Finally, they arrived, 2 Corsair X64 SSD’s with my name on them. As all new SSD drives are 2.5″ i will need to locate some 3.5″ to 2.5″ adaptors and will post a link when i get it. However the SATA II Raid controller never showed up so I’m going to make do for now with my Desktop, in order to begin the tests i must first explain the rig i am using and the reasons.
My Home PC is water-cooled and quite the effort filled task to undo drives and try not have my ICH9 Raid array decide to Rebuild itself, or worse run a check and repair which last time i ran it took over 24 hours. So without the RAID SATA 2 card (Adaptec) i had to run some tests using my Work PC.
Dell Optiplex 755
Windows Server 2008 R2
Intel Core 2 Duo E7500
8GB DDR2
ATI HD 2400 Pro 256MB
In order to run a benchmark i installed server 2008 R2 (trial) on a 250GB SATA 2 Drive as a 34.47 GB Partition.
I added the Hyper V Role, updated windows and ran a backup to a second drive.
This backup took a minor 2 minutes for a complete File and System Image backup. I then installed a single SSD and restored the image onto this drive.
A Table of Comparisons:
| SATA2 250GB HDD | SATA2 64GB SSD | |
| Boot Time (to Login Screen) | 45 | 18 |
| Login (locally) | 9 | 5 |
| Idle after login & open SRV MGR | 26 | 6 |
| Open Internet Explorer | 8 | 1 |
| Chkdsk (0 Errors) | 16 | 6 |
| Defrag (0% Fragmentation) | 22 | 22 |
| Backup | 2 mins | < 2 mins |
| Restore | 2 | 2 |
| Shutdown | 12 | 10 |
Some simple Disk Benching software showed the SSD’s to be over 600% more efficient at Random Disk Seeks on a simulated busy database server.
However i am not continuing these tests as the Adaptec SATA Raid Card arrived on Friday and on Monday i should have a new test server (HP ML350 G4) with SCSI 320 disks for comparison in RAID 0/1/10.
*Update*
2 of these SSD’s have failed. Corsair have replaced both but this failure rate has knocked a hole in my belief that they can do the job.
I had put 4 of them in a production server and now i’ve gone back to SAS drives.
hdd · server 2008 · ssd
Kostadin · June 20, 2010 at 8:21 am
Hi, how did you restore to the SSD?!
When I recover from the image of my system, it only allows me volumes on the HDD drive as a destination for the restoration!
I use windows server 2008 R2 backup/recover!
Kostadin · June 20, 2010 at 8:22 am
For clarification, my ssd is bigger than the windows volume!
Author comment by Conor · June 20, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Honestly it was rather simple.
I used Server Backup to an external USB drive.
I would recommend disconnecting the original drive entirely and connecting your new SSD when attempting the restore.
However since you have tried this and it does not work the next question would be if it sees the SSD at all? Simply try the restore with just the SSD. Then if it doesn’t detect, try a new install using just the SSD.
Also are you using a RAID controller?
What details can you give me?
Author comment by Conor · August 9, 2010 at 11:55 am
FYI the simplest solution to restoring Server 2008 R2 / Windows 7 to a smaller drive is to use Acronis True Image. This will restore to any drive.
Add the Universal Restore Option and you will be as happy as a pig in mud.