SSD Setup

[szln6z]

Folks:

I now have an SSD drive; hoping it helps with stutters.

Is there an easy way to get DCS A10C onto the SSD, or do I just have to perform a fresh install??

Thanks,

James

[cichlidfan]

What part of the install is not easy?

[Nate--IRL--]

Copy and paste will do the trick - DCS doesn't care where it is run from - make sure the Shortcuts are updated properly though.

 

Nate

[ALDEGA]

DCS doesn't care where it is run from

It doesn't, but the uninstaller and patch installer may care ... ;)

[Nate--IRL--]

It doesn't, but the uninstaller and patch installer may care ... ;)

 

Good point.

 

Nate

[Hamblue]

It's simply a hard drive so you should do a fresh install.

Another thing you should do is google SSD tweak or optimization.

There are several things that you should do that will result in a much longer life for the SSD. Things like putting the swap drive on a mechanical drive (I personally dont use a swap drive since I run 16 gig ram). Also turning indexing off, turning off defrag, moving internet cache to another drive and several others.

[AtaliaA1]

None of the recogmendations are needed in a Win7 PC. with an SSD. They were needed in the earlier SSD iterations. Win7 Sees and optimizes the drive for you. And as far as the longevity ideology goes it too is now not needed. You will update your Pc long before you utilize 10zillion kabilion Read Write phases on an SSD.

 

Take a look for yourself http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=83195&highlight=SSD And http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=83195&page=6 of course there is more info. on this online.

 

Never remove your Swap File iether, Windows was built with an instructionset that requires a SwapFile, eventualy you will cause hickups in your apps. when Windows tells it to, or it looks for the swap file. no matter how much ram is on your PC. Gamers thought this was aplicable until they realized the PC is built around much more than gaming.

Edited April 28, 2012 by AtaliaA1

[ilikepie]

the PC is built around much more than gaming.

 

go wash your mouth out........:P

[cichlidfan]

If it's the only SSD in the system, I would have put the OS on it in the first place in which case a reinstall would be the logical option.;)

[hitman]

Ok, Im gonna hijack the thread for a second. Im getting a second SSD and I want to run it in RAID0 with the other SSD I have. BUT. My o/s is installed on that drive. What should I do there?

[sammaz]

good idea on the RAID0...You will get 2x the data rate! You will have to follow my steps to re-install windows.

 

1. You will have to put both drives together in RAID0 using your bios. (this erases evreything so be ready)

 

2. Load your windows install disk...

 

3. When you get the option to choose "Custom install", choose that

 

4. Select "Load Drivers".

 

5. Insert your Motherboard RAID Windows drivers (put them on USB stick prior to booting your windows install disc)

 

6. When drivers are loaded you will see your RAID 0 Array.

 

7. Select the RAID0 array

 

8. Format, partition ect and install

[hitman]

Well I already know how to do that, but I want to save my windows installation and not have to reinstall and reactivate EVERYTHING.

[cichlidfan]

Depending on your maintenance style you could use an image backup of your existing system to build the new disk. I prefer to use any system disk replacement as an opportunity to do a clean rebuild of the system. I find that system rebuilds go quickly enough that the side benefit of 'house-cleaning' makes it worth the extra effort.

 

Please note that I still make a full backup, and a selected file backup, of the system disk, whenever possible, just in case I forget something.

[sammaz]

Well I already know how to do that, but I want to save my windows installation and not have to reinstall and reactivate EVERYTHING.

I use Acronis TrueImage home. You just boot from their disk and you can backup your current drive to a single file (put it on usb drive). Then after your setup your RAID0 in Bios, boot the Trueimage disk again and restore to your RAID0.

 

It's near imposible to get your windows to boot without the RAID drivers present though...thats the point of doing a fresh install. After that first RAID0 windows install you can backup regularly and know that all RAID windows drivers are in place.

 

Acronis is nice because it always sees your RAID's...some older image software did not see them.

Edited April 29, 2012 by sammaz

[airdog]

Ok, Im gonna hijack the thread for a second. Im getting a second SSD and I want to run it in RAID0 with the other SSD I have. BUT. My o/s is installed on that drive. What should I do there?

Gonna have to do a complete Windows installation after you setup your raid array

[hitman]

Screw it. Ill just port all my other games to my storage disk and create new shortcuts when I relocate them to the new array. Ill just reinstall windows.

 

 

Did I ever mention I hate Windows 7?

[cichlidfan]

Oops. Wasn't even thinking about the RAID drivers but, yeah, you have no choice.

 

Acronis is a great product though.

[Hamblue]

Someone noted earlier that windows 7 sets sets up the SSD. Actually it doesn't. All it does is activates TRIM and sometimes it doesn't do that.

Here's a link to one of many tweak guides.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/70822-ssd-tweaks-optimizations-windows-7-a.html

[AtaliaA1]

Someone noted earlier that windows 7 sets sets up the SSD. Actually it doesn't. All it does is activates TRIM and sometimes it doesn't do that.

Here's a link to one of many tweak guides.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/70822-ssd-tweaks-optimizations-windows-7-a.html

 

 

This Article was written in 2010. That is light yrs. in the IT industry. Let's take a look at a more modern aproach to this theory. Based on the meriad of improvements sense the initial iteration of SSDs, Longevity has been researched and the findings, albeit academic as testing a drive in real world perspectives would take yrs. to confirm. 5.12yrs on a poorly Maintained drive vs. 75.37 yrs. on a well maintained SSD.................Can you say Obsesive Culmpulsive..........Now go tell anyone willing to debate the "Longevity" ideology.

 

 

Now, we're able to look at the following data without freaking out about SSD longevity. This is really about SandForce's technology and its effect on write amplification, and, in turn, endurance.

 

Workload Ratio: 35% 128 KB Sequential, 65% 4 KB Random

128 KB Sequential: 66% Reads, 34% Writes

4 KB Random: 66% Reads, 34% Writes

Full Span, QD=1, ~3 Hours

Intel SSD 520

60 GB

Incompressible

Intel SSD 520

60 GB

Compressible

Total Host Writes

211 GB

583 GB

NAND Writes

616 GB

100 GB

Write Amplification

2.9x

0.17x

Percent MWI used (E2)0.078%

0.037%

Endurance Rating For Workload

0.170 Years

0.905 Years

Real-World Endurance Rating Estimate

(7 GB Written Per Day)

5.12 Years

75.37 Years

 

Presented with completely compressible data, Intel's 60 GB SSD 520 is told to write 583 GB of data, and actually writes 100 GB to flash. This translates into a write amplification of 0.17x. That's downright incredible considering non-SandForce will generally end up with write amplification that looks more like our incompressible workload, where 211 GB of data is written as 616 GB of to the NAND (yielding amplification of 2.9x).

 

In reality, you'll probably never see either of the extremes presented here. We're taxing the heck out of these SSDs, allowing no idle time for background garbage collection to affect the drive. That's an important process, responsible for further minimizing write amplification. As a result, in normal use, endurance really isn't your indicator of reliability. Again, we're really just trying to illustrate how SandForce's compression technology, which is sometimes maligned for its variable impact on performance, might also help extend endurance for SSD vendors who use lower-binned NAND.

Edited May 1, 2012 by AtaliaA1

[ALDEGA]

Did I ever mention I hate Windows 7?

Please elaborate.