Windows 10 upgrade question?.

[saltyseadog]

As a Win7 Home Premium user I am eligible for the Win10 upgrade, It is downloaded but not installed yet. Waiting for a while until more info available on the various issues people have reported and as I am very satisfied with my present set up I am prepared to wait until most of my program makers have caught up with drivers etc.

I am also considering upgrading my SATA II hard drive to an SSD hard drive, would this have any impact on my free Win10 install and if so would I be better to install an SSD prior to Win10 upgrade?. Also, as most of the SSD's available are SATA III, are they backwards compatible with SATA II versions?. Thanks in advance for any help/advice offered.

 

[Digerati]

You say it was downloaded but not installed yet. That is not how it works when it comes via Windows Update. Did you download the ISO image and not install? Or did you interrupt the update process when you were offered W10.

If me, I would upgrade to the SSD first, made sure it worked then go for W10. This is mainly because you are already familiar with W7.

Yes SATA versions are forwards and backwards compatible. It is just important to understand you will be limited by the performance capabilities of the slowest link.

 

[saltyseadog]

You say it was downloaded but not installed yet. That is not how it works when it comes via Windows Update. Did you download the ISO image and not install? Or did you interrupt the update process when you were offered W10.

If me, I would upgrade to the SSD first, made sure it worked then go for W10. This is mainly because you are already familiar with W7.

Yes SATA versions are forwards and backwards compatible. It is just important to understand you will be limited by the performance capabilities of the slowest link.

First off, thanks for the reply. I have my Windows Update set to "download but do not install". I always check the downloads first and leave for a couple of days or so as I got caught out like so many others a year or so ago when one of the monthly updates from msn caused lots of PC problems. So when I open the Windows Update link in my all programs list I had a list of updates from last week which I installed all the Win7 relevant ones and now have a 2,712.6MB Win10 download ready to install box which I am keeping unchecked for the present.

 

[Digerati]

Ah, okay I understand. That is really the W10 "installer" - when you actually do go ahead, there will be a lot more downloading, saving, configuring, rebooting, more configuring and then you will have W10.

 

[saltyseadog]

I have been reading some very good reviews of the Samsung SSD in the link http://www.ebuyer.com/695885-samsung-850-evo-120gb-2-5inch-ssd-mz-75e120bw but am unsure if it is compatible with my Win7 64bit PC. The existing hard drive is a 465GB Samsung HD502HJ ATA Device (SATA) if this helps. Sorry for the bother but I am a pensioner who never grew up with modern tech like younger people.

 

[bj33813]

I have same SSD, works fine tho cannot get the RAPID feature to work, but is extremely fast w/o it. Follow this after you install it :
If you install Windows 7 directly onto an SSD, the installation program makes sure that everything is aligned properly and that the outmoded sector-based system works fine on the SSD. If you clone onto an SSD from a HDD, however, there is a very high probability that the alignment will be off. What this means, in practical terms, is that you will radically increase your SSD read/writes and decrease performance because of the poor alignment. You’ll be wearing out and slowing down the drive, all over something as tiny as data misalignment.
Before you continue, you need to be sure you have your SSD properly installed in your computer. If so, it’s time to fire up DISKPART. To properly use DISKPART, we need to open up a command prompt in Windows 7 with elevated privileges. To do so navigate to All Programs –> Accessories and right click on Command Prompt; select Run as administrator (alternately you can typ
e cmd in the run box and press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER).

Once the prompt is open type in the following commands, in the following order. Read the commands and the accompanying notation very carefully or you will erase the wrong disk.

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk n (where n is your SSD’s number as provided by the previous command)
Create partition primary align=1024
Active

Exit

Now your SSD is ready to rock; it’s properly set up and aligned.

 

[bj33813]

Sorry, should have added this also (all info came - I think, came from how to geek:

Booting Back Into Windows and Tweaking Your SSD

Once you are back into Windows, running off your brand new SSD of course, it’s time to go through and toggle a variety of settings. When you do a fresh Windows 7 to SSD installation Windows toggles these settings for you. Ideally Windows 7 should detect the SSD and make the proper changes but we’re not going to take any chances when it only takes a few minutes to check. You can re-run the “Windows Experience” program to toggle some of the settings but doing so takes just about as many clicks as checking those settings yourself.

Make sure TRIM is turned on. TRIM is a special set of commands that help SSDs effectively manage empty space on the disk (if you’re curious you can read more here). Open up the command prompt and type in the following command:

fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

This lengthy command has a very simple output, either a 0 or a 1. If you get a 1, TRIM is not enabled. If you get a 0, TRIM is enabled. If you need to enable it type the following command:

fsutil behavior set DisableNotify 0

Turn off defragmentation. There is no need to defragment an SSD and doing so on a regular basis will radically shorten the life of your drive. Open the start menu and, in the run box, type dfrgui to open the Disk Defragmenter. Click on the Schedule button and then uncheck Run on a schedule (recommended). Your days of running a defragmenter are over.

Turn off indexing. Driving indexing is a relic of the HDD age. SDD drives are so lightening fast you don’t need a file index to help offset drive lag. You’re wasting time and disk read/writes by leaving it on. Go to My Computer, right click on your new SSD drive, and uncheck Allow files on this drive to have contexts indexed… to turn off the indexing.

 

[saltyseadog]

Thanks a lot for the information.

 

[Tim Locke]

If you use the software that comes with the SSD to clone it that software will align the SSD correctly....but IIRC the Samsung way is to clone via USB which is slow. Done that! I have also used software from Paragon to do this which works by plugging the new drive into a spare SATA socket...all desktop mobos have at least 1 spare. This is fast and Paragon also gets alignment right. The Paragon s/w runs fine on W10

I have Samsung 840s 2 * 250Gb and 1 * 128 GB in my 3 machines

I would do the cloning before going to W10...just because...

 

[saltyseadog]

If you use the software that comes with the SSD to clone it that software will align the SSD correctly....but IIRC the Samsung way is to clone via USB which is slow. Done that! I have also used software from Paragon to do this which works by plugging the new drive into a spare SATA socket...all desktop mobos have at least 1 spare. This is fast and Paragon also gets alignment right. The Paragon s/w runs fine on W10

I have Samsung 840s 2 * 250Gb and 1 * 128 GB in my 3 machines

I would do the cloning before going to W10...just because...

Thanks, I have a video from You Tube on how to align it. I am not ready to update to Win10 yet. In 4yrs with Win7 I have never even had so much as a single problem with it so until there are "much" more positive reviews on Win10 I prefer to just stick with Win7.

 

[Trouble]

so until there are "much" more positive reviews on Win10 I prefer to just stick with Win7.

Now that sounds like a good plan.
I like it.