SSDs Rock! WHS Rocks!

Vertex 2 is great SSD! Enjoy it. Make sure TRIM is on and leave 20G or so free space, don't max out the space.

I too recently added an SSD, an OCZ Agility 3 60 GB ($99.99 AR) and I agree they are quick. You really should do a clean install of Windows though, as a back-up restore installation may not be properly aligned for fastest results.

A full reinstall is completely unneeded. Most drive cloners (including clonezilla) preserve sector alignment, and it's simple to verify your alignment afterwards.

How to Enable TRIM and ACHI in Windows 7
http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=86403

It is unless you disabled it using fsutil. The default setting is on as long as the controller is in AHCI mode.

Depending on where your back up came from. If it is original from HDD then you do need to make sure they are align after the restore. If the back up is from SSD, to SSD, then you do not need to worry the alignment.

I have 2 Vertex 2 drives. Love them.

WHS... can't get the dang stuttering to go away. I think I might have a bad drive, so I told it to remove one. 3 days went by and it still wasn't done removing the drive. So I'm not 100% sold on WHS yet, although it is a great concept. Too bad they hosed Vail or I'd just reinstall.

I bought into the hype of DE a couple of years back and had a WHS running with 4TB in the DE pool. One went "missing". Took me days to figure out which one it was really complaining about and remove it. I have since downsized it to an OS drive and two identical 1 TB drives in the DE pool. I have all folders duplicated. I use it now mainly as a backup pool. Nothing is irreplacable (once copied off site). DE was great when it worked. Problems were a nightmare. I am one who is looking forward to WHS 2011 providing it has the same backup capability. I'll switch to 2-3 2 or 3TB drives and manage them myself thank you.
BTW ALL drives and cables in the WHS at the time of "the incident" tested fine once removed and have been running in a "guest room" HTPC for months with no issues. It was a WHS "software glitch" even though everyone assured me that it was a bad drive.

So is the consensus that its money well spent to replace a standard HD with a SSD in a HTPC?

Majority opinion is "yes".

I have the same question - and it is one of the things keeping me from buying a small SSD.

After reading up on bing about it, it appears to be a major issue - and one that has been around for a long time.

The easiest way to fix it is to clone your HDD to SSD via Paragon Drive Copy 11 Professional. It will automatically fix the problem.

If your original image/back up is from HDD, mechanic drive, then you DO need to check the alignment and make sure they are allign after back up/restore, otherwise your SSD performance might not be there.

If your original image/back up is SDD, then you do NOT need to worry and the alignement is fine.

Download AS SSD, the SSD benchmarking tool, and it will check your alignment as well as benchmark your drive. It is free.

The alignment note is in the upper left of the benchmark screen and should be in green and state OK if you are good.

***BAD Alignment***


***OK Alignment***
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/l...rno-AHCI14.png



Not sure other SSDs in the market but I use nothing but OCZ SSDs. I have Agility 3, Summit and PCI E Revodrive X2 SSD here. If you have one of their SSD, I will do the SE, SecureErase, restore the SSD to original spec and then update to their latest FW, firmware, before any clean Windows install.

ATTO is a highly recommend free SSD benchmark tool too, just run and you will be able to tell your read/write speed and makes sure your SSD in top notch shape.

Yes, if your original back up/restore file is HDD. After back up/restore, you can run AS SSD and make sure it is aligned.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ment-made-easy

Just a friendly disclaimer...

Please reconsider before running any benchmark tool, once you started to dig in SSD performance you will soon to find out you want a faster SSD. Next thing you will find out your SSD is not fast enough and want to move up to other SSD or perhaps a PCI-E platform SSD, breaking the SATA 3 6G spec, to 800Mb/s+ read speed. It is VERY addictive

You restore/back up your OS from other SSD to this SSD, right?

Can you explain the difference in their various lines? They have Agility, Agility 2, and Agility 3, Colossus and Colossus Lite, Vertex, Vertex 2 and Vertex 3, Vertex Turbo, Vertex EX, Vertex Plus, Onyx Series, Core Series V2, Apex Series, Solid, Solid 2, and Solid 3, not to mention the Revo and Revo X2. Oh, and the ridiculously expensive IBIS Series. It's pretty absurd and it's certainly confusing. As someone who uses OCZ SSDs, can you help the rest of us understand the hierarchy and what's worthwhile and what's not?

The OCZ website covers all their models in detail but here's the bit I know: The '2' is SATA 2 (3Gb connetion) '3' is SATA 3 (6Gb). Vertex is fastest, Agility the second fastest (not that much slower than Vertex).

Actually you can easily understand their line up from their product page. http://www.ocztechnology.com/product...d_state_drives

But in a high level, for SATA SSD, from bottom to top performers, it is Solid, Agility and Vertex. Then all the 2 and 3 are represented just older generation SATA II 3G and SATA III 6G. Some of the older 2 are legacy and 3 is current model.

In additional, in order to break thru the current SATA III 6G spec, OCZ offers IBIS and Revodrive which use PCI-E platform. IBIS is using PCI-E and HSDL links to their SSD. Current and older model of Revodrive is Revodrive and Revodrive X2. In about 2 weeks, OCZ is going to release Revodrive 3 and Revodrive 3 X2. Current Revodrive X2 is performing about 700+ Mb/s read and 600+Mb/s write and next generation the Revodrive3 X2 will be able to performing 1Gb/s performance!!! All these PCI-E are using Raid 0, but please note that it does not have any redundancy and just split up the drive for better performance.

My Revodrive X2 is SO fast and I thought my Summit and Agility 3 was fast but once I start using Revodrive X2, I can't look back. From cold start/BIOS beep to my W7 WMC launched, it took about 12 secs, no more welcome screen, just jump to desktop. Restart, navigate, shut down are amazing fast. I warn you don't near there once you start to benchmark it, you will want more, mark my word

If it was only those, I could figure it out. But where do Vertex Turbo, Vertex EX, Vertex Plus, Onyx Series, Core Series V2, and Apex Series fit in and what's the difference?

Which are the models that had all the problems and should be avoided?

In the last few months, OCZ has some FW problems with different SSDs, not hardware. With the latest FW updates, as far as I know they fix them all. My Agility 3 has one BSOD and after latest FW update to 2.09, it is all fine afterward.

DE working well for me too-- except for the "incident" I mentioned. That was so frustrating that I won't mind losing it. At the time it happened, while I was troubleshooting, I set up a standby "server" just running Win 7 with small OS drive and 4 x 1 TB drives using Homegroup shares. I wrote RoboCopy batch files to backup our data. Did the job but WHS backup is easier. I didn't attempt to pool the drives in the standby server. I'm sure there are ways. Our personal data is backed up in multiple places including off site at my office.
I'm about ready to pop for WHS 2011. It appears to be available from Amazon and Newegg. Not sure why it is not more widely available. I have a spare system I can test it on in parallel with the current WHS. I believe it goes for about $70. 64-bit only as I understand it. Anyone?

I'm a little surprised/somewhat concerned that my 1st SSD build put the System Reserved Partition on another HD. Should I be concerned? Doesn't this mean that if that drive with the system reserved partition fails/is removed that the system will be unable to boot? I suppose I should have loaded the system with only the SSD and then added the other HD.

After reading all these threads, I could not stop myself and I bought an OCZ SSD.