Adding a 2nd / second / dual MSATA SSD Storage Drive to DMC Slot?

I noticed that the M17x R4 has a DMC Slot, it looks like this:

How to remove the wireless display card on the Alienware M17x R4? | Dell



I also noticed that the M14x R2 also has a DMC Slot, which looks like this (basically the same thing!):

How to remove wireless card on the Alienware M14x R2? | Dell



Now, the DMC Slot in the M14x R2 can support either a wireless display card -- or -- a MSATA SSD storage card as seen here:

How to remove the mSATA SDD in the Alienware M14x R2? | Dell

And here, when you configure your M14x R2 (obviously, it's an either/or proposition):

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...el_id=alienware-m14x-r2&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19



Given that both of these DMC Slots look basically identical and both support wireless display cards, does anyone think the DMC Slot in our M17x R4 can also support a MSATA SSD storage card as well, like in the M14x R2?

If that's possible, then we could run dual MSATA SSD drives in RAID 0 configuration for our OS drives. That would be BLAZING FAST!!!

I wish I had an extra MSATA card to test this out!

What do you guys think, is this possible?

 

I assume its still a mSATA II connector? Would be limited to SATA II speeds, but I don't see why not. Just so damn expensive for a mSATA SSD these days.

 

$73 for 64gb MSATA

Isn't that about the same price as SATA SSD?

According to this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110-3.html

Dual SATA2 SSD in RAID0 could be faster than a single SATA3 SSD since "in the real world" of benchmarks, SATA3 doesn't really perform at 2x the speed of SATA2. However, doubling up on 2 x SATA2 drives in a RAID0 could theoretically get us there and more by at least 50% faster performance than a single SATA3 even at maxed benchmark speeds.

In the second benchmark, it shows that SATA3 is barely faster than SATA2 comparing same exact drives w/different interfaces. Using that benchmark as a reference, a SATA2 dual SSD RAID0 array would simply obliterate a SATA3 SSD!

 

Looks good for real world speeds anyways. Pricing here for mSATA ssd is about £150 for 256GB crucial m4, no other real choices here tbh, not at a decent price. SSDs were going down though up until christmas, samsung 830 was £130, now its around £150-160.

I would raid my drives, but I'm too lazy too and its not worth the costs for me anyways haha.

But your raid of 2 mSATA drives looks intriguing. But I wonder if I would even notice any difference in SATA II/III RAID'd SSD drives compared to a single SSD drive tbh except for benchmarks.

 

Well, if the Sony Quad MSATA SSD benchmarks are any indication, everything should speed up nicely, copying files, launching apps, booting.

I wonder how Dell pulled off the DMC slot interface because according to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSATA#mSATA

The slot should only be able to function as PCI-e or MSATA but not both. However, in the M14x R2, the DMC slot is able to function as both.

I've been digging around the web trying to find specs on DMC but it's practically non-existent.

 

Could try plugging your current msata cache drive into the DMC slot and seeing if its recognised in the BIOS?

 

I don't think it would be recognized because the SATA ports are alresy taken and routed to the normal ones but that's just my opinion. You could do as DDDenniZZZ suggests and try your mSATA drive there and let us know if it did work.

 

I actually was looking into how to do that. However, I'm not super technically savvy and it looks like it requires almost disassembling the entire laptop just to get the the MSATA drive. I really like how you can get to almost everything in this model without having to actually take the whole thing apart, but getting to the MSATA is a whole different story!



BTW, does anyone have specs on this DMC slot?

There is so little information about it on the web.

 

Well if the R4 is wired the same as the R3 then I would think not, as I have tried a msata drive to my machine, it was detected as an unidentified PCI device. I would assume the DMC slot is wired directly to the PCI bus rather than the SATA bus which is required for msata to function.

 

That is really disappointing!

I wonder how they managed to wired the DMC slot in the M14x R2 both to the PCI controller and the SATA controller? They should put that DMC slot in all of their Alienware machines.

 

Its quite possible that the R4 has support for it, depends whether they decided to rewire it from the R3 or if they kept the circuit the same. For testing on my machine I borrowed an msata ssd off my friend as I was not willing to pay for something that may not work, so if anyone has friends that would lend them an msata ssd to test, we can know for sure. Did the M14x R1 have the DMC slot, and if so has anyone tested it with an msata drive?

Edit: Looked it up, apparently the R1 doesn't support msata, so that may mean hope for all you R4 owners out there. I also found out that there are Mini-PCIe SSDs that run off the PCI bus which means the R3 can also have an SSD put into the DMC port.

 

According to the last reviewer on this: SUPER TALENT FPM64GLSE Solid State Drive - Newegg.com

These mini PCI-e SSD's have on-board P/SATA controllers, so I guess that's how they are able to work with DMC slots that may not be connected to the motherboard's SATA controller. I would probably use these mini PCI-e SSD's as a last resort since they are fairly expensive. They cost more than the cost of an MSATA drive + this Amazon.com: StarTech.com 2 Port Mini PCI Express Internal SATA II Controller Card MPEXSATA22I: Electronics controller card combined.

The only other question remaining is...will the Intel on-board RAID be able to see and configure the drives on these mini PCI-e SSD's since they are running off their own controller?

I hope our m17x R4's DMC slots have the same dual functionality as the M14x R2's DMC slots. If not, I may have to give up this dream of running a dual RAID0 SSD setup in my laptop for my OS drive. It's just too much bling to spend for me, at least.

But, if I won the lotto tomorrow, all bets are off! :wink:

 

Is our DMC slot not used for the bluetooth module? Just saw you had killer wireless and that has a separate card to handle the bluetooth aspect i think.

 

Nope, they wire bluetooth to an internal USB port for killer wireless cards.

 

The Killer wireless N 1202 must have built in bluetooth or something. My laptop has bluetooth and it only has that one Killer wifi card.

 

When they install the killer wireless card the bluetooth module is wired to an internal usb.