If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Question about SSDs
I have a SSD (Samsung 840 series 250 GB) and I decided to shrink the
partition containing my C drive (with Win 7 and installed programs) to make a bit more room in the second partition for data. It seems to "work" using Win 7 Computer Management, but it takes a long time, much longer than it does to shrink a partition on a rotating drive. I'm just curious as to why this is the case? |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Question about SSDs
Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
I have a SSD (Samsung 840 series 250 GB) and I decided to shrink the partition containing my C drive (with Win 7 and installed programs) to make a bit more room in the second partition for data. It seems to "work" using Win 7 Computer Management, but it takes a long time, much longer than it does to shrink a partition on a rotating drive. I'm just curious as to why this is the case? To shrink a partition, all the filled clusters have to be below the end of the new partition mark. And to move the clusters, the OS has that API it uses for defragmentation. ******* Is this, by any chance, a drive based on TLC flash ? Maybe the drive was having problems reading some of the data. And the error correction took extra time. Other than that, there isn't a good excuse for it to be a slow process. A modern SSD should beat a regular hard drive, at just about any operation, due to the close-to-zero seek time. Paul |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Question about SSDs
On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:59:17 -0500, Paul wrote:
Charlie Hoffpauir wrote: I have a SSD (Samsung 840 series 250 GB) and I decided to shrink the partition containing my C drive (with Win 7 and installed programs) to make a bit more room in the second partition for data. It seems to "work" using Win 7 Computer Management, but it takes a long time, much longer than it does to shrink a partition on a rotating drive. I'm just curious as to why this is the case? To shrink a partition, all the filled clusters have to be below the end of the new partition mark. And to move the clusters, the OS has that API it uses for defragmentation. ******* Is this, by any chance, a drive based on TLC flash ? Maybe the drive was having problems reading some of the data. And the error correction took extra time. Other than that, there isn't a good excuse for it to be a slow process. A modern SSD should beat a regular hard drive, at just about any operation, due to the close-to-zero seek time. Paul Well, when I opened up the box, I found it wasn't the Samsung after all, it's an Intel, 730 series. I have no idea if it's TLC flash or not. Anyway, the deeds finally completed, and all seems OK. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Question about SSDs
On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 14:49:35 -0600, Charlie Hoffpauir
wrote: Well, when I opened up the box, I found it wasn't the Samsung after all, it's an Intel, 730 series. I have no idea if it's TLC flash or not. Anyway, the deeds finally completed, and all seems OK. Used this info/tool to "try" and align up the SSD partitions correctly. More, actually, an attempt at W7's persistent habit for shutting down while flagging all my drives with a "dirty-bit," XP subsequently would pickup and churn over with its scandisk routine;- Microsoft's attempt at screwing in a lightbulb with five Poles, I guess, so I gave up on W7's mannerism and had to hide any drives it didn't need. The MT PW software does do its thing (alignment), although (something I remember) didn't convince me of any lasting or contradictory effects I may have run into (hmm...possibly w/ another partitioner, maybe even W7's disk management). I left them (the partitions) largely for a result MiniTool derived, anyway, as well checked the math for establishing they were correctly aligned. No problems other than a little getting used to a Samsung, unlike the Crucial I later bought, which was a bear to first get an active/primary assignment bootable. Ran thru a ton of bull**** with a lot of different partitioning tools, before an old Partition Magic 8 fixed it. Old enough to be remainder not readily to throw away any working program because of its age;- alternatives being, having to jump through the "corporate hoops," such as Crucial has affiliated itself with, for outsourcing responsibility of the enduser setting up a drive with a commercial partitioning product (they give a serial key and such - except I'm just not really interested in that sort of dependency crap). -- freeware MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition is a free partition manager software designed by MiniTool Solution Ltd. Our partition manager supports 32/64 bit Windows Operating System including Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Home users can perform complicated partition operations by using this powerful yet free partition manager to manage their hard