SSD for XBMC drive on Asrock ION 330- upgrade now!!!!

Just thought that I'd post my impressions.

Windows 7 x 64, XBMC 11.0 Eden, HUGE library of 2000+ movies, and I think 12,000+ episodes, using the Customizable Confluence skin. I bought the Samsung 830 series SSD to go into my Asrock ION 3303 and replace the 5400 rpm hard drive that comes with it.

Three letters summarize my impressions: OMG!!!

My XBMC was getting a little bit sluggish, although I've done a ton of customization and performance tweaking. Or maybe because of that tweaking.

Anyway, everything is much faster - opening up XBMC, booting up, remote control clicks, moving up and down in levels within XBMC, updating the library.

Because of that, XBMC is once again - AWESOME!!!!!


(A couple of tips - install Windows 7 FRESH onto your SSD. There are some optimizations that Windows 7 does that won't be caught if you do a ghost image with Acronis or Ghost Norton. IMPORTANT - if you simply copy and paste your XBMC folder in AppData to the new XBMC AppData folder, your XBMC database will be copied over and won't have to be rediscovered).

Good to know, I've been using a small utility to keep an eye on drive activity and when I'm browsing around XBMC, there sure is a lot of hits on the boot drive. I'm a little concerned that kind of usage would have a negative effect on the wear level of the SSD, any thoughts on that?

Been using one in mine since 2009 with no issues and still seems as fast as the day I put it in there....

(2012-07-15 08:03)steppedup Wrote:  Just thought that I'd post my impressions.

Windows 7 x 64, XBMC 11.0 Eden, HUGE library of 2000+ movies, and I think 12,000+ episodes, using the Customizable Confluence skin. I bought the Samsung 830 series SSD to go into my Asrock ION 3303 and replace the 5400 rpm hard drive that comes with it.

Three letters summarize my impressions: OMG!!!

My XBMC was getting a little bit sluggish, although I've done a ton of customization and performance tweaking. Or maybe because of that tweaking.

Anyway, everything is much faster - opening up XBMC, booting up, remote control clicks, moving up and down in levels within XBMC, updating the library.

Because of that, XBMC is once again - AWESOME!!!!!


(A couple of tips - install Windows 7 FRESH onto your SSD. There are some optimizations that Windows 7 does that won't be caught if you do a ghost image with Acronis or Ghost Norton. IMPORTANT - if you simply copy and paste your XBMC folder in AppData to the new XBMC AppData folder, your XBMC database will be copied over and won't have to be rediscovered).

By chance was all your movie posters for your movies loading very slow with your 5400RPM Drive? And do they now load instantly with your new SSD Drive?

See I currenly have XBMC installed on this computer http://usa.asus.com/Eee/EeeBox_PC/EeeBox_PC_EB1021/

And when I scroll though all my movies the posters from all my movies load very slow. I think the CPU is to blame but I ma not 100% sure. If I were to upgrade to an SSD like yours would the movie posters always load instantly?

How do your computers specs compare to mine?

(2012-07-16 05:46)PatK Wrote:  Good to know, I've been using a small utility to keep an eye on drive activity and when I'm browsing around XBMC, there sure is a lot of hits on the boot drive. I'm a little concerned that kind of usage would have a negative effect on the wear level of the SSD, any thoughts on that?

From what I've read, the single biggest hit would come from leaving defrag on when it comes to SSD's.

Also, you can reduce SSD wear and tear by turning off Windows Search Index service.

Will XBMC also cause degradation? Possibly - but with 256 GB SSD's costing around $125, I'd be happy to replace the hard drive every year at a monthly cost of $12.50.

Because I'm getting more than $12.50 satisfaction per day in terms of responsiveness of my HTPC now. Love the SSD!!!

(2012-07-18 01:56)gate1975mlm Wrote:  

(2012-07-15 08:03)steppedup Wrote:  Just thought that I'd post my impressions.

Windows 7 x 64, XBMC 11.0 Eden, HUGE library of 2000+ movies, and I think 12,000+ episodes, using the Customizable Confluence skin. I bought the Samsung 830 series SSD to go into my Asrock ION 3303 and replace the 5400 rpm hard drive that comes with it.

Three letters summarize my impressions: OMG!!!

