Most modern operating systems run on modern SSDs. Plug in the driver, install the OS, and the default settings will get you a system that boots, runs games, and performs everyday tasks without any manual intervention. We’ve come a long way compared to a decade ago, but today’s default drives and motherboards are tailored to the widest range of hardware possible: battery-powered laptops, desktops with mixed SSD and HDD configurations, systems limited RAMand users who will never open the BIOS. For a hobbyist, some of these defaults are less than ideal, and they are release performance and potential endurance on the table.
Update the SSD firmware
This can be done before OS
If you choose to do anything on this list, I would prefer it. SSD firmware is more important than people think. For example, the Samsung 990 Pro shipped with software that caused health indicators to deteriorate at an unusually rapid rate, which was fixed via a firmware update. Users who buy drives with daily 0 firmware and haven’t updated their drivers will be vulnerable to such errors, and it’s not just Samsung drives. Many Phison-based drives have received updates that address stability issues, some of which have surfaced Sharply during the rollout of Windows 11 24H2 when certain models start to fail with the new Host Memory Buffer behavior. WD and SanDisk drives needed firmware updates before 24H2 could even install on affected systems.
You can install software after the OS, but actually the ideal windows system is before you load it with games, apps and configuration that you don’t want to risk. Once Windows is installed and the driver is up and running, any software update runs the risk of something small but real going wrong, and the consequences only get bigger the longer you use the build.
Samsung and Crucial both offer bootable ISOs that can update firmware without a running OS, which is the cleanest option if you want to tinker with UEFI and do the secure boot gymnastics these tools sometimes require. WD, SanDisk, and Kingston primarily route software updates through a Windows-based toolbar. If your only option after installing the OS is through Windows, it’s better than not updating at all.
Check NVMe PCIe mode and lane allocation
This is a must if you have multiple drives
Motherboards with multiple M.2 slots share PCIe lanes with other devices, and which slots share which lanes really depends on how your motherboard is designed and what chipset revision you have in your system. Placing your drives in the wrong slots can mean they will auto-negotiate with less bandwidth and older PCIe versions.
Check that each M.2 slot is set to the correct PCIe generation in the BIOS. Auto-negotiation usually gives the correct result, but forcing Gen4 or Gen5 removes the variable manually. If your main boot drive isn’t running at its rated speed, consult your motherboard manual to make sure you’re filling in the correct slots first before tackling the manual negotiation settings.
Turn off fast startup
Largely redundant on fast SSDs
Fast startup made sense on mechanical drives with slow boot times. The boot process on a modern NVMe system is already fast enough that the feature trade-offs aren’t worth it. This makes small, mostly unimportant writes to disk on each shutdown, but more importantly, it causes your filesystem to lock up in a way that breaks the binary boot settings. If you always plan on dual-booting Linux or swapping drives often, it’s worth turning off fast startup.
Disable indexing on secondary disks
It’s useful, but there are better alternatives
The Windows Search index is relatively harmless in terms of impact on your drive’s stability, but it’s worth disabling it for performance reasons. Disabling it will reduce background CPU and disk activity, which can appear as odd stutters, especially if you have large file folders on your boot drive. A better approach is to turn it off and use a third-party program like Everything by voidtools to search all your drives.
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Free
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Windows
Update the motherboard BIOS
It should be early in the download process
While they’re not a storage-specific upgrade, and certainly not something to pursue for their own sake, BIOS updates provide potential fixes and performance improvements for your memory. Motherboards ship with the BIOS version that is current when the board is packaged, which may be six months or a year behind what is shown on the vendor’s support page, so you should check for an update early in the installation process.
AM5 boards received AGESA updates regarding PCIe device compatibility under specific CPU and memory combinations, and Intel boards received similar updates that improved Rapid Storage Technology and VMD behavior.
Fast memory settings changes that make a real difference
Modern systems mostly just work and most users can leave it alone defaults single without problems. But an amateur build is not what these defaults are optimized for, and the five minutes spent on these changes during installation cheapest opportunity you’ll catch problems before they surface later.
