What allocation unit size to use?

Hmm, honestly I think you'd be happy with the default one of 4K as the drive will also host your OS.

There are pros and cons regarding both a small allocation size and a large one, and you might want to do a bit of research for your specific needs.

Quick question, what happens if you dnt use Secure erase on your SSD? i just formatted instead.

Depends on how you formatted the drive. If it was just quick format, you will have a clean MBR and partition table, but data will still remain in flash cells. Nothing to worry about, if you install Windows 7 on a blank (i.e. SecureErased) SSD, it will perform a quick format during installation by itself. Using full format would be no good idea, this can result in poor performance and a faulty drive. To remove all data in flash cells, set the drive to factory defaults and restore perfomance you will need to SecureErase.

Depends on how you formatted the drive. If it was just quick format, you will have a clean MBR and partition table, but data will still remain in flash cells. Nothing to worry about, if you install Windows 7 on a blank (i.e. SecureErased) SSD, it will perform a quick format during installation by itself. Using full format would be no good idea, this can result in poor performance and a faulty drive. To remove all data in flash cells, set the drive to factory defaults and restore perfomance you will need to SecureErase.

Thanks for your reply, up 2 now there no issues apart from slow read and slower write but I found out that's a marvel issue.

For those who may be visiting this thread from the future, ultimately I used 4KB ... FYI for those of you who think OS Vista/7 is prescient or something. Nope, it just happened to use the same size as default that SSDs will want. Serendipity, not genius :P

 

Thanks, and Cheers!

Thanks Sduibek. I am from the future, presently using an SSD from the past and found your message helpful.