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Tim Bateson
12-01-2016, 9:28 PM
Lately Corel is dragging it's feet to save files on my Windows i7 PC with Corel X6. Tonight I cloned my system onto a SSD and sometime in the next day or two will attempt to switch to it. I'm not only expecting better boot times, but really hoping the file saving speed jumps as well. It use to be barely noticeable, now I have to sit and wait for each save to complete.

Anyone here had a chance to do this yet?

lee cox
12-01-2016, 9:35 PM
If your hard drive slows down defrag it and make sure power saving mode does not shut down the machine until the defrag is done. As you get close to capacity on a hard drive they slow down as they are having to seek space here and there to write files which slows response time.

Tim Bateson
12-01-2016, 9:39 PM
PCmatic does that for me. I just checked the system defrag & it showed last defraged on the 25th and still at 0% fragmentation.

Glen Monaghan
12-01-2016, 9:48 PM
How full is the drive? You generally don't want your system drive getting anywhere near full as that bogs the system down.

David Somers
12-01-2016, 9:53 PM
Tim, I havent switched to an SSD yet but hope to. Camelcamelcamel (a 3rd party Amazon price watcher just advised me of a big price drop on Samsung 1T SSD's into the $240 range which is quite good.

But, if your machine is young enough to be an I7 (duo core or quad?) and a decent amount of RAM my first guess is you need to first, look at how your Windows 10 Virtual Memory is setup. If you are using the default settings it is likely that it is dynamic, changing as needed. As your disk gets fragmented so does this file and it becomes a drag on your speed, including disk writing. Look at what Windows is recommending its default size should be. Make note of it and Quadruple that number on your note. Then turn off Virtual Memory. Windows will complain mightily. Ignore it. Reboot. When you come back up defragment your current Hard Disk/ When it is done, do it again, and possibly after that a third time. Each time will be faster. Once that is done go back into Virtual memory, turn it on and set it to that quadrupled number you made note of. Set that as the minumum and maximum size. Now virtual memory will not keep changing its size and getting fragmented. Reboot once you save that setting.

Then, disable a bunch of programs that are likely running that you are unaware of by going into Windows Task Manager and choosing the Startup Tab. You can disable everything there without harm. If you later determine you want to have something autostart you can always come back and re-enable it. This will boost your startup and give the machine more oomph since fewer things will be running at the outset.

Lastly, clear all your caches in the machine.

Here is a link to a decent article on this and some other things you can do to boost performance.
http://searchenterprisedesktop.techtarget.com/tip/Make-Windows-10-performance-sing-by-tweaking-RAM-service-settings

Unfortunately with Windows you may have to do these once a year or so. Just the nature of Windows. The Mac OS is much better at managing these issues on the fly.

Hope this helps you!

Tim Bateson
12-01-2016, 9:54 PM
90%. I plan to use the SSD for the OS and all Programs and active work. Things that are only needed once a year or are archived from older jobs will be on the HD. This should create a lot of space on both the old HD and keep a lot of free space on the SSD. Of-course I also run a backup job once or twice a day to one of my networked drives.

David Somers
12-01-2016, 9:56 PM
Glen is right about space. 75% full is about max before you see a noticeable slowdown. That is true on Macs too. And, having said that, if you are 90% full I would almost guarantee you are having issues with fragmentation and your virtual memory file. Clean up before you do any of the things I described above.

Tim Bateson
12-01-2016, 10:05 PM
...if your machine is young enough to be an I7 (duo core or quad?) ...

Quad with 16 GB 1333 DIMMs

I do a lot with this computer. Currently as I'm typing this I am running 4 security camera monitors, My Christmas Light show - it's huge (www.liberty-laser.com/Christmas (http://www.liberty-laser.com/Christmas)), Corel X6, and watching Dish on my dual monitors. Still am only using 5 GB with 11 GB free.

I will look into the Virtual Memory. Sounds worth checking out,

Brian Leavitt
12-01-2016, 10:11 PM
I run my main computer -- the one that I use for the 3 US lasers -- off an SSD. The difference is astounding, to be honest. You will not regret it one bit. I don't have to wait for saves. My typically save file size is less than 1 MB, though. Even with larger files (60 MB+) it doesn't interrupt my work when saving. I have it set to auto backup every 5 minutes.

Michael Hunter
12-02-2016, 5:41 AM
The best thing about SSD is the startup time - between 10 and 20 seconds between turning the power on and being able to start work.

