Hi,

My boot disk was a SATA HDD with 3 logical drive C:, E: and F:.
C: has WinXP installed on it.
E: holds data required by programs to start running and temp folders.
F: is the drive I install all my applications or programs.

I just replace that SATA HDD (I found it developing bad sectors) with a 120GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD and because I am rather busy nowadays, I have decided to simply restore the HDD's recent image to the SSD and start using the SDD as my boot disk.

For all info and knowledges that I have collected about SSD, I now have some questions and am seeking for advices/answers:

1. Can partitioning a SSD drive decrease its lifespan?
(I mean am I actually cutting short the lifespan of my SSD unnecessarily by keeping the 3 logical drives structure)
For my case, E: > F: or C: in term of file changes. (E: has temp folders, whenever a program has an option for me to specify its temp folder, I will set it to a folder in E:). Since I has restricted many creation and deletion of temp files to only take places in drive E:, it seems that I am forcing higher frequncy of file changes to occur only at a limited area of the SSD (the scope of drive E:)... so is the above concern of mine really matter?

2. I am glad to know that PerfectDisk 12 has a SSD optimization that specially designed to catter for SSD defragmentation and I have read their idea of creating continuos free space blocks to increase SSD writing rate. I plan to buy a license for the Pro version of PD. But after thinking for a while it seems that something is not right about creating few big block of free space on SSD... it seems that PD12's idea of free space consolidation is simply a shift of time to erase area of SSD that could be written later. I mean, it is just a matter of erasing an area on SDD on-the-fly while writing data (without using PD12's SSD optimization at all) or pre-erase (using PD12) that area for future writes... and the amount of changes (thus the time they required) to the SSD are actually the same either way. Am I right that, PD12's SSD optimization should always be done with its Stealth Petrol scheduling mode? Because otherwise it forfeit the "increase write performance" claim!

3. If I choose to let PD12 does the SSD optimization for me with Stealth Petrol mode, how do I determine a reasonable fragmentation threshold percentage for PD12 to start that optimization? Or does that percentage setting field has become meaningless for SSD optimization since we are now talking about free space fragmentation instead of occupied space fragmentation... Or, may be I should ask this another way, when SSD optimization is concerned, if I place a non-zero value in fragmentation threshold percentage field, will that affect when to start optimzation, if the answer is yes, does the % apply to free space or occupied space?

4. I think the author of this article is too much http://www.speedguide.net/articles/ssd-speed-tweaks-3319, is a bit paranoid in elongating the lifespan of a SSD until he forgets the purpose of using a SSD is mainly for higher performance (otherwise I see no reason why one will not go for a HDD instead). Is there anyone here have any idea how long my SSD can last if I simply use it as I were using a SATA HDD and do not do anything as suggested by that article?

Please feel free to tell me anything about SSD that you think is crucial even if it isn't answering any of the above... thank you.

My main problem in upgrading to the PRO version is really strange...

I have assigned different icon to almost all my Macro Express 3.x macros and those icons are stored in few ICL files.
I place those ICL files either:
1. In a HDD folder or
2. In a folder on my RamDrive. (Created with QSoft RanDrive, http://members.fortunecity.com/ramdisk/Download/download_and_003.htm)

Macro Express Pro crashes or become unstable if it tries to open/access a macro (converted from ME3) which has been assigned an icon from a ICL file sit on my RamDrive (case 2. above). If the assigned icon is from a HDD (case 1. above) then there won't be a problem.

Macro Express 3.x, True LaunchBar, Axialis IconWorkShop all have no problem openning icon in those ICL files that sit on my RamDrive, except for this crazy Macro Express Pro...

Anyone here care to help me confirm my findings?
Just grab a copy of QSoft RamDrive from the above address and place the attached ICL file on the RamDrive created by it then try to assign your Macro Express Pro macro with an icon from the ICL (particularly icon#3, you should see it crashes...

I haven't used it on my Win7 machine, only on XP (and for a couple of years now), but haven't seen any problems on XP.

-wraith808 (May 19, 2011, 07:26 AM)

Are you sure?
I just tried it in WinXP+Sp3, its macro explorer is quite buggy.

I can tolerate problem due to version incompatibility, i.e. I understand that since commands have been changed in PRO version, so some old macro might not work correctly.

However, my macro (about 80 of them are not that complex) all run fine after being converted to PRO format. I just can't Open some of my macro with script editor (it just crashes) or after opened one macro that immediately place macro explorer into a "crash ready to go next" status... i.e. if I touch anything else, it crashes. It is buggy... sigh!