Can't keep SSD as boot drive

[colosssus]

Our poor SSD is not doing too well... all Applications that could be loaded onto our secondary drive has been. Yet we're apparently using 26/29 GB (Got me on why so much. When I show hidden files, and calculate the total of the root of C:/ it's showing only 17-18 gigs used.)

 

If we replace it we were looking into possibly doing Raid 1 with 2 WD Black Sata 3 Drives when we reinstall the OS.

 

Couple of questions ( and maybe advice for above):

 

Our motherboard is the EVGA FTW3, if we choose to do a hardware raid, is it possible to do it using the SATA III (6GB/s) ports?

 

As this would also be our first time doing any raid at all... is it possible for someone to describe (or link) to some handy instructions?

 

Thanks!

[jdm_freek]

Our poor SSD is not doing too well... all Applications that could be loaded onto our secondary drive has been. Yet we're apparently using 26/29 GB (Got me on why so much. When I show hidden files, and calculate the total of the root of C:/ it's showing only 17-18 gigs used.)

 

If we replace it we were looking into possibly doing Raid 1 with 2 WD Black Sata 3 Drives when we reinstall the OS.

 

Couple of questions ( and maybe advice for above):

 

Our motherboard is the EVGA FTW3, if we choose to do a hardware raid, is it possible to do it using the SATA III (6GB/s) ports?

 

As this would also be our first time doing any raid at all... is it possible for someone to describe (or link) to some handy instructions?

 

Thanks!

have u tried deleting shadow copys of backups

[ebarone]

Yes but theres no reason to, and it will complicate things because you'll have to load special drivers before loading Windows, as well as deal with a different RAID controller than the Intel one. Mechanical hard drives will NEVER be able to use SATA 3 speeds... only a select few even need SATA 2, but the vast majority of them could go into SATA 1 ports and you'd never know. I think WD Blacks would need at least SATA 2, but lucky for you SATA 1 isnt even made anymore. When you get the drives, K.I.S.S. and put them in the SATA 2 ports to use the very easy Intel RAID controller.

[jdm_freek]

i have a 64gig ssd with win 7 64bit after all updates it shows 28gigs used and 24 after i deleted shadow copys

[IVIYTH0S]

Yes but theres no reason to, and it will complicate things because you'll have to load special drivers before loading Windows, as well as deal with a different RAID controller than the Intel one. Mechanical hard drives will NEVER be able to use SATA 3 speeds... only a select few even need SATA 2, but the vast majority of them could go into SATA 1 ports and you'd never know. I think WD Blacks would need at least SATA 2, but lucky for you SATA 1 isnt even made anymore. When you get the drives, K.I.S.S. and put them in the SATA 2 ports to use the very easy Intel RAID controller.

:withstupid:

Sata 3 mechanical drives is a gimmick!!

[Speedway]

Yes but theres no reason to, and it will complicate things because you'll have to load special drivers before loading Windows, as well as deal with a different RAID controller than the Intel one. Mechanical hard drives will NEVER be able to use SATA 3 speeds... only a select few even need SATA 2, but the vast majority of them could go into SATA 1 ports and you'd never know. I think WD Blacks would need at least SATA 2, but lucky for you SATA 1 isnt even made anymore. When you get the drives, K.I.S.S. and put them in the SATA 2 ports to use the very easy Intel RAID controller.

 

+1 - Even if you did jump through the hoops and used the SATA 3 ports, you are not going to see any difference in performance, as well as the fact, you would have to find out if your SATA 3 ports supported RAID, and what controller they use! I have a ASUS Rampage III mobo that has 2 slots for SATA 3 and I use 2 Intel 80GB SSD drives in RAID 0 as my boot drive, but they are not plugged into my SATA 3 ports!

 

Also, have you thought about possible solutions for you SSD drive? Does it have TRIM support? I have money to bet if you do a full Windows reinstall on the SSD, you will solve your space issue! Many of the SSD's, especially the 1st gen drives, but even still some new drives do not have TRIM support, and that can lead to space and speed issues if you have been using it for awhile. I would personally try wiping the drive and reinstalling Windows, see if that corrects the problem. Becaause even 2 WD Black drives in RAID 0 are not going to give you the same performance as an SSD!

[ebarone]

You can expect Windows 7 to consume about 16GB of disk space after a fresh install, a couple gigs more than that after all the updates. After that, I'm guessing you have 6GB of memory given that you have a 1366 board, and Windows often sets the page file size to the same size as your memory capacity, aka 6GB. If thats the case, then just lower the page file size to just a couple gigs, or just put it on a different drive and sacrifice the speed of having it there for the added space. If thats not the case though, I'm not quite sure what to tell you.