erase files, may I ask why?

Sorry for the ignorance!

Many thanks for your help!

[Caesium]

Partitioning/formatting an SSD works exactly the same way as a traditional HD.

You don't defragment an SSD as the concept of defrag basically doesn't apply to SSDs. With rotational HDs you used to defrag so that files could be accessed sequentially in one long block, since it took a relatively long amount of time for the drive to spin it's platters around to get to the next block, the fastest way to read a big file was if the next block to be read was in the right place physically for the heads to read without having to move.

With an SSD, every block on the drive can be read in the same amount of time, it's constant-time access - ie, if you've just read block 3000, it takes exactly the same amount of time to read block 3001 next, or block 2. There are no moving parts so physical location of data on the chips does not matter.

In addition, SSDs have a limited number of writes to each block location (though it's very high and I haven't worn out any SSDs yet and I've been using them pretty hard since the Intel X25-M G1 had to be imported from the USA to get one!) so defragging will actually shorten the life of the drive by some amount since it uses up those cycles.

Sorry, it got a bit wordy, didn't know how techie to be

[Phage]

No need to format. W7 will sort all that out for you on a clean install.
You can use a mounting bracket, or just use sticky tape. With no moving parts it's not a big deal.

[nibbler]

I'm using only tape on my ssd

[Yellowbeard]

Thank you for the help and for 3 great replies to the OP.

[UseItNow]

LOL folks, thanks.

[MSIC]

I'd also recommend have a read of this article regarding optimising Windows for SSD use:
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1661
I think that it's shocking really that Windows 7 doesnt detect an SSD and automatically do most of those things...

[UseItNow]

I'd also recommend have a read of this article regarding optimising Windows for SSD use:
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1661
I think that it's shocking really that Windows 7 doesnt detect an SSD and automatically do most of those things...

Thanks mate, will have a read over the next couple of days.

[MSIC]

Actually, whilst we are in this forum, i'd be curious to know if Corsair has a position on optimising Windows for it's SSDs?

[Yellowbeard]

I'd also recommend have a read of this article regarding optimising Windows for SSD use:
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1661
I think that it's shocking really that Windows 7 doesnt detect an SSD and automatically do most of those things...

The article is about Vista and XP, not WIN7. I have yet to see an issue with WIN7 having issues with SSDs relating to anything the OP posted.

[MSIC]

From my own experience alone (so am willing to be corrected & learn) almost all of the settings as described in Vista remained active following my installation of Win7 onto my own SSD, and so I disabled them manually. From that perspective, the article appeared relevant.

Irrespective of this however, and i'm not trying to be pushy, but i'm just curious if Corsair has a view about a 'correct' or 'best settings' way of preparing an OS for use with your SSDs. If not, that's fine

[Yellowbeard]

From my own experience alone (so am willing to be corrected & learn) almost all of the settings as described in Vista remained active following my installation of Win7 onto my own SSD, and so I disabled them manually. From that perspective, the article appeared relevant.

Did you do any before and after performance testing to see if your tweaks accomplished anything? Don't assume that WIN7 and VISTA perform the same or that changing the settings in WIN7 will accomplish the same things in VISTA.

Irrespective of this however, and i'm not trying to be pushy, but i'm just curious if Corsair has a view about a 'correct' or 'best settings' way of preparing an OS for use with your SSDs. If not, that's fine

THIS ARTICLE may be of interest to you with respect to space saving. As far as OS installation and performance, I have yet to see any tweaking needed with WIN7 with the possible exception of moving the page file off the SSD to a secondary drive. However, this is for longevity and performance over time as opposed to head to head speed.

[ratbasket]

I'm looking to get a ssd soon this threads been great help. Thanks!

[ultrafez]

@Yellowbeard,

Thanks for posting the article relating to Windows 7 optimisation on an SSD - seems a lot more comprehensive than any guides I'd found online elsewhere!

[Bill@W]

All the SSDs I've seen pictured, appear to have 2 threaded holes on each side, as if the default mounting is for fitting in a 3.5 inch bracket. The case I've bought has 4 mounting holes flat on its floor (the PSU is fitted ahead, in the front of the case), for 2.5 inch drives. Can anyone tell me if their SSD has mounting screws on the flat underside of the drive? The Samsung Pro looks like it might have a convertible system, attached to the case either from the side or the base.

[bytejunkie]

Did you do any before and after performance testing to see if your tweaks accomplished anything?

does that article state that performance will be gained? it looked to me like a bunch of things that windows no longer needs to do since disk access is now a lot quicker.