disk. Functions include: Resizing partitions, Copying partitions, Create partition, Extend Partition, Split Partition, Delete partition, Format partition, Convert partition, Explore partition, Hide partition, Change drive letter, Set active partition, Partition Recovery. MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition is designated for home user only, to use MiniTool Partition Wizard in a business environment, MiniTool Partition Wizard Professional Edition is required. -- Speed Up Your SSD By Correctly Aligning Your Partitions We've covered proper solid state drive maintenance before, but one of the most overlooked factors in proper SSD care is partition alignment. Here's how to make sure your partitions are aligned correctly and that you're getting the most out of your SSD. How to Maximize the Life of Your SSDHow to Maximize the Life of Your SSDHow to Maximize the Life of Your SSD An SSD drive is a worthwhile investment, but like any storage device, it can fail. In fact, failing …Read moreRead on We talked about partition alignment in our SSD migrating tutorial, but if you've already migrated to an SSD, you might not have realized that you're sacrificing performance with misaligned partitions. A regular hard drive usually starts its first partition after 63 empty blocks, while SSDs require 64 blocks of data for optimal performance. This means that sometimes, if your SSD was formatted by something other than Windows' installer, it can be aligned incorrectly and will transfer data much slower than intended. How to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Reinstalling WindowsHow to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Reinstalling WindowsHow to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Rein Installing a solid-state drive is one of the best upgrades you can make to your computer, but…Read moreRead on To see if your partitions are aligned correctly, hit the Start menu and type in msinfo32. Enter Msinfo32 and go to Components Storage Disks. Look for your SSD on the list and find the "Partition Starting Offset" item. If this number is divisible by 4096 (that is, if dividing it by 4096 equals a whole number and not a decimal), your partition is correctly aligned. If not, you need to realign it. Luckily, this is pretty easy to do with the Gparted live CD. If you have an Ubuntu live CD lying around, that will work too, since it has Gparted available under System Administration. Start up Gparted and find your SSD in the upper-right dropdown menu. Select it, and click on your first partition in the menu. Hit the Resize/Move button in the toolbar. Change the "Free Space Preceding" box to 2MB, uncheck "Round to Cylinders", and hit "Resize/Move". (If you're using a newer live CD, check the "MiB" box). Hit Apply once and let it do its thing. Now hit Resize/Move again, and change the "Free Space Preceding" box to 1MB. Uncheck "Round to Cylinders" again, hit Resize/Move, then click Apply. Now your drive will be aligned to exactly 2048 blocks after the beginning of the disk, which allows for optimal SSD performance. Note that if you have multiple partitions on your SSD, you'll need to repeat this process for each partition, not just the first one on the disk. Yes, moving it 2MB away then moving it back 1MB seems like a long, roundabout method, but Gparted measures space in a weird way. When you first start up Gparted, your partition will have less than 1MB of space preceding it, but Gparted will only measure it as 0-meaning if you align it to 1MB right off the bat, it'll keep the drive annoyingly misaligned at 1.03MB. If you set it to 2MB, hit Apply, and then move it back to 1MB, it works fine. Boot back into Windows, open Msinfo32 back up, and run the above check again. If you get a whole number this time, your partition is correctly aligned. If you get an error when you try to boot back into Windows, that doesn't mean you did anything wrong—sometimes Windows gets a little confused and can't find a partition if you move it (even if you only move it 0.7MB away). Grab your Windows installation disc, boot into it, and hit Repair Your Computer on the main menu. It should automatically detect the issue and fix your boot menu for you. That's it. It seems a little complicated and roundabout, but it's something not a lot of people know to do, so you may have been sitting with a non-optimized SSD for all this time (I know I have been for a few months). This should fix the problem, and if you've had your SSD for awhile, you might even notice a speed boost. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
SSDs? | Ron Hardin | Dell Computers | 1 | September 10th 14 05:37 AM |
SSDs & THIN | Robin Bignall | Homebuilt PC's | 2 | July 10th 12 04:39 PM |
SandForce-based SSDs | Man-wai Chang | Storage (alternative) | 28 | April 12th 12 10:05 AM |
PATA/EIDE SSDs? | Ant[_3_] | Storage (alternative) | 8 | November 19th 11 07:43 PM |
Do EP45-UD3 MBs support SSDs? | Gorby[_2_] | Gigabyte Motherboards | 5 | October 27th 10 11:09 PM |