Image via Wikipedia

Some people might not know that defragging an SSD can be very bad.  Actually, a specific SSD can be worn out faster than usual if someone has defragged it too often.  Anyhow, in the video right after the break, I’ll touch on why it is so!  For the bonus I show you how to turn off the Windows 7′s automatic defragmentation schedule for all hard drives, and then I also show you how to manually defrag the traditional hard drives.

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Imagine by today standard, a dual layer disk of Blu-ray can hold up to 50 GB of data.  If my math isn’t wrong, then it takes only 71.43 seconds for one to completely transfer the maximum data capacity of a a dual layer disk Blu-ray over this newest Thunderbolt version that Intel is working on.  It’s just plain awesome to see the transferring of data this large this fast!

A commenter on Gizmodo raises an issue where this newest Thunderbolt version yet might be useless, because there isn’t any storage technology that has yet to show it will also be able to read and write data at such speed.  But to point this out, the commenter is wrong about this if Wikipedia is on the money!  According to Wikipedia’s article “Solid-state drive,” and I quote verbatim:

At Cebit 2009, OCZ demonstrated a 1 terabyte (TB) flash SSD using a PCI Express ×8 interface. It achieves a maximum write speed of 654 megabytes per second (MB/s) and maximum read speed of 712 MB/s.[21] In December 2009, Micron Technology announced the world’s first SSD using a 6 gigabits per second (Gbit/s) or 600 (MB/s) SATA interface.

As you can see, I don’t think the future has to worry about achieving the 700 MB/sec write and read speed of a storage technology since OCZ had demonstrated that it could already done something similar in 2009.  If OCZ can, I think others will be able to do so too.  So, it’s naturally to assume, I should say safely assume, that a compatible storage technology with the newest Thunderbolt version yet might be readily available in the upcoming years.

Sources:  http://gizmodo.com/5844210/thunderbolt-will-become-even-faster++just-with-new-cables, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

Now, don’t you wish they’ve also invented the PC itself and the monitor and the external hard drive to use solar power?  How about the smart phones to use solar power?  I think it’s about time to push the solar power technology to the next level!

1. Check to see if your computer is supporting which type of SSD!  Some computers may support only SSDs that use SATA 2 controller only, therefore the latest SSDs that utilize SATA 3 controller for faster performance will be a waste on these computers!  Why?  Yes, SATA 3 SDD type is backward compatible with SATA 2 controller, but why buy SATA 3 SSD type when this type of SSD won’t be able to run at its full potential when it has to communicate with SATA 2 controller?  SATA 2 SSD type may max out around 3 Gb/s theoretically in terms of data transfer rate.  The latest and the best so far is SATA 3 SSD type, because SSDs that work with SATA 3 controller theoretically can have up to 6 Gb/s data transfer rate!
2. Make sure you use the right cable for your SSD, because it’s very important in delivering great performance for your SSD.
3. Sometimes, Windows 7 may have weird configuration which might not be best for your SSD.  One example is that SSD does not need to be defrag the same way as your HHD (i.e., hard drive with mechanical parts).  Instead, you should enable TRIM for SSD, because TRIM is somewhat how SSD does its defrag (certain SSD types may not support TRIM).
   • Furthermore, SSD does not wear out the same way as HHD, because it got no moving part!  Instead, you should worry about SSD’s life expectancy!  How?  Not allowing Windows to write unnecessary log files onto your expensive SSD, but you should disable such logs.  To disable certain unnecessary log files on Windows 7, do this:
     1. Click on the Start button (orb with a Windows flag)
     2. Right click on Computer
     3. Click on Manage
     4. Click on System Tools
     5. Expand Performance
     6. Expand Data Collector Sets
     7. Left click on Startup Event Trace Sessions
     8. Right click on any log name on the right panel to disable the log.  Important notice:  Do not disable EventLog-Application, EventLog-Security, and EventLog-System — these are important logs you should allow to run!
   • Furthermore, your SSD might be a lot smaller in size (i.e., hard drive space/volume) than normal HHD (at least it’s true right now), then you should think about freeing up some space on your SSD.  Here is one example, disable Windows Indexing to free up some space on your SSD.
   • Furthermore, there are conflicting ideas about if one should disable Windows Write Caching for SSD or otherwise.  I think you should try both to see how it works out for your SSD in terms of stability and performance.  Follow the steps below to either disable or enable Windows Write Caching for your SSD:
     1. Open up Control Panel
     2. Go to Hardware and Sound
     3. Click on Device Manager
     4. Scroll down to disk drives; expand disk drives.
     5. Right click on your SSD disk (assuming you know its volume label)
     6. Click on Properties
     7. Switch to Policies tab
     8. Uncheck or check the box that labels as “Enable write caching on the device!”

Following some tips above may help your SSD performs even better!

Disclaimer:  Please know your risks!  Following the tips in this blog post to improve your SSD performance at your own risks!

Source:  http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/windows-7/2441-windows-7-ultimate-solid-state-drive-speed-tweaks.html

Checking your RAM cards’ health on Windows 7 is a breeze.  Windows 7 has a utility for this very purpose, and so don’t you go and download any external software unless you want to have an additional confirmation from a third party software.  Anyhow, let us begin with the process of how to start a memory check on Windows 7.

1. Go to Control Panel >> System Security >> Administrative Tools
2. Double click on Windows Memory Diagnostic
3. A small pop up window will give you two choices.  You can do a memory check right away or you can check the memory for problems after the next cold boot (i.e., next time you start your computer).  Why don’t you pick the option check right away so a memory test can begin!
4. Your computer will restart right away after you pick the option of testing for memory right away.  You will see a blue screen of Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool, and at this screen you will eventually get a confirmation if your machine has a memory problem or not! (This process is very fast on my computer, but I’m not sure if it will be the same for all computers).
   • Stop the test by hit ESC key on your keyboard
   • Hit F1 key on your keyboard for more options
   • Letting the test finish, your computer will automatically restart on its own!
   • Computer had restarted on its own after the test, but no test result has shown?  It probably means that your system’s RAM cards are fine!

Good luck on getting one step closer to see why you have a BSoD or whatever answers you’re seeking for your hardware by completing a RAM health check!

The Open Source concept has worked great for software, but how about hardware?  The concept of open source for hardware isn’t yet popular.  In fact, we’ve rarely heard of such boldness in the hardware field.  This is all going to change as Facebook decides that hardware too should be open source.  Just like any other big players in the digital industry, Facebook has their own custom designs of hardware and data centers.  By custom designing their hardware and the infrastructure of their data centers, Facebook claims their non-traditional approach has substantially shaved costs in energy and hardware.  Going one step beyond the original intention, Facebook is releasing their custom designs such as specifications and so on of their hardware and data centers’ infrastructure through opencompute.org.  The idea is to let a community to grow around their project, and hopefully in the end something even better will be born.