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Setting up an ssd drive for windows 7. Disabling search and indexing of files. Optimal use of M.2 SSDs

SSD is a device that has the same purpose as HDD, but in terms of structure and principle of its operation it is very different from its brother. In particular, if the matter concerns the operation of Windows installed on an SSD, you should properly optimize this device to significantly extend its service life.

SSD optimization for Windows

Let's assume you have already installed the Windows operating system, starting with version seven, on a brand new SSD. If not yet, you can follow the link below to learn a short guide that will allow you to complete this procedure Right.

The main feature of a solid state drive is that it has a limited number of rewrite cycles. This means that as little data as possible on the disk should be erased and rewritten. First of all, we will take this point into account when optimizing the SSD for the operating system Windows family.

Step 1: Checking TRIM Activity

TRIM – special function, introduced in Windows 7, which finds unused areas and allows you to clear them for later recording. If this function is undesirable for HDDs, then in the case of SSDs it will extend the service life of the drive.

Step 2: Disable automatic defragmentation

The next point that can seriously affect the service life of a solid-state drive is automatic defragmentation. The fact is that defragmentation is useful tool For hard drives. It optimizes records on the disk, which allows you to speed up work with the HDD. In the case of SSDs, the less information is rewritten, the better.

As a rule, if an SSD is installed on your computer, Windows automatically disables this procedure, however, you should still check if this is the case.

To do this, press the keyboard shortcut Win+R to open the “Run” window and write in it next command by clicking next Enter key:

The disk optimization menu will be displayed on the screen, in which, by highlighting the item "Solid State Drive", in the lower area of ​​the window you should see the value "Off". If you see the item "On", click on the button to the right "Change settings".

Uncheck the “Run on a schedule (recommended)” option, and then save the settings.

Step 3: Deactivate the page file

The swap file is system file, which allows you to fill the gap random access memory when it is fully loaded.

The idea is that the page file takes over unused data from RAM to the hard drive (solid state drive). It becomes clear that with activity this file Information on a solid-state drive is regularly overwritten, which needs to be minimized.

Alternatively, you can completely deactivate the page file, which will reduce the number of rewrite cycles on the solid-state drive, however, if you run several resource-intensive games or programs on your computer, the RAM may completely run out, which means a message will appear on your screen the following plan:


Step 4: Disable Windows Hibernation

Hibernation is a popular mode for turning on a computer, in which, after finishing work, the computer turns off completely, but after turning on it continues from the same place where you left off. Thus, the user does not have to re-launch all programs, open files, etc.

To disable hibernation, run command line as administrator (as described above), and then run the following command in it:

Powercfg -h off

From this moment on, hibernation will be disabled, and the file responsible for it will be deleted from the system.

Step 5: Disable File Indexing

The file indexing procedure allows you to quickly find files on your computer, but due to constant rewriting, it negatively affects the lifespan SSD services.

Step 6: Enable Record Caching

Activating the record caching function will benefit both the solid-state drive and the hard drive.

Step 7: Disabling Prefetch

Prefetch represents special technology to speed up the loading of the system, which is aimed at working with slow media. As you understand, for SSD given the function is useless.

  1. Launch the Run window using the Win+R keys and enter the following command:
A registry window will appear on the screen, in which you will need to go to the following branch:

HKLM SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control Session Manager Memory Management PrefetchParameters

Double click on the option "EnablePrefetcher" and set the value in it «0» . Save your changes.

These tips will allow you to reduce the number of SSD write cycles without affecting system performance. But even if you do not resort to the tips listed in the article, the solid-state drive will still for a long time delight you with our excellent work. If you know what other SSD optimization techniques exist, share them in the comments.

SSDs are much faster than their older counterparts and are becoming increasingly popular. The operating system installed on such a disk starts up and runs faster, increasing the performance of the entire computer. If you want to use everything SSD capabilities, you need to spend a little time setting it up.

Do you need to optimize your SSD?

According to manufacturers, modern operating systems do not require solid-state memory drives at all. additional settings or optimization. Any manual settings, according to Microsoft, can only slow down your disk or cause system problems.

However, quite often a situation may arise when an SSD with Windows 10 installed does not produce the performance result that the user wants to expect. The reasons for this can be completely different. IN such a case users have to intervene and optimize the disk themselves.

There are some tips to help improve SSD operation and extend its service life:

  • Always leave about a sixth of the disk free: free place required for stable operation disk without performance degradation;
  • if you have several disks, install your operating system and heavy programs that you often work with on the SSD;
  • try not to change standard settings SSD: disk optimization and other system features were developed together with manufacturers solid state drives and are the most optimal;
  • do not defragment the SSD: it is not only useless for them, but also shortens the service life of the drive;
  • Periodically update the firmware of your drive, but don’t do it too often: new firmware comes out all the time, and it doesn’t make much sense to install each of them.

