New M6500 Discussion Thread

Sounds like your OS is on the 64GB mini drive, if you want to change the boot sequence you will have to change it in the BIOS. The first pic shows the primary SSD as the boot drive (installed under the battery). Obviously if you want to boot from the Intel SSD, you'll have to install your OS on that drive or clone your existing drive (recommend Acronis true image home 2010).

The second pic shows the recommended setting for SSD drives (AHCI). However, I do not recommend changing this setting unless you’re going to reinstall Windows 7 (assuming you are using W7).

 

Hi johnhace & skypx,



If you are using an SSD, you need to be in (AHCI) mode to use TRIM.
For that matter you what to be in ACHI mode for the performance gains, over RAID mode.


Trim will not work in (IRRT) RAID (dell's Default) mode. read my post# 2379






I hope this helps

 

that will not help johnhace because johnhace did downgrade to XP...
That doesnt support Trim anyway....

 

Hi joco,


That's ok; he still can get the performance gains of ACHI mode, over RAID mode.
And before you do a clean install, you should switch to ACHI mode before doing a clean install.


Or you will have to do a Registry Tweak to fix it.


The downgrade to XP, should have a Windows 7 DVD as well.





Hope this helps

 

i think the best thing to do is especially with SSD is not to downgrade
Why would you downgrade to a almost 10 year old OS?

 

Hi mannyA,

I did a clean installation on RAID and I changed after it with ACHI.
Win7 asked to reboot but I did not have to change the Registry myself...

 

Ok, it would seem as if I was correct about the M6500 not allowing SSDs to perform at their best. Not sure if it’s a limitation of the PM55 chipset or the current version of the BIOS (A02). Sequential reads/writes should be at least 10MBs more for both drives.


OZC Vertex 250GB


Crucial C300 256GB

Clearly the Crucial C300 is faster, but I didn't notice any measurable differences as a boot drive. The only difference was the way trim is implemented in Crucial's C300. It's not as pervasive as OCZ's Vertex. While downloading large files with a download manager, the process will often pause while trim does its thing (OCZ Vertex), this was not the case with the C300.

 

Cool, if the system does not crash while booting you're good to go.

 

Skypx and MannyA,

Thanks for the responses.

I'm just surprised the drive needs formating since the Intel docs say the computer should recognize the drive, I assumed it was preformatted.

Is there any special way to format a SSD, or just the normal way. It looks like I can use Diskmgmt.msc. Is this the right way?

BTW, my intention is to keep the 64 GB as an XP drive and install Win7 on the 160. Then I'll use the BIOS to select which to boot from. I'd like to have both for testing my apps.

One last question. If I get to where I don't need the 64 GB in the Covet, is it possible for me to move it to my old Inspiron 9400?

Thanks for your help.

 

Yes, that's the tool.

Should work, as it has SATA as well. The only problem could be that 64GB as the only storage is not too much as the Insprion 9400 holds only one drive.