One thing to note - you must never de-frag an SSD. All it needs is a "trim" command now and then to tell the SSD controller to keep things tidy.
A clean install of Windows should detect the SSD and set it up accordingly.

Because I cloned my original setup from rotating disk, I found some instructions to change the Windows automatic maintenance settings from de-frag to trim. This was complicated and painfully techy, but seems to have worked OK. The disk tools always report that the drive needs de-fragging, but activating the de-frag button returns as completed instantly.

Bill George
12-02-2016, 7:48 AM
I have changed over 3 computers to Samsung SSDs. Yes I defrag, take stuff off I don't need, run a virus program and have plenty of RAM, the only one I could not upgrade RAM was a Samsung laptop go figure.
The performance improvements with the SSD was outstanding and after the first one the rest where easy. Yes boot times of about 10 seconds.

Gary Hair
12-02-2016, 9:25 AM
I have all of my machines on ssd drives, just changed the last one over a couple months ago. I saw a huge increase in speed and startup/shutdown are a fraction of what they were before. Don't worry about defragging before you do the switch, that doesn't affect an ssd because there is no such thing as seek time like a spinning drive, it's all instantaneous so defragging prior to the switch is a waste of time. The Samsung software did a great job of cloning the drive, all I had to do was re-register some of the software. Oh, make sure you actually log out of Corel on the old drive before you start up the ssd for the first time, otherwise the old machine will keep one instance of Corel as being installed.

Brian Leavitt
12-02-2016, 9:36 AM
Oh, make sure you actually log out of Corel on the old drive before you start up the ssd for the first time, otherwise the old machine will keep one instance of Corel as being installed.
This is worth repeating. I didn't do this when I swapped to the SSD and I ended up having to have Corel clear my registrations because I couldn't log in on my laptop.

Gary Hair
12-02-2016, 10:05 AM
This is worth repeating. I didn't do this when I swapped to the SSD and I ended up having to have Corel clear my registrations because I couldn't log in on my laptop.

Yep, I did that with Corel and Microsoft. Neither one took very long to get sorted out, but it could have been avoided very easily.

Tim Bateson
12-02-2016, 11:01 AM
OK, took about 30min to clone 400+/- GB from HD to SSD (AOMEI Backupper - freeware). I pulled the old drive out (save keeping for now). Selected the SSD to boot, then made all of the Windows 10 SSD optimization changes & restarted again. So far no glitches & haven't found anything that won't run.

Steve Clarkson
12-02-2016, 12:43 PM
I'm actually shopping for a new laptop and started looking into the whole SSD thing.....but I ruled it out because the only benefit seemed to be fast boot up times (which I don't care about at all)......or am I missing something?

I currently have Win7 and have been trying to delay the switch to Win10.

I was thinking of a 1TB HDD, 16MB RAM, and an i7 quad core as the three most important things to run Corel (X5) and the laser. Fonts (only 1,000 installed) really seems to affect performance.

Feel free to throw out any recommendations for me.....I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

Tim Bateson
12-02-2016, 1:07 PM
.....but I ruled it out because the only benefit seemed to be fast boot up times (which I don't care about at all)......or am I missing something?...

It's not only boot times.
1. All Read/Writes are faster.
2. Lower energy usage.
3. Hibernate no longer needed.
4. Superfetch no longer needed.
5. File Indexing no longer needed.
6. Defrag no longer needed - No fragmentation.
7. No moving parts -
--A. Reduces Energy
--B. Reduces Noise
--C. Reduces Heat

Bill George
12-02-2016, 1:08 PM
The whole machine runs faster, a lot faster. Not sure if they make 2.5 inch SSD for laptops?

Gary Hair
12-02-2016, 3:15 PM
The whole machine runs faster, a lot faster. Not sure if they make 2.5 inch SSD for laptops?

Everybody does. SSD drives can be postage stamp size since they are just a few chips. My fiber machines have 64GB "drives" that are 1.125" wide x 2" long x .125" thick.

Steve Morris
12-02-2016, 3:21 PM
One thing to keep in mind with SSD's is the max number of write cycles. Unlike HDD these chips can only be written to so many times then they fail (write induced wear).
Run health check software from time to time - probably twice a year - that will give you an assessment of SSD lifetime so you will be ready to replace the drive and data before total failure.

Otherwise they are great and you can drop them - try that with HDD, I have oops.

Gary Hair
12-02-2016, 3:24 PM
One thing to keep in mind with SSD's is the max number of write cycles. Unlike HDD these chips can only be written to so many times then they fail (write induced wear).
Run health check software from time to time - probably twice a year - that will give you an assessment of SSD lifetime so you will be ready to replace the drive and data before total failure.