SSDs have a limited number of data rewrite cycles, and therefore defragmentation shortens their service life

Automatic SSD setup

At connecting SSD To Windows computer 10 spends self-configuration disk. This setting includes:

  • disabling disk defragmentation;
  • SSD power optimization;
  • enabling TRIM and Superfetch functions;
  • disabling the ReadyBoot function.

Some users may find that the SSD is automatically defragmented from time to time. The reason for this is that Windows 10 does defragmentation and disk optimization using the same tool. What you might think of as defragmentation is another process that benefits your SSD.

Manual SSD setup

As with hard drives, there are several ways to speed up an SSD. However, these methods involve refusing certain functions of the system, which may not suit some users.

It is worth disabling the paging file only if your computer has a large number of random access memory. But even then it is a controversial decision. Disabling the paging file can increase the life of your disk: there will be much fewer calls to it from the system to constantly overwrite files.

  1. Open Control Panel. It can be found through search.

    Open Control Panel

  2. Open the System and Security category. Open the System and Security category
  3. Go to the "System" section.

    Go to the "System" section

  4. Press " Extra options systems"

  5. Next to the “Performance” inscription, click on the “Options” button.

    Click on the "Options" button

  6. Open the “Advanced” tab and click on the “Change...” button.

    Click on the "Change..." button

  7. Uncheck the box “Automatically select paging file size”, check “Without paging file” and confirm the changes made.

    Disable the page file

Disabling hibernation

Hibernation is used for quick start computer. When entering hibernation mode, the computer does not turn off completely: information about all running programs remains lying in active processes. Disabling this mode will have a positive effect on the lifespan of your SSD, but may cause inconvenience for some users.

  1. Open Control Panel and go to the Hardware and Sound category.
  2. Go to the "Power Options" section.

    Go to the "Power Options" section

  3. First, you should remove hibernation from the computer shutdown buttons. Click on “Power button actions”.

    Click on “Power button actions”

  4. Click on the inscription “Changes to settings that are currently unavailable”, uncheck the hibernation mode and confirm the changes made.

    Remove hibernation from power buttons

  5. Now let's disable auto-switching to hibernation mode. Return to the “Power Options” section and click on the inscription “Setting the power plan” next to the mode you are using.

    Click on the inscription “Setting the power plan” next to the mode you are using

  6. Click on "Change advanced power settings."

    Click on "Change advanced power settings"

  7. Go to Sleep, then Hibernate After, and change both to Never.

    Disable auto hibernation

Indexing files for search

Enough heavy load Indexing affects system and SSD performance. It is necessary for quick search files on disk. Indexing means that an additional record is created in the system for each file on your disk. Disabling file indexing will increase the speed of your drive, but will significantly reduce the speed of searching for files.


Disabling system protection

Function system protection used to create restore points. Every time you install something, your computer's current state and status installed programs are saved in the computer's memory. Disabling the system protection feature will increase the life of the SSD, but it will become more difficult to troubleshoot any problems with the system.

  1. Click right click mouse on the “This PC” icon and select “Properties”.

    Go to computer properties

  2. Click on "Advanced system settings".

    Open Advanced System Settings

  3. Open the “System Protection” tab and click on the “Configure…” button.

    Click on the “Configure…” button

  4. Select "Disable protection" and confirm your changes.

    Disable system protection

Switching the drive to ANCI mode

ANCI mode, intended for hard drives, can also be useful for SSDs. It should improve computer performance and reduce energy consumption.

As you begin to enable ANCI mode for your SSD, remember that you are going beyond the limits installed by the system settings and risk damaging your SSD.

You can make sure that ANCI mode is not enabled in Device Manager.


Enabling ANCI mode is done in your computer's BIOS. Since the BIOS and the ways to get into it are different on all computers, each case must be considered individually. In the BIOS you will need to find the disk settings and change its operating mode. It is better to find out how to correctly enable ANCI mode on the manufacturer’s website.

Even if your SSD's ANCI mode is already activated, the system will not use it. To fix this, you need to change several settings in the system registry.

  1. Find regedit through the Start menu search and open Registry Editor.

    Reset the parameter value to zero and click OK

  2. In the same way, reset the following parameters:
    • start parameter at “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci”;
    • parameter 0 at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorAV\StartOverride";
    • parameter 0 at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\StartOverride".

Firmware update for SSD

SSD drive has own firmware(complex system programs, which are similar in principle to drivers). If there are any problems with the firmware or it is very outdated, you may notice a slowdown in the disk. The appearance of any errors or conflicts with the system may also be due to outdated firmware of the solid-state drive.

