XP on SSD life span

[tallywho]

Let me start out by saying that I understand most of the reasons not to put windows xp on SSD. I have read countless forums and articles with all the reasons why its not the best idea. However what i can't find is any articles or posts past 2010-2013. I have a computer with a very specialized program whose creators no longer exist, don't have the software and is impossible to get. I have successfully cloned the old XP hard drive to a newer one as the old one was getting slow. However, I was curious and cloned the XP to a 120 Samsung SSD and booted with it. I had zero problems with the clone or boot on the SSD, everything worked just fine. Not only did it work just fine but it worked 10X better than the brand new WD 500 Black edition 7200rpm drive. the boot time on and load times for programs were 10x faster across the board. And the program that I'm running, runs leaps and bounds better with the SSD than it does the WD HDD. This doesn't really surprise me. However, I understand that there is quite a bit of degradation on the SSD being in an XP environment and can significantly shorten the life of the SSD.

My Questions to anyone who is reading this:

1. Does anybody have an XP Pro computer running on an SSD currently?
2. How long ago did you clone/install to the SSD?
3. Have you noticed any long-term issues with it?

The reason I ask this is if the SSD only lasts 3 years and then I need a new one; great! I would gladly take the performance increase and replace the SSD every 2 years if i knew it would last that long " without running any of the optimizations other than disabling Disk Defrag" I'm trying to get a gauge on how long it will last in an XP environment with everything enabled, cache, system restore, etc... I have looked and looked and I can't find anyone who has said " eh let’s see how long this will last" and then posted something that said “well I got 2 years out of it and then it took a dump”

I have not come across a program that will "Ghost the Programs in-tacked" to windows 7. I wish so much that I had this option. If anyone knows of a program that can do this that would be great. Thank you for reading this and your time. Cheers!

 

[t53186]

Life depends on usage. The feature missing in XP is TRIM. A bit of software that levels the usage of individual memory "cells", thereby extending the overall life. I personally think too much hype is posted without enough science to back it up.

 

[mcnumpty23]

whats the program/software that will only run on xp?

windows 7 and above may be able to run it in compatibility mode

or in a virtual xp

and think intel and samsung drives at least you can manually run trim in their respective softwares

 

[superj]

I wouldn't hesitate to put XP on a SSD. There is a lot of FUD about SSD wearing out prematurely. I've had an SSD die on me (Sandforce based), but I bet most dead SSDs are not from wear but from failure of components or bad firmware.

It's true that newer OSes are SSD aware but older ones still see substantial benefits. You could pull the drive out occasional and check it on a newer machine with a utility like Samsung Magician if it's a Samsung drive. You would be able to see the % wear and look at the lifetime writes. A windows 7 install on a improperly aligned partition has huge write amplification but it still takes a long time to wear out a drive.

If you're concerned go with a top tier drive and don't fill it right up. The biggest thing you can do for insurance is to add more flash to wear level over, especially if you'll have dubious TRIM support.

 

[boosted1g]

If your software just runs a service and is not writing data then it should actually last a pretty decent amount of time.

If the software is writing to the hard drive then it all matters how much data per day is bieng writtn.

You can overcome this a few different ways.
1) manually run trim from the drives respective software program.
2) run XP in a virtual machine being ran by win7 or newer OS

 

[tallywho]

Thanks you guys for the quick replies. Its a cabinet design software that no longer exists, i don't have the install disk/software for it anymore and have scoured the internet for years trying to find it with no luck. It was never designed for windows 7 but i wouldn't mind having a go at it if i could actually reinstall the software. So that's why I'm just trying to find someone who has ran an SSD on with XP to see what kind of life they have gotten out of it with nothing special done.

 

[boosted1g]

Thanks you guys for the quick replies. Its a cabinet design software that no longer exists, i don't have the install disk/software for it anymore and have scoured the internet for years trying to find it with no luck. It was never designed for windows 7 but i wouldn't mind having a go at it if i could actually reinstall the software. So that's why I'm just trying to find someone who has ran an SSD on with XP to see what kind of life they have gotten out of it with nothing special done.

Have you tried just transfering the Program Files folder to another PC?
A good amount of specialty programs do not make registry keys or add anything to user data folders so it is at least worth a shot,

 

[tallywho]

Thanks you guys for the quick replies. Its a cabinet design software that no longer exists, i don't have the install disk/software for it anymore and have scoured the internet for years trying to find it with no luck. It was never designed for windows 7 but i wouldn't mind having a go at it if i could actually reinstall the software. So that's why I'm just trying to find someone who has ran an SSD on with XP to see what kind of life they have gotten out of it with nothing special done.

Have you tried just transfering the Program Files folder to another PC?
A good amount of specialty programs do not make registry keys or add anything to user data folders so it is at least worth a shot,

Yes I have, unfortunately it has a goofy USB security key that has to be plugged into the computer. I transferred the program at one point but it had lots of errors as the installation process wrote lots of values to the registry. Also i could not get the USB security key to initialize because it needs a stupid program installed that's on the original CD that " won't copy over"

 

[boosted1g]

I see, in that case without the orignal installation media then you are sort of "stuck with what you got".

You really need to find an alternative or get the installation media and the usb key.
Can you contact the software maker?
While you now have multiple copies of the OS which is a very very needed first step, but if any critical part (espicelly the motherboard) stops working in that 10+ year old computer then you have no way to restore the software if you have to reinstall windows.
This is a cost of doing business and waiting until shit hits the fan to find/impliment a modern replacement is going to cost a lot more moeny.

