Keeping Windows XP happy on a 1st gen SSD (minimizing writes)

SHORT VERSION:

Minimize writes to the SSD to keep the speed fast...

• install the EWF (Enhanced Write Filter) using this tool
• manage the EWF using the EWF Administrator program
  
• create a ramdisk, set 'temp'/'tmp' and windows 'temp'/'tmp' environment variables to point to it
• eliminate pagefile (caution, might be good or bad)
  

1st Gen SSD's and Windows XP don't support the 'trim' command, which means that the drive will slow down once all the internal pages have been written/erased, so the best plan is to minimize writes wherever possible.

In order to keep my HD-playback PC in top shape, I try to minimize any writes to the hard drive, which keeps the drives nice and quiet and reliable. Even before I got my SSD I had installed the EWF filter, which sends all writes to a hard drive to ram instead, and when you shutdown, you have the option of saving the changes to the drive, or discarding them. By default the EWF tries to protect your 'C:' drive (or whatever your OS is on), but leaves the other partitions alone, free to be written to.

The advantage of this is that once you have your pc set up just the way you like, every reboot brings you right back to it, since you can discard all changes that were made between reboots, perfect for running a pc as a reliable appliance. This is especially good since it minimizes the writes to the SSD, which slows it down.

The downside is that you can't do anything that takes a lot of RAM or resources, like Photoshop, but thats ok, since this is for my HTPC partition. I have Win7 installed on a different partition not using EWF for 'real' work.

Tips for installing Windows XP onto an SSD

SHORT VERSION:

Windows XP by default installs to a bad spot on a new SSD (sector 63). You need to install starting at sector 64...

FRESH XP INSTALL:

1. connect SSD to working pc
2. wipe all partition info off the drive, must be unpartition, unformatted for next step
   
3. run 'diskpar' on the drive to repartition *IMPORTANT* set partition offset to '64' (32k)
4. format OS partition using 'quick format', *MAKE SURE TO SET 4096 for the ALLOCATION UNIT*
   
5. reboot and start the install, DO NOT REFORMAT, select the new partition you created above
   

MOVING/MIGRATING EXISTING XP TO NEW DRIVE:

1. prep the SSD using the instructions above (1-4)
2. make your backup of the working OS partition using something that doesn't ruin the sector alignment when restoring (I use an old version of Norton Ghost (dos), and was able to copy directly HDD partition -> SSD partition)
3. power off pc
   
4. *IMPORTANT* swap sata cables on the SSD and your old HDD, so that the pc thinks your SSD is in the same 'place' where the HDD was
5. restore OS backup onto the newly created partition on the SSD
6. set SSD partition to 'boot' or 'active' (I used Partition Manager , dos-based, free)
7. set bios to boot from SSD
8. reboot :)

more details about SSD prepping and screenshots here.

If you have a 1st gen SSD like I picked up on sale (OCZ Solid 60GB, jmicron-infected), there's a few extra steps you should consider to keep the drive running smoothly (minimizing writes to SSD), which I will go into detail in my next post.