sifu, followed your advice and ran the benchmark.. seems like it is not aligned.. how to fix it?

screenshot below:



This post has been edited by iori57: Jul 28 2013, 02:53 AM

One method would be to start over from scratch. Repartition and reformat the SSD with the Windows 7 installer, confirm that it is aligned and then reinstall everything. Windows 7 and above will always create aligned partitions if they are given the opportunity to repartition the SSD/HDD.

Only reformatting will not fix the problem, as the problem lies with the partitions itself.

An alternative would be to clone your SSD to another HDD/SSD, and then clone back to your SSD but with the partitions aligned. You'll have to find out which cloning software can do this or how to do it. It might be as simple as creating the partitions first and then cloning the contents.

I recommend reinstalling from scratch if you did not do a clean install of Windows 7, like upgraded from Windows XP.

This post has been edited by everling: Jul 28 2013, 09:38 AM

Weird, i did formatted the ssd during windows 7 installation on boot up. Didnt do any partition also it is just one big chunk.

Yesterday i googled on hoe to realign the ssd, found a guide with 3 different methods, easiest is to use mini tool partition wizard which have one button press auto align feature. After using it my windows explorer crashes on boot up and cant do anything lol. Now reformatting again... heard that every reformat damages ssd so now a bit worried.

You can use quick format if that option is available. A full format is only needed once in a very long while or when you need to confirm that there are no bad sectors.

As for the 'damage', don't worry. You can theoretically reformat once everyday and still expect the SSD to survive to its third year. If it was quick formatted, it won't even notice.

I hope that you deleted all the partitions and recreated the partitions during installation. This is done before formatting. Otherwise you might still get the same "1 K - BAD" status.

This post has been edited by everling: Jul 28 2013, 03:09 PM

After partition wizard did the magic, I reinstalled windows 7 again doing a quick format and now it is aligned

Thanks a bunch everling!!!

New benchmark results way better than before, this is great!!

Hi, I wonder if anyone has installed and successfully activate TRIM on their Lenovo G400S?
I'm going to purchase that soon (with 1TB HDD) so I'm thinking about slot another adapter to put the HDD and put the optical drive aside for external use.
Now the real question is:
1. Any settings on BIOS (UEFI?) to activate the TRIM?
2. Does fresh install Windows 8 automatically activate the TRIM? Or do I need to runs through the steps to activate it?
I want to save much trouble cause I'll be short on time and need to transfer all 200GB of data from my (this) laptop quickly to the new laptop.
All comments (and critiques?) are appreciated. Thank you all.

Note: I'm going for Plextor M5S 128GB, if info confirmed, I'll straight bank-in and have it ship right away.

This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Jul 29 2013, 09:43 AM

That does look fine, and you're welcome.

On the Windows platform, wasn't TRIM enabled if the SSD was on AHCI and you have a TRIM-supported OS?

Erm, I believe the laptop that I'm going to purchase is going to support TRIM right? (Windows 8 support TRIM??)
If it's going to be a new laptop, I assume the BIOS (UEFI?) will default AHCI on the SATA right? I just want to confirm.

And, to rephrase my question: Will fresh install Windows 8 on a new laptop (Lenovo G400S) auto enable the TRIM?

Thank you for your input.

This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Jul 29 2013, 10:50 AM

Windows 7 and above (including Windows 8) supports TRIM. Windows Vista and below doesn't support TRIM.

I can't confirm if your intended laptop would default to AHCI or not, but I would be surprised if it defaulted to IDE. And even more surprised if you can't manually change it to AHCI. I have a five year old laptop that can be manually switched to AHCI, long before SSDs came around.

It also doesn't matter if it defaults to AHCI or not, as long as you can manually switch it to AHCI.

Even with the latest laptop and manufacturer still uses IDE mode?
FYI my Dell Studio 1555 near 4 years is AHCI by default and can switch between IDE and AHCI.
Oh gosh, now I'm even more confused... need Lenovo G400S owner to clarify this:

Lenovo G400S, SATA default mode, AHCI or IDE?
And can it changed between mode?


This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Jul 29 2013, 11:25 AM

IDE mode still existed for compatibility reason, for example, Plextor SSD firmware updater will not work unless you temporary set the SATA mode to IDE mode.

My current laptop also defaults to AHCI and I certainly would expect any modern laptop to default to AHCI and fully support SSDs. So much so that the very idea hadn't crossed my mind until you brought it up; and hopefully it won't come up again thereafter. But without access to a Lenovo G400S, I can't confirm it.

My Plextor M5S 256G Slightly slower than this..

Hehe.. make sure you aligned your ssd, that will give it max performance. The numbers doesn't mean anything as long as it is running its full potential while eliminating unnecessary writes -> longer life!

Usually higher speed comes with a price (for example overclocking runs hotter) but for ssd seems like speed and reliability is in the same direction..

I think my plextor (yet not pro) can't beat samsung 840pro but very satisfied with it.. I use ramdisk to avoid unnecessary read and write on ssd..

This post has been edited by nuekkacak: Jul 31 2013, 09:42 PM

is ssd price increasing or decrease ?

what is ramdisk?

it will like ram, over time the same price will get you bigger and bigger ssd.. if you mean price to size ratio of course decreasing

Align SSD? What's that?

Btw, I did do some SSD optimization steps from theSSDreview.com

ok ty very much now i am just playing a waiting game XD

Check out these:
http://lifehacker.com/5837769/make-sure-yo...ive-performance
http://www.overclock.net/t/1226963/how-to-...-hdd-partitions


Summary below:

The traditional rotating disks are divided into physical sectors. The Windows operating systems and their components operate according to this sector logic. Despite the fact that SSDs store the data in a completely different way, they are still being treated with this sector logic.

The alignment of the SSD is required to assure that a logical sector starts exactly at the beginning of a physical page of the SSD. Without the alignment, the sector boundaries and the page boundaries will not match and sectors will span pages. That would require for a Windows write operation to clear two blocks in lieu of only one thus reducing the write speed by 50%.

Situation

If you install Windows7 on a brand new SSD, you need not make any special arrangements because the Windows7 installer will do the alignment for you. For Vista you are lucky because the start sector happens to match a SSD page. For XP the start sector is 126 which would be in the middle of a SSD page, thus a prior alignment is required.
A similar situation is present when you clone an existing OS (including Windows7) on a new SSD.



no prob