Why is the odd bay running at SATA2 in my AW14?

Hi guys,
I've been hoping to buy a new ssd for my AW14 to do raid 0
now the drive has finally arrived, I also bought a aftermarket hdd caddy for it
It's from ebay
(CAUTION: This one doesn't fit perfectly, I had to cut two little metal corners to fit it in)

After a quick check before erasing everything, I found that it's running at SATA2 (3Gbps)


Before purchasing such an expensive drive, I certainly did some research:
The post here

The official rep said the connection doesn't matter, all the sata ports are SATA3
What's wrong with mine? Certainly not the ssd, could it be the cheapo caddy I've got or something went wrong in the installation?

EDIT1: Sometimes the ssd isn't detected by windows (It shows up in bios), could it be that I bought a crappy caddy?

 

All SATA ports aside form the ODD bay should run at SATA III; the ODD bay runs at SATA II. The manual states SATA III and SATA II.
As to why the SSD isn't being recognized, it could be the caddy or how well fitted the SSD is in the caddy.

 

If you enter the post I linked, a alienware rep said all 3 sata ports are SATA3......

Just did more googling...
Some dude on this forum did do a 3 drives raid 0 on the AW14
occupying all three drive bays
And the speed is what SATA III should have
maybe the problem would be the caddy
It's sad that Dell Australia was extremely unhelpful when I asked about purchasing the official part

 

Why a Rep would say something different from the manual intrigues me. Unless someone else brings up evidence that he's right, what you are seeing is what should happen.
All of the ODD bays for of the latest Alienware laptops run at SATA II. If you want to run an SSD at SATA III, use the primary bay or get an mSATA.

 

Thanks for the help...
you may want to take a look at this bro on the forum...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-14-m14x/743827-aw14-3-x-250gb-raid-0-a.html
He did the raid 0, and the speed he got 1500MB/s sequential read is only achievable under SATAIII

 

Now I have to wonder how that is possible.

 

What you say must be wrong: Why do Dell set up Alienware 17 and18 with all drives in raid 0, if odd bay running in sata II? Dell uses odd bay to the latest ssd drive in their complete raid 0. It makes no sense and use one of the disks in this RAID 0 setup with sata ll, when sata ll ruin the speed of the entire raid 0 setup.

 

You should not use a Hard Drive Caddy Bay intended for MacBook. Apple may have its obscure solutions to their pc, which maybe is not functioning on a Windows laptop. :thumbsup: I know from personal experience that among others, Dell's small mSATA disk often lose sata lII speed and run sata ll. It is not always hardware running smoothly. See my thread about mSATA speed: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...t-64m6m-msata-64gb-issue-running-3-0gb-s.html

 

Well, to be fair, some of the 1 TB Quad SSD set-ups Alienware has sold was an SSD boot drive + RAID across 3 SSDs. If you look at the last config of the 17, you see what I mean:

This may only apply to the 17 and 18, though. Because the manual for both state:

Nonetheless, this is good to know. I did not know the 14 was the only one of the 3 that had a SATA II port.

 

This raid 0 setup, Dell's Alienware 18 sold all the time (1TB SSD Quad Play RAID 0 (4x256GB SSD SATA 6Gb / s) and Optical Drive Not included. Earlier also this setup also been on the Alienware 17.

EDIT: Dell also sold various ssd setup in different countries, where they have sold their Alienware :cry:

 

In and out, they did never settle on which 4 SSD set-up. However, I do remember the 14 having the a similar thing I quoted about the 17, but since they don't sell it, a trip to webarchive may be in command.

 

Here in Norway I could not choose a good setup of my Alienware 17. That's why I chose the small mSATA drive and 750GB WD Black. I had arranged a deal with Dell on the phone at a price of $ 3500 on my Alienware 17. I replaced the hd to two vector OCZ ssd I had. Later bought me a Samsung 850 Pro that I replaced the one OCZ ssd. Now I have one OCZ vector as a Windows backup disk. All my laptop with new ssd drives, i7-4930mx, 32gbram, 120mhz 3dmonitor and gtx780m cost me max $ 3850. It is cheap in Norway.
Should I buy exactly the same setup now it had cost me over $ 5100 and there without getting 120mhz 3dmoinitor.