OCZ IBIS SSD review

Installation and recommendations

Installing the product is really simple. Seat the SSD in a 3.5" slot, connect the HSDL cable, insert the add-on card in a PCIe slot and then boot into Windows and install the driver. After installation (a reboot is not even mandatory) you go to disk management and setup/format the drive. After that it's ready for usage. No need to setup anything in RAID, the controller is pre-configured for you.

The drive is bootable so all you have to do is to correctly install it then, in the BIOS, set it to boot drive (after the DVD-rom of course). During Windows setup, Windows will ask you where to install the OS, point windows to the RAID driver on the CD and after the installation, the partition is now in use as ROOT drive.

My system boot drive many moons ago was a WD Raptor and when that HD is crunching, you know the HDD is alive alright. That's just no longer a reality. You will look at the SSD wondering "is that thing even working?", while the Windows 7 logo has already appeared on your monitor.

So no more purring, resonating or other weird noises. Completely silent, I like that very much.

At the first boot up on the IBIS drive, it feels weird, I mean it's fast... really fast. That's where you'll get the first smile on your face. But let's talk about taking some precautions, remember this is an MLC based drive, we want it to last at least ten years right?

Some generic SSD Storage life-span recommendations

Drive wearing on any Flash based drive will always be a ghost in the back of your mind. Here are some recommendations and tips for a long lifespan and optimal performance. Basically, what is needed is to eliminate the HDD optimizations within Vista (that cause lots of small file writes like superfetch and prefetch), things like background HDD defragmentation (that causes lots of small file write drive activity). In short (and this is for Vista and Windows 7):

• Drive indexing disabled. (useless for SSD anyway, because access times are so low).
• Prefetch disabled.
• Superfetch disabled
• Defrag disabled.

So make sure you disable prefetchers. Also, especially with Vista and windows 7, make sure you disable defragmentation on the SSD disk. You do not have a mechanical drive anymore so it is not needed, let alone you do not want defragmentation to wear out your drive, and Vista does this automatically when your PC is in idle (picking it's nose).

Don't get me wrong though, you could do a defrag without any problems, you just do not want that to be regular.

For Superfetch/prefetchers and other services, at command prompt just type: services

Use Windows 7 / Vista's services to disable them. To disable defragmentation:

Windows 7 and Vista Automatic Defrag:

1. Click Start
2. Click Control Panel
3. Select the Control Panel Home
4. Click System and Maintenance
5. Under the Administrative Tools section at the bottom, click Defragment your hard drive
6. You may need to grant permission to open the disk defragmenter
7. Click or unclick Run automatically (recommended) depending on if you want this feature enabled or disabled.
8. Click OK

OR alternatively at the Vista start prompt just type : dfrgui

Now over time your SSD will get a little fragmented. Simply do manual defragment folks; the difference between daily automated defragmentation or doing it yourself once a year...is a big big difference.

Apply common logic and sense, always. And good news, Windows 7 will have many improvements and tips like shown above already automatically setup for you.

Windows 7 and the SSD TRIM feature**

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 support the TRIM function, which the OSs use when they detect that a file is being deleted from an SSD.

When the OS deletes a file on an SSD, it updates the file system but also tells the SSD via the TRIM command which pages should be deleted. At the time of the delete, the SSD can read the block into memory, erase the block, and write back only pages with data in them. The delete is slower, but you get no performance degradation for writes because the pages are already empty, and write performance is generally what you care about.

Note that the firmware in the SSD has to support TRIM, but the good news is that firmware updates are coming out for many SSDs to add TRIM support.

TRIM only improves performance when you delete files. If you are overwriting an existing file, TRIM doesn't help and you'll get the same write performance degradation as without TRIM.

** The IBIS does not support TRIM

Enable AHCI

The last tip we want to give you to gain a little extra performance boost is that you enable AHCI mode. AHCI mode can help out greatly in performance for SSDs. Now, if you swap out an HDD for an SSD with the operating system cloned and THEN enable AHCI in the BIOS, then you'll get a boot error/BSOD.

The common question is, is there a solution for this?

To answer that question (and as we do safely with all modern chipsets) there is a way to safely enable AHCI mode. Here we go:

1. Startup "Regedit
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlset / Services
3. Open msahci
4. In the right field left click on "start" and go to Modify
5. In the value Data field enter "0" and click "ok"
6. exit "Regedit"
7. Reboot Rig and enter BIOS (typically hold "Delete" key while Booting)

In your BIOS select "Integrated Peripherals" and OnChip PATA/SATA Devices. Now change SATA Mode from IDE to AHCI.

You now boot into windows 7 or Vista, and the OS will recognize AHCI and install the devices. Now the system needs one more reboot and voilla... enjoy the improved SSD performance.