 

[tallywho]

I see, in that case without the orignal installation media then you are sort of "stuck with what you got".

You really need to find an alternative or get the installation media and the usb key.
Can you contact the software maker?
While you now have multiple copies of the OS which is a very very needed first step, but if any critical part (espicelly the motherboard) stops working in that 10+ year old computer then you have no way to restore the software if you have to reinstall windows.
This is a cost of doing business and waiting until shit hits the fan to find/impliment a modern replacement is going to cost a lot more moeny.

So far this is what ive done.

1. I have 3 cloned working copies of the XP OS 1 on an SSD, 2 on new WD 500GB HDDs cost $60.00
2. I have purchased 2 used, (i tested them ) working Motherboards of the same exact model and chipset with procs. cost- $45.00
3. The money it generates 500k per year

And yes im still in the research to get this program off and on windows 7. No the software provider has gone out of business and did not sell it to someone else. Thus i have been trolling on ebay for years now trying to find it as well as other sites and forums. how ever after 2 years, i will no longer need this program. As i will be migrating to a new due to this and other issues. The migration wont happen for 2 years though. so im just biding my time until then. So if i can get 2 years out of 1 SSD on xp and it performs 10X better then im happy.

With that being said, if any of you have any "real world stats" on your own XP on SSD computers, that would be fantastic to get kinda of gauge as to how long i could use this setup for. Thank you for all of your suggestions and help you all are really awesome!

 

[boosted1g]

I see, in that case without the orignal installation media then you are sort of "stuck with what you got".

You really need to find an alternative or get the installation media and the usb key.
Can you contact the software maker?
While you now have multiple copies of the OS which is a very very needed first step, but if any critical part (espicelly the motherboard) stops working in that 10+ year old computer then you have no way to restore the software if you have to reinstall windows.
This is a cost of doing business and waiting until shit hits the fan to find/impliment a modern replacement is going to cost a lot more moeny.

So far this is what ive done.

1. I have 3 cloned working copies of the XP OS 1 on an SSD, 2 on new WD 500GB HDDs cost $60.00
2. I have purchased 2 used, (i tested them ) working Motherboards of the same exact model and chipset with procs. cost- $45.00
3. The money it generates 500k per year

And yes im still in the research to get this program off and on windows 7. No the software provider has gone out of business and did not sell it to someone else. Thus i have been trolling on ebay for years now trying to find it as well as other sites and forums. how ever after 2 years, i will no longer need this program. As i will be migrating to a new due to this and other issues. The migration wont happen for 2 years though. so im just biding my time until then. So if i can get 2 years out of 1 SSD on xp and it performs 10X better then im happy.

With that being said, if any of you have any "real world stats" on your own XP on SSD computers, that would be fantastic to get kinda of gauge as to how long i could use this setup for. Thank you for all of your suggestions and help you all are really awesome!

In that case sounds like you have all of your bases covered.. Just run the Drive's trim program manually from time to time and you should be completley alright.

 

[mjslakeridge]

Do the contents of your drive change much or is it pretty static? If the latter, I would just make disk images of the SSD from time to time (weekly, monthly), and store them on one of your other drives. I use Acronis True Image Home and have restored to a new HDD several times (not because of drive failure, but virus's that I couldn't get rid of). It also has a feature that schedules incremental backups, consolidates the incrementals after x backups, can validate the backup archives, etc. but I just do mine manually about once per month because my OS drive doesn't change much. My data is backed up differently.

If you are only needing this to last for 2 more years, I think this would work for you. Just don't let the SSD get too full (90% max, probably less in your situation).

 

[mcnumpty23]

if its generating 500k a year then get as many ssds as your motherboard can take

clone to each one of them--and schedule clones so they all stay up to date

if you had say 4 ssds i really cant see them all failing in two years

run trim manually from samsung magician assuming using samsung drives regularly

when a drive shows signs of getting very sluggish even with that --secure erase it and clone back to it

 

[rkzhao]

With that being said, if any of you have any "real world stats" on your own XP on SSD computers, that would be fantastic to get kinda of gauge as to how long i could use this setup for. Thank you for all of your suggestions and help you all are really awesome!

It hard to apply anyone else's experience to yours directly since it depend much more on general workload than your OS.
I can kill a 120GB Client Samsung SSD on linux in a week if I wanted to just burn through the NAND.

You should expect as much life as pretty much any other OS. If you want to, just monitor the useage with any SMART info tool. The "SSD Life Left" that tools report is talking about this NAND P/E cycle wear. There is also a TBW (endurance) spec for SSDs which is pretty much a projected total TB that can be written to an SSD.

Regarding XP, the reason people say not to use an older OS for a SSD is the lack of the Trim feature like
t53186 mentioned. This is a performance concern, not a lifespan concern. For SSDs, the NAND has to be "erased" before it can be written to. As you might know from people talking about HDDs and data recovery, when you delete a file on an OS, all it does is delete the file reference in software, it doesn't physically erase the data. Trim lets the OS tell the SSD to also physically erase unused data. Without it, the SSD will wait until you want to write over that sector before erasing it, so it slows down your write speed if you are writing to an unerased block.

 

[USAFRet]

If you only need it for 2 years, you're fine.

Grab a couple of identical SSD's,
Do a clone to one of them daily, or every other day.
Do a clone to the other one once a week or month.

In the unlikely event of the current one dying, you have a fallback position with the other drives.
But I do not think the current one will die int he next two years due to lack of OS TRIM support.
Just don't fill the drive up. Leave it at 50-75% full.