Windows 7 Tips & Tweaks

[SSDMonts]

I love the performance of my F-120 and the performance is even better with Windows search enabled.

 

So the main question for me is will this drive last at least several years without the tweaks that reduce writes or is it too difficult or early to tell?

[abidderman]

Every write takes a little bit of life. That being said, the reason you bought it was for performance. There are things you can do to make it last longer, but if you don't have a second drive, you have to decide between performance and extended life. Also, how long is your warranty? I have the option to move a lot off the SSD to the HDD. If you only have one drive, you have harder choices. But as to your question, it is conjecture, based on several factors, with a high probability that the conjecture will come to fruition. Use it as you need to, and make sure YOUR happy with how you use it. I think you will get at least the number of years it is warrantied for. And if not, as long as you have current backups, you can exchange it under warranty for a new one, and restore your data. The difference is when we tweak it, we are trying to get maybe several more years out of it. By the time yours wears out, I think the new technology will make it easier to justify a new drive anyway. I would make sure at the least you make sure trim is enabled, defrag off for the SSD, And make sure it is aligned. A lot of people say using WIN7 aligns it, but when I first installed mine, I did a fresh Win7 install, imaged my HDD, and it wasn't aligned. If it is not aligned, not only does performance suffer a bit, but you increase the number of writes. All that being said, I have found that a SSD with no tweaks is much faster than any HDD.

[SSDMonts]

abidderman:

 

Well said and pretty much follows my thoughts. (No wonder you are in SD too).

 

You mention checking alignment. A quick search on the forum did not bring up much on the subject. How does one check or fix if not aligned?

 

ATTO scores are quite good, is that a reflection of proper alignment?

[abidderman]

SSD, go to start, accessories, system tools, system info, components, storage, disks, and look for your SSD. Then look for partition starting offset. Devide that number by 4096. If it is a whole number, your alignment is fine.

[SSDMonts]

SSD, go to start, accessories, system tools, system info, components, storage, disks, and look for your SSD. Then look for partition starting offset. Devide that number by 4096. If it is a whole number, your alignment is fine.

 

Thanks. I came up with 256. I guess that's "whole" enough!

[abidderman]

Yes, your SSD is aligned. Hope your holiday was a good one.

[abidderman]

I just realized you meant SD and not SSD, lol, sure is nice to live here.

[SSDMonts]

Yes, SD and SSD , I like them both!

[Toughbook]

I think both parties are correct and incorrect in one way. That depends on HOW you want your system and drive to work and it's life span. I agree with Shaddix in that we really don't have to worry about how long our SSD will last, minus a a product failure. Second, how long will you actually use your current SSD? With how fast technology changes I know I will be getting the larger/faster, etc SSD before too long. I honestly feel that when Intel starts the Gen3 it will change the entire SSD market. From there every other manufacture will start redeveloping on how Intel does things. I firmly believe Intel knows and has the upper hand on development, technology. They are the one's that basically started the whole SSD mania to begin with.

 

What I am trying to explain is that if you like the faster searches, then keep the Windows Search on, if the slower searches don't seem to bother you then leave it off. There are consequences for every tweak you do. Just a matter of whether you like the positive or negative conseguence of your tweak.

 

Just my .02 cents!

[SSDMonts]

I think both parties are correct and incorrect in one way. That depends on HOW you want your system and drive to work and it's life span. I agree with Shaddix in that we really don't have to worry about how long our SSD will last, minus a a product failure. Second, how long will you actually use your current SSD? With how fast technology changes I know I will be getting the larger/faster, etc SSD before too long. I honestly feel that when Intel starts the Gen3 it will change the entire SSD market. From there every other manufacture will start redeveloping on how Intel does things. I firmly believe Intel knows and has the upper hand on development, technology. They are the one's that basically started the whole SSD mania to begin with.

 

What I am trying to explain is that if you like the faster searches, then keep the Windows Search on, if the slower searches don't seem to bother you then leave it off. There are consequences for every tweak you do. Just a matter of whether you like the positive or negative conseguence of your tweak.

 

Just my .02 cents!

 

Not that it matters but it would seem counterintuitive to spend significantly more money to enjoy the speed of an SSD and then turn off Windows Search.

[Toughbook]

Your statement expresses exactly what I was trying to explain. Alot of people suggest turning it off. I, for one, have tried both and do not like it being off. For others, and that is alot, they turn it off and enjoy that extra speed boost, less stress on the drive, etc. I don't really care if my SSD is going to last me 2 years or 15. I know I will be replacing it with a newer, faster, bigger drive in less that 2 years I promise!

[swalker23]

I'm trying out Google Chrome, anyone know how to change the temp internet folder?

[abidderman]

Go to control panel, system, advanced system settings, environmental settings. That will bring you to the TEMP and TMP folders.

