SSD's and Windows 8 Release Preview - Made for each other

For the last little while, I am trying out Windows 8 Release Preview on my U30Jc with 8GB RAM and an Intel 320 Series 160GB SSD (partitioned to only use around half of that capacity since purchase).

Metro sucks on this setup - to fix this: I uninstalled (not simply removed) all the tiles except for the desktop. To get around having a gimped start button (no button really) I installed RocketDock 1.35 and pinned some of my most used programs to the Task Bar. This setup works very well for a system that is used primarily as an old school pen and paper style 'notebook' (albeit one with internet access).

I have not noticed any better battery life (but I've left the default Win8 drivers installed except for Intel RST 10.8) and I still get around 6-7 hours of use from this system depending on how hard I'm pushing it (not very hard, to be honest - like I mentioned; it's simply used as a digital notebook).

What I am impressed about is how 'modern' the U30Jc feels with Win8 under the hood. The ~13 second boot times, the ~4 second shutdown times (no need for hibernation here...) and the instant availability of the desktop as soon as the system has booted has transformed this old (~18 month) system based on an Arrandale i3 350M processor into a viable second/third/fourth system for my (various) uses.

While there are still some incompatibilities (like the Intel SSD Toolbox not able to perform a manual TRIM (error 30)), this is a very useable everyday system and is not lacking in the 'snappiness' department when compared to much newer IB based systems at all.

What has really pushed this 'snappiness' over the top is by disabling core parking with this utility here: See: Coder Bag: Disable CPU Core Parking Utility After a reboot - the system is noticeably more responsive (like you just put an SSD inside...) on the already improved responsiveness Win8 had given this setup - without affecting battery life in my experience/usage pattern. While I won't be installing Win8 RP on any of my production machines for a while, I will be trying this disable core parking 'tweak' on my SNB based setup to see if I notice a similar effect (with Win7).

While Win8 + Metro is too mickey mouse for a production machine at this time - with a few compatibility updates and the above modifications (using RocketDock, deleting all the useless tiles from the start menu and basically ignoring all the 'metro' and 'app' trash of Win8) - it is a noteworthy update of an O/S from MS that far surpasses anything else available (from a performance/stability standpoint).

If MS allows a true Desktop mode (without ANY side-trips to Metro) Win8 will be a must have upgrade for anyone who needs to extract the highest performance from the hardware they have (and wish to have, in the future).

Curious of others experience with SSD's and Win8 and if you're willing to try this on an IB setup: disabling core parking and seeing if there is any advantage on a modern/current platform (vs. Arrandale) with this tweak.

Looking forward to the discussion. I can't seem to format this properly in Win8 with IE10 - lol... I will fix this later on another system with Win7 and IE9. (Sorry).

Edit: Hopefully, this is more readable (Long live Win7+IE9! ).

 

Quick question, Windows 8 features the ability to schedule or start a TRIM run from the optimization and defrag utility, have you tried using that instead of the toolbox or disabling drive optimization on the SSD and trying TRIM again in the toolbox?

I have to agree that windows 8 on a SSD screams fast, regardless of the UI, i like what's under the hood. windows 8 does fine for the average joe usage, but it has a lot of quirks that needs ironing out. I'll see what the RTM brings as far as changes are concerned before making my final decision on whether it'll be worth to consider upgrading or not.

 

Yes, I have used the 'optimize' feature in the defrag menu - seems fast (much faster than the Intel Toolbox in Win7 and same Intel 320 SSD) - I also have it set to run weekly too.

 

I'm running Windows 8 RP on my F11 with an Core i5 M 520, 8GB of ram and a Samsung 830 128GB SSD.
To overcome the Metro mess I installed Classic Shell 3.5.1 with an activated setting to skip the Metro screen on start-up.
Welcome to Classic Shell
You can install Samsung's toolbox (SSD Magician) in Windows 7 compatibility mode, but also there the manual trim from the toolbox doesn't work and gives an error.
I also use the optimize drives function and let it run on its weekly schedule.
Thank you for mentioning the utility for disabling core parking because it indeed increases the snappiness of my laptop.
I don't know about batterylife because I get lousy batterylife of this laptop allready
What power plan do you use when plugged in?

 

Thanks for confirming what I saw with my i3 350M. Also thanks for Classic Shell too (I'll have to try that out later).

The power plan that I use is Balanced - with sleep disabled for both plugged in and while on battery power. Using other power plans doesn't give me significant performance increase in my use; I leave it in Balanced all the time.

