Tech Tip: Obtaining hassle-free SSD Performance

If you were toying around with SSD drives when they first appeared on the market, there were a lot of details you needed to worry about. Remember having to make sure the operating system started on the correct block?

Then there was the problem of too many gigs of OS, apps, games, and media. You had to decide in advance which were the critical applications that got space on the coveted SSD and which were sent off to the "old mechanical".

There have been hybrid drives over the years (a combination of rotating HDD and SSD) but with those you're at the mercy of the manufacturer's idea of the right size and mix.

Well it's about time for SSD Performance that's hassle free.

If you're building your PC using Intel's Z68 or Z77 chipset you're in luck. Combining hardware on those mother boards with Intel's Smart Response SSD Caching technology you can load everything onto the rotating mechanical HDD and Intel will automatically use your SSD drive to cache the most often used applications, data, drivers, operating system components --- all without any work on your part.


The SanDisk ReadyCache SSD is designed for use with ExpressCache software by Condusiv Technologies, an innovative data-caching program that helps your PC store and access data faster than with an HDD alone. This downloadable software uses advanced caching algorithms that allow your computer to learn user storage behavior and automatically caches your most frequently accessed applications and data on the SSD, retrieving it at extraordinary speeds. Your PC will experience a performance boost from bootup to shut down.

AMD builder or one of Intel's other chipsets? No problem. Take a look at SanDisk's SSD Cache --- an SSD drive with software that works on any platform, not just the Z68 or Z77.

Here's why you want to do this: let the PC decide what needs to be on the high speed cache drive, even changing what's "cached" on it based on how your use changes over time.

What do you get for making these choices?
SSD Performance - Hassel Free!!!

For more assistance contact Technical Support here.

Tech Tip of the Day: How to save space on Solid State Drives (SSDs) - Part Five: User Directories

Description: This is a technical article on the topic of saving space on Solid State Drives. Part five covers moving the user directories.

The purpose of this article series is to show how to save space on Solid State drives, which are typically smaller than standard hard drives. In this article we will use a secondary hard drive, presumed to be larger than the solid state drive, as sort of repository, so we may move files from the faster SSD drive to the bigger standard hard drive.

Backup
Although we haven't had issues in our testing, we do recommend you do a backup of your important files before proceeding.

User Directories
The User Directories are the folders such as Documents, Pictures, Videos, et cetera, which are stored in your user directory. In this document we will move these to save space. We will be moving these directories from the C:\ drive (SSD) to the E:\ drive (HDD). This configuration may differ per system, so make sure the drive letters are right with your system.

1. Go to Start, then click on your Username in the top right.
   
   


2. Right-Click on a folder - we will use My Pictures and choose Properties.
   
   


3. Choose the Location tab, then click Move.
   
   


4. On the left in the new window, select the E:\ drive from the list, under the Computer section.
   
   


5. Once that is selected, select New Folder at the top.
   
   


6. Name the new folder appropriately - typically it would be the same as the username we clicked on earlier. In this case, it is Example.
   
   


7. Open the new folder by double-clicking on it.
8. Create another new folder using the same method, this time naming it My Pictures, or the name of the folder we are moving over.
   • Both of these names can be whatever you like, but this is the best method for keeping things organized.
   
   


9. Highlight the new folder, and then choose Select Folder at the bottom to complete the selection process.
   
   


10. Click on Apply to complete the move process.
11. Repeat this process for any folders in the user directory that need to be moved - anything that takes up substantial amounts of space would be recommended.
12. Once all the selected folders have been moved, restart the computer to complete the process.

For more assistance contact Technical Support here.

Tech Tip of the Day: How to save space on Solid State Drives (SSDs) - Part Four: Index

Description: This is a technical article on the topic of saving space on Solid State Drives. Part four covers moving the search index from the C:\ drive to the E:\ drive.

The purpose of this article series is to show how to save space on Solid State drives, which are typically smaller than standard hard drives. In this article we will use a secondary hard drive which is presumed to be larger than the solid state drive as sort of repository for the Windows search index files.

Index
The Search Index is one of the best features of Windows 7 - when you search for anything on your computer, it pops up almost instantly. We certainly don't want to disable this feature, so what we will do is move the index to save space. We will be moving this from the C:\ drive (SSD) to the E:\ drive (HDD). This configuration may differ per system, so make sure the drive letters are right with your system.

Note:
Moving the index from your SSD to your standard hard drive may slow down search results marginally. At worst, the search results would return at the speed of a computer without an SSD.

1. Click on Start, enter Index and select Indexing Options
   
   


2. On this new window, select Advanced towards the bottom.
   • Note: Approve or allow any permission prompts.
   
   


3. Under Index Location, select the Select New option.
   
   


4. Select the E:\ drive, then choose Make New Folder.
   
   


5. Enter Index as the name of the folder, select that folder and then click OK to complete.
   • Note: You can put the Index wherever you like, the above is just an example.
6. Click OK on the Advanced Options window.
7. Restart your computer to complete the process. Once complete, the Index will have been moved from the C:\ to the E:\ drive.

For more assistance contact Technical Support here.