[abidderman]

As far as the search, I turn it off for the SSD, because I store most of my stuff on my HDD. I use the SSD to run my most needed apps and programs for work, a few for play, but store my docs, pix, most stuff on my 2nd drive. I run things on my SSD because of its speed, and can still search on my hdd. By the way, I have my hdd partitioned with both 32 bit and 64 bit win 7, use 64 bit for most things, but have to have 32 bit for a proprietary program for work. So I can either boot into the version I need, or use the ssd when I don't need the work program and still access all my docs and pictures. So if I boot onto my hdd with 7 64 bit, I use search and find very quick. As for the life, I paid enough for my ssd that I really will not be buying another one in the next few years, unless the unthinkable happens. I usually get about 4-5 years out of my laptops before I need to upgrade, which if they still are alive, go to one of my kids or their friends, if they need one. ( I currently have 5 in the house). So unless you are planning to buy another ssd as soon as the next version comes out, you may want to realize that at this point, there are a finite number of writes to your ssd, as per the manufacturer, and you may want to make sure you are not writing needlessly. As per my earlier post, I also stated that having 2 drives, I can turn off search on my ssd, but If you only have one drive, the ssd, YOU have to decide what will work for you. I probably would NOT turn it off if I only had the ssd. But be aware, if you have one drive, you have to balance to your satisfaction between life and performance and day to day needs. Google your personal ssd and look up it's write cycles, then use a program (there are several) to see how many cycles you have used already. Multiply that by how long you have used it, and you can see about when you can expect it to fail, as per your manufacturers specs.

[DimSumGuy83]

I don't know if this might be relevant but I turned off page files and got that 1GB back onto my SSD and didn't notice any dramatic change in performance (as far as my system is concerned.) However, I did notice in task manager that my memory usage shot up higher than before (which is inevitable.) I tested out Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Starcraft 2 (those 2 are the games that I play the most) and they ran just as fast (if not faster) when I had page files turned on. But bear in mind that 4GB of memory is the usual sweet spot these days and that turning off the page files could lead to instability in a system with lesser memory.

[Davyc]

You're absolutely right - with large amounts of RAM available the need for page files becomes less of an issue. The only time I would advocate keeping a page file is if you are performing memory intensive tasks that may move beyond what you have available in your system. This is one of the reasons why I try to get people to move to a 64bit OS to take advantage of the extra memory you can employ.

 

If you do need to use a page file and are not too worried about overall performance you can shift it off your SSD and place it on a fast HDD.

[felipeCorsario]

Good morning everyone:

 

I've stopped and disabled Windows Search from Services at Windows 7, but I'm still able to see the search box at Windows Explorer, as you can see here:

 

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/1531/searchgo.jpg

 

As long as I've investigated, I think I should uninstalled from Programs And Feautures at Control Panel as shown here:

 

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/6916/searchfeatures.jpg

 

Could anyone confirm if this is correct?

Also, is there a way to disable Windows Search just at my SSD and still working at my HDD ????

 

Thanks for your replies and have a nice day :)

[Davyc]

If you want to restrict indexing rather than disable it completely go to your control panel and in the search box top right type "indexing" (without the quotes).

 

Click on Indexing Options

 

Click on Advanced

 

Uncheck/check the locations you want disabled/enabled for indexing

 

Keep an eye on performance and see if there are any issues - as always take a note of what you are changing just in case you want to change the options back to what they were ;-)

[Wired]

You can't stop searching for files altogether. You can stop indexing to make searches quicker though.

[Corsair2004]

can all those guys that seem to love the windows search, explain how you guys use it on a daily basis? is it to search for a file that you don't know where it is? if yes what kind of file/s? music, movies, what?

 

to me, windows search is something that non power users would use. myself, i know where every data file i have is. i never wonder where a file or files i have is/are. i use ztree for "file management" 99% of the time. now that's a power user's tool. not some "candy" gui wrapper search.

 

i'm honestly surprised how many people, here and elsewhere, seem to enjoy using the windows search, and hold it up as if it's some magic thing. what am i missing?

[Wired]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/default.mspx

 

Also searches email and is extensible.

[Corsair2004]

i know what search does, but i guarantee that i can get to any file quicker with ztree, and do file management better that a gui based shell program. i know very well that the search program itself, between previous windows, is much better and more robust/powerful. but that's if a person actually uses windows search. i basically never do. i'm kinda perplexed as to why "power users" would sing it's praises because those users should be using something else. anyway, i'll just have to accept that people like windows search, and that's that.

[Wired]

To each his own.

[SSDMonts]

can all those guys that seem to love the windows search, explain how you guys use it on a daily basis? is it to search for a file that you don't know where it is? if yes what kind of file/s? music, movies, what?

 

to me, windows search is something that non power users would use. myself, i know where every data file i have is. i never wonder where a file or files i have is/are. i use ztree for "file management" 99% of the time. now that's a power user's tool. not some "candy" gui wrapper search.

 

i'm honestly surprised how many people, here and elsewhere, seem to enjoy using the windows search, and hold it up as if it's some magic thing. what am i missing?

 

I use Windows search mostly for going through about 10 GB of the e-mail I have collected and stored over the years. For this, windows search works instantaneously. I am always open to cheaper-faster-better so I'm all ears.

[Davyc]

You can still search without Windows Search being active - it's just a bit slower, but if a few seconds is not too precious then it is best disabled. Doesn't matter on a spinner, but it can hit an SSD quite hard if there are a lot of files to be indexed.

 

I have it disabled on my machine and I too have tons of emails that I often need to refer back to, but the lag is barely noticeable.

 

As Wired said to each his own, you either love it and can't live without it, or you can turn it off and see if it makes such a huge difference to your searches; it will make a huge difference to the overall performance of your SSD ;-)