Interesting that SSD Magician doesn't work either - are you also using a current Intel RST driver? Oh and for completeness; I had to use XP SP3 compatibility mode to install the Intel SSD Toolbox (v3.03).

 

Okay, I installed Classic Shell and have a proper Start Menu in Win8 - this is getting interesting - thanks Gandolf_The_Grey!

 

Thanks for your answer, I use balanced when plugged in and power saver when on battery.
Always wondering about the high performance plan.
Besides Classic Shell there is also Start8 from Stardock that let you boot directly to the desktop, but I prefer Classic Shell.
Start8 for Windows® 8 - Bringing back the Windows Start menu
I contacted Samsung USA Support on twitter and they told me that they were looking into Windows 8 support for SSD Magician but couldn't give more information
I'm using the build in MSAHCI driver.

 

A little update on Classic Menu:

This is more a Win8 fault, but it does affect the usability of Classic Menu - clicking the Start button brings up search (yeah!) but it doesn't search everything - it seems it only searches for applications. This same issue appears with the Metro Start button too - but at least you can select other categories there (settings/files/etc.) unlike in Classic Menu search which doesn't even give us that ability.

Serious usability issues there... if Classic Menu can force Search to search everything; that would be a huge improvement.


On another note: Performance of Windows 8 is mind boggling!

All of a sudden, Win7 feels like XP to me (performance-wise) and although much, much, much more usable in a production environment, with Win7, it feels like you can see the O/S's gears turning to get any work done.

Ivy Bridge, Haswell, etc. with Win8, 16/32GB+ RAM, SSD's and updated (64bit+Win8/9 optimized) programs will bring in a new level of productivity that will render almost everything we have today obsolete.

I can only hope that some of the under-the-hood improvements of Win8 make it to Win7 as a service pack in the near future - otherwise, I know that I will have to put up with the quirks and workarounds of Win8/Metro to get the benefits the new O/S architecture is offering us today.

To put this in perspective: an Arrandale i3 350M 8GB SSD (SATA2) Win8 RP setup is an order of magnitude more responsive than a Sandy Bridge i7 2630QM platform with double the RAM, SATA3 SSD and (unfortunately...) Win7x64.

Yeah; good times ahead.

All I can say is that I'm glad the big boys (Intel/MS) have ignored all the people that have said a single/dual core, or an AMD (GPU heavy) platform, or a 2/4GB RAM, or a 64/128GB SSD is 'good enough' for everyday computing needs.

Can never have enough performance (even to just reply to the boards here!), bring me to Win8 RTM asap (with real desktop support, please).

 

Maybe you can contact the developer through their forum:
SourceForge.net: Classic Shell: Open Discussion

 

Thanks, but I won't do that (already have too many accounts in inter-space).

 

Want fast to be faster? Update to IRST 11.5 WHQL

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...t-11-5-whql-released-finally.html#post8739667

Nice to see it works with Win8 RP.

 

Something to do tonight

 

Looking forward to your observations with IRST 11.5 WHQL and Win8RP

 

Windows 8 did amazing things to my Acer Iconia tablet as well. With only 2gb RAM and an inability to add more, along with a 1ghz AMD C-50, Windows 7 never ran very well on it. Windows 8 performance in doing anything was instant by comparison, though I noticed a huge (like, 50%) hit in battery life using it. I'm not sure if drivers have improved since then or not, but hopefully that problem won't be there in the final version.

 

Are you able to install any AMD-specific drivers for you Acer Iconia?

 

Unfortunately I don't observe any difference between the IRST 11.5 driver and the stock MSAHCI driver.
Maybe because I'm running a lazy sata 2 system.
The unpark CPU utility that really made a difference

 

Thank's for the update!

Yeah, that unpark 'tweak' is what made my Win8 RP SSD powered test system feel like an SSD was installed too.

Later tonight, I'm going to uninstall IRST and install just the drivers (F6 method...) to see if there is any benefit.

 

->"With Windows 'Blue' rumored, the Windows 8 fire sale begins"<-

See: With Windows 'Blue' rumored, the Windows 8 fire sale begins | Microsoft windows - InfoWorld

The article is dated: February 25, 2013.

My own thoughs are that with expected retail availability in August (of Windows "Blue"), MS's Windows Blue will arrive at same time as Intel's Haswell cpu's, and Crucial's M500 SSD's.

That could be a winning combination.

So if a great deal (i.e. low low price) shows up for copies of Win 8, then you can stock up.

OTOH hopefully MS will find a better name than "Windows Blue".