M17X R1 SSD Compatibility?

Hey guys, I have an M17x R1, specs are in my sig below, and I was just wondering whether any other present or past owners out there could chime in and share their experiences and knowledge on the matter of compatible SSD's.

The culprit causing compatibility issues is the Nvidia MCP79 Chipset, which can be found in the M17x R1 and many Macbook Pros.
The MCP79 when paired with an SSD using Intel's SandForce SF-2281 controller, gives speeds of SATA 1.0 (1.5GPS as opposed to the 3.0GBPS SATA 2.0 speeds which we should be getting).

I will start with my personal experiences, just so that others don't have to waste time and money as I did.

You may have to click on the embedded pictures so that they open fully.

M17x R1 + 1 Intel 520 240GB SSD ACHI results:





Two Intel 520 240GB SSD's In RAID-0 results:


Windows Index Experience 2 Intel 520 240GB RAID-0 Results:


Now for a comparison against an alternative SSD where the Sandforce controller in question does not cause these conflicts:

One Crucial M4 256GB SSD ACHI Results:

AS SSD:


Windows Index Experience:


As you probably know, the Intel 520 Drives are supposed to be faster than the Crucial M4's, however, what we see here is that the conflicts between the MCP79 Chipset and the Sandforce SandForce SF-2281 Controller reduce the speed dramatically, to the point where what your left with is a very expensive SATA 1.0 drive that actually gets lower speeds for sequential read and write than many standard HDD raid setups available in the M17x R1.

I hope others out there find this information useful, as there seems to be very little official responses on the matter from Intel or Nvidia on possible solutions being offered, which is a real shame, as many will miss out on the performance benefit that that Intel 520 SSD's offer, and essentially end up not buying them, that's a big market for Intel to lose out on

I look forward to see other peoples results and benchmark scores, hopefully some of you can add to this to help others out there struggling with this decision, and remember, there are multiple chipsets out there based on the MCP79, in other laptops and desktops too, so they will all benefit from this information.

 

I used to have a R1 as well before I got my R3 and it did not have any issues with the Samsung's 830 Series drive that I currently use on the R3. I hope this helps too.

 

Hey Bluke, thanks for your contribution, and yes, every little helps.
I just hope we get enough users commenting with their findings, so hopefully this thread could be the one go-to-guide on which SSD's work and which don't, and maybe eventually there could be a list with speed tests showing which works best.
There seems to be some massive gaps in knowledge concerning certain areas with SSD.

 

Hello, Rolex, have you tried uninstalling the nVIDIA storage controller and let windows use the Microsoft Standard AHCI Controller?
I remember discussing this back when i owned my M17x with other users and this was the way to go:
Choose AHCI in BIOS and don't install (or uninstall) the nvidia storage controller.

 

Hey Katalin
I installed a fresh copy of windows 7 64-bit on the brand new Intel 520, even without any of the Alienware drivers and programs installed (so no Nvidia Chipset installed), windows recognized the chipset and used its own driver, so when I go to check the driver in Device Manager, it shows the ACHI controller's current driver is Microsoft.