My XBMC was getting a little bit sluggish, although I've done a ton of customization and performance tweaking. Or maybe because of that tweaking.

Anyway, everything is much faster - opening up XBMC, booting up, remote control clicks, moving up and down in levels within XBMC, updating the library.

Because of that, XBMC is once again - AWESOME!!!!!


(A couple of tips - install Windows 7 FRESH onto your SSD. There are some optimizations that Windows 7 does that won't be caught if you do a ghost image with Acronis or Ghost Norton. IMPORTANT - if you simply copy and paste your XBMC folder in AppData to the new XBMC AppData folder, your XBMC database will be copied over and won't have to be rediscovered).

By chance was all your movie posters for your movies loading very slow with your 5400RPM Drive? And do they now load instantly with your new SSD Drive?

See I currenly have XBMC installed on this computer http://usa.asus.com/Eee/EeeBox_PC/EeeBox_PC_EB1021/

And when I scroll though all my movies the posters from all my movies load very slow. I think the CPU is to blame but I ma not 100% sure. If I were to upgrade to an SSD like yours would the movie posters always load instantly?

How do your computers specs compare to mine?

In XBMC, the single biggest thing you can do to speed up movies posters is to enable dds...see this thread.

I had already done that but my library is so big that it was still loading slow. Upgraded to SSD and boom! Super quick loading of everything including movies poster scrolling.


Regarding the comparison of our two systems - looks like your memory is DDR3 compared to the DDR2 in mine. So, depending on how your GPU performs, I'd say your system is even better.

(2012-07-18 07:51)steppedup Wrote:  

(2012-07-18 01:56)gate1975mlm Wrote:  

(2012-07-15 08:03)steppedup Wrote:  Just thought that I'd post my impressions.

Windows 7 x 64, XBMC 11.0 Eden, HUGE library of 2000+ movies, and I think 12,000+ episodes, using the Customizable Confluence skin. I bought the Samsung 830 series SSD to go into my Asrock ION 3303 and replace the 5400 rpm hard drive that comes with it.

Three letters summarize my impressions: OMG!!!

My XBMC was getting a little bit sluggish, although I've done a ton of customization and performance tweaking. Or maybe because of that tweaking.

Anyway, everything is much faster - opening up XBMC, booting up, remote control clicks, moving up and down in levels within XBMC, updating the library.

Because of that, XBMC is once again - AWESOME!!!!!


(A couple of tips - install Windows 7 FRESH onto your SSD. There are some optimizations that Windows 7 does that won't be caught if you do a ghost image with Acronis or Ghost Norton. IMPORTANT - if you simply copy and paste your XBMC folder in AppData to the new XBMC AppData folder, your XBMC database will be copied over and won't have to be rediscovered).

By chance was all your movie posters for your movies loading very slow with your 5400RPM Drive? And do they now load instantly with your new SSD Drive?

See I currenly have XBMC installed on this computer http://usa.asus.com/Eee/EeeBox_PC/EeeBox_PC_EB1021/

And when I scroll though all my movies the posters from all my movies load very slow. I think the CPU is to blame but I ma not 100% sure. If I were to upgrade to an SSD like yours would the movie posters always load instantly?

How do your computers specs compare to mine?

In XBMC, the single biggest thing you can do to speed up movies posters is to enable dds...see this thread.

I had already done that but my library is so big that it was still loading slow. Upgraded to SSD and boom! Super quick loading of everything including movies poster scrolling.


Regarding the comparison of our two systems - looks like your memory is DDR3 compared to the DDR2 in mine. So, depending on how your GPU performs, I'd say your system is even better.

I just installed the Samsung 830 128GB SSD into my EeeBox PC EB1021 and it will not show up in the bios at all

Is there anything special you did for it to work?

Looks like I either have a dead SSD drive or its not compatable with my computer.

I hope I can get a refund from Amazon.

I really am curious what would be different, if you clone or install Windows 7 again? I did both and was not able to see any difference... Well maybe 4k alignment, just use HDClone and it is possible to change this too while cloning. What really was strange even the defrag task was still active, when installing W7 on a ssd... Is there any official comparison from Microsoft, because so many websites claim to know what should be changed or what is best for ssds?

Christian