Tech Tip of the Day: How to save space on Solid State Drives (SSDs) - Part Three: System Restore

Description: This is a technical article on to the topic of saving space on Solid State Drives. Part three covers limiting the amount of space available for System Restore.

The purpose of this article series is to show how to save space on Solid State Drives, which are typically smaller than standard hard drives. In this article we will limit the amount of space used by System Restore to free up (and prevent further use by System Restore) space on your solid state drive.

System Restore
System Restore is a troubleshooting feature, designed to roll your computer's configuration back to a previous date while not affecting your files. What we will do is limit the ability of System Restore to save restore points, so the end result is instead of being able to restore the computer by a month or more, you will only be able to restore it by a week or so.

1. Go to Start, right-click on Computer and choose Properties.
   
   


2. On the left in this new window, choose System Protection.
   • Note: Approve or allow any permission dialogues.
   
   


3. On this new window, select the Local Disk (C:) and choose Configure.
   
   


4. On this page, you can change the system restore settings or even turn off the feature completely to save the maximum amount of space. We do not recommend turning it off completely unless you are an advanced user who runs regular system image backups.
   
   


5. You can see the current usage, and select the Max Usage option here, as well as delete previous restore points. It is recommended to leave at least 1.5GB to 2GB of space. Once finished, choose Apply to make the changes.
   
   


6. Restart the computer to complete the process.

For more assistance contact Technical Support here.

Tech Tip of the Day: How to save space on Solid State Drives (SSDs) - Part Two: Disable Hibernation

**EDITED**


Description: This is a technical article on to the topic of saving space on Solid State Drives. Part Two covers disabling Hibernation mode, which will free up several gigabytes of space on most systems.

The purpose of this article series is to show how to save space on Solid State drives, which are typically smaller than standard hard drives. In this second article we will be disabling Hibernation Mode, which saves several gigabytes of space by removing the hibernation file, which is typically 75% as big as your total system RAM. In other words, if you have 4GB of ram, the hibernation file will be about 3GB in size.

Netbook and Notebook Users
Hibernation is a commonly used feature for notebooks to save battery, and typically is the "go-to" mode for laptops when the battery is running low. If you are using a notebook or netbook, we do not recommend disabling hibernation.

Hibernation File
Let's start by seeing how much space the hibernation file takes up on the system, and then remove it. Note that this document uses the command line. Be sure to enter only and precisely the commands as they are displayed in this document. Failure to do so could result in damage to your system.

Hibernation is a feature that isn't often used - its purpose is to save energy by putting the machine in to a low-power state, but it sometimes takes several minutes to go in to and resume from hibernation and only saves marginally more power than Sleep Mode, which is nearly instant to enter and resume from. For most people, sleep mode is more than sufficient and doesn't take up any of your hard drive space. If you are unsure about whether or not you need the hibernation feature, consult a technician or just skip to the next document.

1. Go to Start, enter CMD, then right-click on it and choose Run As Administrator.
   
   


2. On the new window, enter "CD C:\" (without the quotes) in to the box and press enter. The Command Prompt will return a C:\> prompt.
   
   


3. Enter "dir /as" (without  the quotes) and press enter to see the size of the hibernation file.
   • Note: It displays the size of the file in bytes, so just think of the left-most number (in this case ‘3’) to be roughly the number of gigabytes it is using on your hard drive.
   
   


4. To turn off the hibernation file, enter "powercfg -h off" (without  the quotes) and press enter. It will return a C:\> prompt.
   
   


5. Now enter "dir /as" (without  the quotes) in to the box and press enter. The hiberfil.sys file should now be gone, and the space is freed up on your SSD. If not, then it should disappear after a reboot.
   
   


6. Once this is completed, restart your computer to complete the process. Hibernation is now disabled on the system, and the space is saved on the SSD.

For more assistance contact Technical Support here.

Tech Tip of the Day: How to save space on Solid State Drives (SSDs) - Part One: Paging File

Description: This is a technical article on the topic of saving space on Solid State Drives. Part One covers moving the Paging File.

The purpose of this article series is to show how to save space on Solid State drives, which are typically smaller than standard hard drives. In this article we will use a secondary hard drive, presumed to be larger than the solid state drive, as sort of a repository, so we may move files from the faster SSD drive to the bigger standard hard drive.

Paging File
The first, easiest and biggest file to be moved is the paging file. The paging file is a "backup" for the RAM in your computer, so it is a large, mostly empty file that simply waits for Windows to input information to it. We will be moving this from the C:\ drive (SSD) to the E:\ drive (HDD). This configuration may differ per system, so make sure the drive letters are right with your system.

1. Go to Start, right-click Computer and choose
   Properties.
   
   



2. On the new window, choose Advanced System Settings on the left.
   
   
   • Note: Approve or allow any permissions dialogues.
   
   



3. On the new window, choose the Advanced tab, then in the Performance section click on
   Settings.
   
   



4. On the newest window, choose the Advanced tab again, then choose
   Change.
   
   



5. Uncheck the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives box at the top.
   
   



6. Select the secondary drive (E:\ in this case,) choose
   System managed size, then click Set.
   
   



7. Select the C:\ drive, choose No Paging File, then click
   Set.
   
   



8. When prompted, choose Yes to allow the change to go through.
   
   • Don't worry, although Windows doesn't recognize it yet, the new paging file will take all the information Windows needs.
   