Otherwise they are great and you can drop them - try that with HDD, I have oops.

I bought the higher end Samsung Pro drives because they have a 10 year warranty. Anything beyond that is pretty pointless as the machine will be so outdated that only Kev would have a use for it...

Jason Hilton
12-02-2016, 4:27 PM
All of my machines either came with or have been swapped over to SSD. You'll see dramatic speed improvements on boot times, app launches, and file loads. Spinning disks should only be used for long term storage and RAID arrays.

Tim Bateson
12-09-2016, 9:57 AM
Update: Although the PC was much faster, it still wasn't what I had expected. Discovered something this morning that more than doubled it's SSD speed. The instructions said to plug the SSD into a free power port (smaller cable). NOT TRUE!!!!! Since this is now my primary drive, it needed to be plugged into the Master port (Red), not a Slave port (Black). Made this change & now have the speeds I had expected. From cold boot to an active Corel session had been 5+ minutes (HHD), now just seconds.
NOTE: This is an Acer PC, other PCs may vary.

John Lifer
12-09-2016, 11:04 AM
No, you have it right. If you have plugged into slave, PC is looking for a master, then the slave. So it goes to reason times got better.
I started to go with the SSD on this refurb, but I'm kind of glad I didn't if there is actually a read/write maximum. I'll get one later and install.
As long as I'm only using this PC for the laser and internet it will be fast enough for a while. Much faster than my other PCs

Bill George
12-09-2016, 11:14 AM
I think its a Read-Write max to a certain area of the SSD. Since the software checks those areas and I would think block them from use, just as a HD does. My guess you will be either moving to another laptop or retired before you reach that max. Its kind of like walking everywhere to reduce mileage on your car.

The prices are so low today for a SSD you will recover the cost in speed of whatever your doing, and increased productivity.

Kev Williams
12-09-2016, 11:32 AM
I'm sure an SSD would help me, but I can trace all my slow computer crap right to Microsoft. I'm running an XP VP on my Win8, it runs like lightning compared to 8, unless Microsoft is poking their nose in my business, then the whole computer slows down 4-fold. And it's several times a day...

Tim Bateson
12-09-2016, 11:46 AM
More good news for those who like reliable OS (XP) - I'm told that the next generation Intel Processors - due out after the 1st of the year are not backward compatible & ONLY work with Windows 10 and above.

Michael Hunter
12-09-2016, 12:39 PM
For those worried about the write limit on SSDs -
I've had my main machine for about 2 years now : the SSD dashboard reports 96% life remaining.
At about 2% loss per year, the drive is likely to outlast the computer by quite a long way!

This is my main machine, on all day every day.
As I said in an earlier post, I have disabled de-fragging on the SSD (as defragging just wears the drive out unnecessarily).

Just have to live with the fact that Window's page files etc. (which get re-written all the time) are using up SSD life - to move the files to another drive would slow the machine right down and defeat the object of installing the SSD.

David Somers
12-09-2016, 3:45 PM
Michael,

2 things you can do to affect the use of Page Files.
1. Increase your RAM. If the machine can work more from RAM it will use Virtual Memory (Page Files) less.
2. Change Windows from using a dynamic Page File (the default) and bump the size of the page file up significantly (by a factor of 4 over the size it is recommending). That will prevent the page file from increasing and decreasing in size, but still allow it plenty of room. That also helps reduce the need to defrag, and fragmentations effect on the use of the page file. Though you did mention you have turned off defrag. So that last bit is much less important to you.

See if that helps at all.

Curt Harms
12-10-2016, 10:28 AM
More good news for those who like reliable OS (XP) - I'm told that the next generation Intel Processors - due out after the 1st of the year are not backward compatible & ONLY work with Windows 10 and above.

I think that's a bit of misunderstanding. Windows 7, 8 and probably XP should install and run. However recent features built into the processor won't be enabled when running OSs earlier than Windows 10. Microsoft and Intel are not developing drivers to support the newest processor functions for preWin10 OSs. At least that's what I've read. For desktops it's not an issue anyway, current generation processors will be available for years in the future. Laptops could be an issue, I guess we'll see.

David Somers
12-10-2016, 3:57 PM
That is what I am seeing too Curt!

Michael Hunter
12-11-2016, 9:35 AM
Michael,

2. Change Windows from using a dynamic Page File (the default)
See if that helps at all.

Thanks David
I'll set that up - it can't do any harm and might help prolong the life of the drive a bit more.