Specific methods for flashing a disk depend on its manufacturer. Most often, a special program is offered for this. In other cases, it is enough to simply save the firmware to disk and restart the computer. And sometimes the user will have to do everything manually via the command line. Detailed instructions for the disk firmware you will find on the manufacturer's official website.

Here's a series general advice before flashing the disk, which should be followed in any case:

  • save the most important information to another drive;
  • study the installed firmware version: read the official developer forum or user comments on latest updates. Sometimes new firmware contains a number of shortcomings that will only be corrected in next versions. In this case, you should pay attention to the latest stable version;
  • do not install every new firmware update: if everything works stably for you and there are no problems, you can hold off on updating the firmware;
  • check your work SSD drive after installing the firmware to make sure that the firmware did not introduce new errors. Good decision will use special programs to check the disk.

Video: SSD setup

Special programs for SSD optimization

Most of the actions that are done special programs to optimize SSD - the same as we described above, but in automatic mode. All similar programs are extremely simple and identical, so we will consider only two of the most popular.

SSD Mini Tweaker is a very small and easy-to-use program that allows you to completely prepare your system for working with solid-state drives in a few minutes. It does not require installation.

All you need to do in the program itself is to tick the boxes you need and click “Apply changes”. When the process is complete, restart your computer.

Select the required options and click "Apply Changes"

SSD FRESH 2017

SSD FRESH 2017 is very similar to the previous program: the same settings and the same operating principle. A more visual interface allows you to evaluate how much your disk optimization has changed. However, the veracity of this assessment is rather conditional.

Now you know exactly what settings SSD drives Windows 10 produces automatically, and what you have to configure yourself. Keep your drive up to date and keep it up to date good condition so that it serves you for a long time.

  • very high speed of the Operating system compared to conventional HDDs
  • low power consumption (for laptops significantly increases battery life)
  • high fault tolerance under severe overloads and damage (shaking, falling laptop, etc.)

But besides the advantages, there are also disadvantages:

  • higher cost compared to HDD
  • limited number of rewrite cycles

How to get rid of last minus and will be discussed in this article.

During operation of the operating system, service files are constantly changed, written and overwritten. Also, modern operating systems often automatically defragment the disk and perform other operations that, when working with regular HDD serve to speed up the operation of the system as a whole.

But when working on an SSD, such operations are harmful because they reduce the disk’s recording resource.

Therefore, it is necessary to rid the operating system of these procedures or at least reduce them to an acceptable minimum.

The optimal version for working on an SSD from the Windows family is version 7 and higher. It is also possible to implement Windows based XP, but the result will not be as successful, because... full support Microsoft media data was introduced only with the release Windows series 7.

What to consider?

  1. First of all, to reduce the volumes being written (and to reduce the volume in general), you need to get rid of the paging file. This in turn means that the amount of RAM on your computer/laptop should cover your needs with a margin (at least 30-50%). Those. If you usually use up to 2 GB of RAM for work, then you need to have 3-4 GB in your computer. Otherwise, when there is a peak in RAM usage and it exceeds 4GB, the system may crash and crash.
  2. It is also necessary to understand that there are no accurate statistics on SSD operating resources. various manufacturers and models included in the OS, and thus there is no way to accurately predict the moment when the disk will exhaust its resource and begin to fail. Therefore, I recommend systematically monitoring SSDs using specialized utilities (will be described in more detail at the end of the article) and also do not forget to backup important data to removable media or network/cloud storage. I recommend using the Yandex.Disk resource as a “Cloud” resource for backing up data because of its ease of use and good accessibility throughout Russia.

Before installing the operating system:

It is advisable to disconnect all other media (HDD and USB-Flash) if they are connected - this will simplify the installation and allow Windows 7 to independently optimize some of the parameters for the SSD during installation.

You also need to check the inclusion for SATA controller AHCI mode. For most modern PCs and laptops, it is already enabled by default, and if you haven’t changed anything yourself, then you may not need anything.

Windows 7 installation:

Installation is best done from the original image. Do not use ready-made assemblies- in most cases they have a setting that does not allow making changes that will be required in the future to reduce the number of rewrites.

Setting up Windows 7 on SSD:

For quick and easy setup, the easiest way is to use a special free SSD Mini Tweaker utility.

SSD Mini Tweaker - will change everything quickly and correctly necessary changes into the system to reduce the frequency of writing system files.

But you will also need to independently disable indexing of the contents of files on the disk.

To do this, open properties system disk and on the "General" tab, uncheck the "Allow file contents to be indexed..." checkbox. After that, click apply and in the “Confirm attribute changes” window that opens, select the option “... to all attached files and folders”, then click “Ok”. The process will take some time. During this process a message will be displayed indicating that you do not have permission to edit files - you can select the "Skip all" option and continue.