   



9. Click OK to proceed through the windows. If prompted to restart, choose the option to
   Restart Now. If not, go ahead and restart your computer to complete the process.
   

For more assistance contact Technical Support, click here.

5 ways to save space on your Solid State Drive

1. Run Disk Cleanup: Disk Cleanup can be found in your program list or by right clicking on the drive in Computer. To access the tool from the menu, click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup and select the drive.

 

Run Disk Cleanup from the Accessories group under your start menu or by right-clicking on the drive under "Computer".
Select the types of items to delete and click OK to start the process.

 

Windows 7 hides some of the cleanup options unless you click the "Clean up system files" button (requires administrator access). This will add several additional categories of files that can be removed, and a tab called "More Options". Under the more options are two options: a button to launch add/remove programs and a button to delete all system restore points except the most recent.

2. Download and Run WinDirStat (http://windirstat.info/) to help identify and remove unneeded files:

WinDirStat can show you what type of files are using all the space on your drive. Use this to identify files that could be moved to another drive or deleted. More than half of the space on this 250GB SSD drive was taken up with a batch of video files!

3. On a dual drive system, Install your applications to a hard drive. Watch for a prompt for where to install the program. If you don't see a destination choice, you may need to choose to do a Custom Install to have the option.

4. Disable virtual memory - set the swap file to zero. If this is a dual drive system with a hard drive as the second drive, move your paging file to a different drive. To do this under Windows 7:
   1. Press Windows-Pause to open System window (or right click on "Computer" and select "Properties")
   2. Click Advanced System Settings
   3. Select the "Advanced" tab, and under Performance, click "Settings"
   4. Select the "Advanced" tab, and under Virtual Memory, click Change
   5. Remove the check next to "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives"
   6. Select the SSD drive letter and change the option from "System managed size" to "No paging file"
   7. Optional: if you have a hard disk drive, you can select it and still have virtual memory available by changing the option from "No paging file" to "System managed size" or "Custom size" if you want to limit how much space to use.
   8. Click OK to save changes...

Press the "Windows" key and the "Pause" key together to immediately open the system properties window. You can also click on "System" in the control panel, or right-click on "Computer" and select properties from the context menu to see this same screen. Click on "Advanced System Settings" from the task list on the left side of the window..In the System Properties window, select the "Advanced" tab and then click on the "Settings" button in the "Performance section.

In the Performance Options window, click on the "Change" button under the Virtual Memory section. The default is for Windows to manage the swapfile, and to create the paging file on your system drive. To set virtual memory to "none", to change its size, or to change the drive Windows uses, remove the check from the box at the top. Select the drive you want to change, and then either set your custom size or set it to "No paging file" to free up space on smaller SSD drives.

Windows will use your SSD or Hard Disk Drive as virtual memory unless you change this setting. A swapfile allows Windows to load more programs or larger data files than you could fit in your existing RAM. However it is much slower, even on a Solid State Drive, and it takes up space (reserved as a hidden system "swapfile"). With your Paging file size set to "none", you must have enough available RAM to open your program or data file, otherwise you could get errors or a "not enough memory" message. If you have a two-drive system (SSD and HDD), change the location of the swapfile to your HDD to free up SSD space and still have the virtual memory support.

5. Disable hibernate: You can set the idle-time delay before the system enters a sleep or hibernate state under the power settings. While sleep does not use storage space, hibernate does. The hybrid sleep of Vista and Windows 7 will automatically hibernate after a given time in low power sleep mode, unless the timeout is set to never or hibernate is disabled. To disable hibernate in Windows 7, you must have administrator privileges and do the following:
   1. Open an Administrator Command Prompt window
      (Start, All Programs, Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator")
   2. At the C: prompt, enter the command "powercfg -h off"

To enable Hibernation again, repeat the process but enter "powercfg -h on". If you receive an error: "You do not have permission to enable or disable the Hibernate feature.", then you did not run the command prompt as an administrator!

To prevent system hibernation from the power settings, do the following:

1. Open Power Options from the control panel
2. Click on the task to "Change when the computer sleeps"
3. Click on the option to "Change advanced power settings"
4. Expand the "Sleep" category, and then expand the "Hibernate after" line.
5. Change all hibernate settings to "Never". Click OK to save changes...

To change the hibernate timeout in Windows, open Power Options in the Control Panel. Click on "Change when the computer sleeps" in the task list on the left.

Hibernate is part of the Advanced power settings. Click on the line "Change advanced power settings" to open the list. In the Power Options list, expand the section called "Sleep", and then expand the "Hibernate after" section. To prevent the computer from entering a hibernate state, and creating a large "hiberfile" on your drive, set all options in this category to "never" (how many you have depends if this is a notebook or a desktop system).

Note: changing the hibernate delay through the Power Options only applies to the current power plan, and only applies to the current user. Disabling the hibernate feature using the powercfg command disables it for the computer.

For more assistance contact Technical Support here.