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I have a Windows 7 machine with an old HDD that sounds like it'll go any day now. I plan on replacing it with an SSD. The process should be relatively straightforward, since I have WHS and the machine in question is backed up.

However, I'm unsure whether Windows 7 is smart enough to realize that it has been restored onto an SSD and therefore switch to using TRIM and the like. Does anyone know either way?

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3 Answers 3

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TRIM support is dependent on your AHCI drivers. As long as you're using the default ones shipped with Windows 7 (msahci) or a comparable chipset driver that has TRIM support, you should be good to go.

I faced the same dilemma a year ago. After a lot of Googling, I came up with a few concerns about drive alignment issues that made me turn away from imaging. I decided to go with a clean install of Windows 7. Try searching for "ssd alignment" and hopefully you'll find some relevant information.

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  • Thanks. I'll do some more research. Really hope I can restore as it takes a long time to set up all the software I use.
    – Kent Boogaart
    Feb 10, 2011 at 9:59
  • If the partitions on the disk were created by Windows Vista/7, they're already correctly aligned for a standard SSD page size, and so a disk-to-disk image should preserve that if your software is worth a damn. In the specific case of WHS, I think the partition has to be existing already, yes? So just create it under 7. It's only XP that's a problem.
    – Shinrai
    Feb 10, 2011 at 15:17
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I thought that Trim was enabled by default in Windows 7 (and ignored if the disk is a hdd or an ssd that does not support trim).

You can check this behavior by typing (at an admin command prompt)

fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

should return DisableDeleteNotify = 0 if windows is sending the trim command.

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  • It does indeed return zero.
    – Kent Boogaart
    Feb 10, 2011 at 9:58
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TRIM should work fine. Your problem will be partition alignment. I believe whs restores into a partition. This means you can partition the SSD beforehand to get the proper alignment, and then restore into the already created partition.

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