After completing this operation, you can consider the setup complete. After this, you can turn off the computer and connect other storage media (HDD), which will serve to store large amounts of data (media library, game library, galleries, etc.)

Have a nice work!

As mentioned above, it is advisable to use specialized software for systematic diagnostics of SSDs. One option is SSD Life.

The program does not calculate the “health” state of the disk, but receives it from the disk itself, more precisely from the S.M.A.R.T. system. Then, based on the data received and based on them current mode drive usage calculates its service life.

In this regard, for a more accurate assessment of the health of the SSD, SSD program Life needs to monitor the operation of your drive for some time, viewing its load and calculating average values. The longer the analysis period, the more accurate the data.

For many users, replacement hard drive An SSD is the most effective PC upgrade. In terms of reading information, an SSD drive is many times faster, therefore, the performance of the computer significantly increases. But they have one drawback - the limitation on the number of rewrite cycles, characteristic of flash drives.

Configuring an SSD under Windows 7 is necessary because you want to minimize unnecessary write cycles to flash memory cells to increase the life of the SSD.

If you have Windows 10 installed, then it already automatically detects SSD drives and makes adjustments to their operation to achieve maximum performance. Therefore on Windows 10 ssd setup is not so important and is performed at the operating system level.

During the defragmentation process, logically interconnected data blocks that are scattered throughout the media are arranged in a single sequence. SSD drives do not need to be defragmented. If for hard HDD drives defragmentation can increase efficiency in reading speed and thereby speed up the PC, but in the case of an SSD this process can only do harm.

Disabling Perfetch and SuperFetch

The Perfetch folder is designed to speed things up Windows boot and launching programs. The folder contains information about frequently used programs on the computer and stores them in the initial (system) part of the hard drive.

The SuperFetch service monitors programs that you frequently use and loads them into random access memory (RAM) when you start your computer, so they start faster when accessed. Thus, when you run a program, the computer begins to read its files from RAM faster than from the hard drive.

But considering high speed reading solid-state drives, these functions are superfluous.

To disable them, go to the editor Windows registry with administrator rights.

In the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE” directory, find the “SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/SessionManager/MemoryManagement/PrefetchParameters” key and change the “Enable Prefetcher” and “Enable Superfetch” values ​​to “0”.

Disabling ReadyBoot

ReadyBoost and work together with the SuperFetch service. While SuperFetch loads program files into random access memory (RAM), ReadyBoost uses the flash drive as a cache for the slow hard drive.

To disable ReadyBoost you need to do the following:

  • Start;
  • Control Panel;
  • System and safety;
  • Administrative tools;
  • Performance Monitor;
  • On the left side, expand the Data Collector Groups section and select Startup Event Tracking Sessions;
  • double click on “ReadyBoost”;
  • Tracking sessions;
  • Uncheck the box next to “Enabled”.

Disabling or moving the paging file to the HDD

The page file increases the size of your computer's cache. In case of physical insufficiency RAM memory, the Windows operating system moves some of the data out of RAM and thus prevents errors software or systems.

If your computer is equipped with small software SSD volume and traditional HDD, the swap file can be placed on the SSD. If you have Windows x64 installed, the page file can be disabled.

TRIM function

In the operating room Windows system 7 It is important to check whether the TRIM function is enabled. Note that this function informs SSD drive, which area on the disk is no longer used and can be cleaned. If the feature is disabled, it may result in reduced SSD performance.

To check:

  • go to the command line as administrator;
  • enter the command “fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify”;
  • If after execution DisableDeleteNotify = 0 appears, then the service is enabled.

Disabling sleep mode (hibernation)

The hibernation function clearly reduces the time required operating system Windows to run from hard drive. SSDs vs. hard drives The information reading time is much faster, which makes the startup process much shorter. Therefore, hibernation mode in computers with SSD does not bring tangible benefits and can be disabled.

When entering sleep mode, all data from RAM is saved to the hard drive in the hiberhil.sys file, which is quite a decent size. Especially important for small SSDs, disabling sleep mode frees up valuable space on the SSD drive.

To disable, use the Win+R keys to launch a command prompt as administrator and type the command “powercfg -h off”.

AHCI mode

For full-fledged work SSD drive, including using TRIM function, you need to enable it in BIOS AHCI mode. If you simply change the mode, then after turning on the Windows boot process may be interrupted by an error (blue screen).

For correction:

  • go to the Windows Registry Editor as an administrator;
  • find the entry “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/Msahci” or “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/lastorV”;
  • Click twice on “Start” and change the value to “0”;
  • restart your computer;
  • change the SATA controller mode to AHCI in the BIOS.