M17X R4 HDD Config question

Hello everybody,

I'm planning to order a new M17X R4 but not knowing a lot about all this "new" HDD technology I had no other choice other than ask for the gurus here at NBR.

What I'm planing to order is the M17X with a 750Gb + 64Gb mSATA cache, then buy an aftermarket 64gb SSD to use for the OS (Win 7). Does this make sense? Is it even possible to do that with the M17x? Like an SSD together with a HDD+mSATA cache?

Should I take another approach like get the 1Tb 5,400 (included in price) and just add one SSD for the OS?

The notebook is going to be used for absolutely gaming ONLY! So having games installed on a HDD+mSATA Cache something that would help me?

Thanks a lot

regards

 

Stick to the 1tb HDD and add your own 64gb SSD with the OS on it. Dell overcharges when it comes to hard drives and memory.

 

Hi Hellzhavoc thanks for your reply.

This is the way I see this situation:

I'm gonna pay 80$ for a 64Gb SSD, so another 75$ to have a mSATA as Cache is not overpriced even though I'm exchanging a 1Tb HDD to a 750Gb, (Bear in mind that that it's a 5400 vs 7200 rpm difference).

So since Dell is "only charging" 75$ for a mSATA Cache and this is basically the price that I find in stores why not just getting this upgrade so the HDD runs a little faster plus another SATA SSD for the OS? Is that possible?

Thanks

 

If an OS is already in a SSD no point of having a Caching SSD. Why not keep the stock 500GB HDD, then buy another 500GB HDD, set it up as raid 0 for 1TB of data storage and lastly buy a msata ssd for your OS and some programs or games if you wish.

mSATA SSD: Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD3 Solid State Drive - Newegg.com

 

That's the best solution. Keep stock from dell and buy another hdd and msata from here or local retailer, your will always save some money if you upgrade yourself rather than buying from dell.

 

You guys are the best!
Thanks a lot for helping me out. M17x has been ordered!

Now to the waiting game....

Can I go with a 64Gb SSD instead of the 128Gb if I'm only keeping the OS in it? I'll be installing a lot of games so they'll have to stay in the HDDs

my best regards,
Igor

 

Its possible, but I don't recommend it, it will be a hassle down the road.I had a 64GB SSD for my os back then. You need to turn off some stuff like pagefile, hibernation and some other things (cant remember). Also windows updates will keep eating up space so I say just going with the 128GB. BTW what HDD did you get?

 

Gotcha, thanks.

I got the single 1Tb HDD it was already included in the price. Is it ok to install steam and all games on it or the 5,400rpm of the 1Tb is going to bottleneck it? It's a i7-3630, 16Gb with 7970M.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Did you get the $1729 M17x? with the single 1TB 5400rpm hd and 32gb caching ssd?

 

No, I'm in Canada, we have a $1699 with single 1TB 5400rpm no SSD. I had the option ($75) to exchange for one 750Gb 7200rpm + 64Gb mSATA cache.

My original idea was to keep this 750Gb + 64Gb mSATA Cache for the games and buy another SSD SATA for the OS.

 

Ohh I didn't know. Your 5400rpm is alright with games. You will only see slightly better loading times on a 7200rpm. If you have a single 1TB HDD you can get yourself a regular Sata SSD no need to go with an mSata SSD, since you will have an empty hdd/ssd bay. Just make sure its 80GB or above.

 

I've seen a few people go with this configuration. You simply add the SSD of your choice into the spare bay, change the boot order, and install windows. The caching will remain (it's in firmware) on the original HD so that gets SSD like speeds for all recently accessed games and apps .

V easy, only thing to remember is to use the AW supplied windows disk as a vanilla one will use a compatible (not so much!) disk driver and not the intel one, causing a BSOD on first boot. Fairly easily fixed by selecting the corect driver during the install

HTH

 

Thanks to everyone,

Now since I went with the single 1Tb I've been thinking about investing in 2 SSDs, I'm not sure If it's worth or not. The idea is to buy a Crucial mSATA 128Gb for the OS and a Samsung 850 PRO SATAIII 256Gb for the games, leaving the 1Tb for music, files, etc.

Since this is not going to be cheap, and the SSD will hold games only, I just want to shell out the money for the Samsung if It's something that will really show improvements. I'm asking beacause I've been reading only that SSDs for Games are not that necessary. I don't mind about loading times, I do care about increase in FPS/Performance. Am I gonna see huge improvements in FPS using a SSD instead a 1Tb HDD?

thanks again

 

You won't see anything in games except at load screens. A more economical way would be to get a 64Gb msata and set it to speed up the existing HD. You'll get almost the same performance as a standalone SSD and all the space of the HD. Put a 250Gb SSD in the spare bay for the OS and load sensitive apps and your golden . Wish I'd done it myself but was too lazy when I ordered it, now, I'm not keen on the amount of teardown needed to get at the msata slot

 

Sounds good!
So I guess what I'm going to do since this will be a Gaming Only notebook, with no video, graphics editing etc, I'm going to add the 64Gb mSATA + a 128Gb SATA just to keep the OS and some small system utility software like defrag, registry cleaner etc, and all the games will stay in the 1Tb HDD cached by the 64Gb.

I would prefer to do it this way because I don't like to have games, or important stuff in the same HD where the OS is located, so I rather have a smaller SATA (128Gb) that will hold the OS only than spending money on a bigger one (256Gb) to have the OS with games or just the OS and plenty of free space.

Does that sound reasonable?

 

Sounds like the perfect gaming rig to me! The RAID bios (needed for caching) will be already active since dell set it to 'on' on all M17x's whatever the disk config. Just don't install a boot SSD (O/S) in AHIC mode which disables the RAID bios and cannot be changed later without a complete reinstall

Just putting in a msata cache drive is as simple as going into the IRST software and activating it as a cache after install

Generic doc on the subject - ignore all the BIOS stuff, already done: Chipset Software — Intel® Smart Response Technology User Guide

Good luck and let us know how it goes

 

Wow, that's some great information.
I was sure that I could use the SSD in AHIC mode since it wasn't going to "share" nothing with the HDD + mSATA. Boy these are uncharted waters, I'll do my best to not mess this one up...

The HDD+mSATA is straight forward I guess. Just add the mSATA and from what I understand the RAID0 which I will be using to set the mSATA as Cache should be pre-configured, so it's just a matter of physically installing the disk.

Now regarding the SSD that will hold the OS, I have some doubts on how to proceed with the installation. I guess first thing would be to remove all other HDD and do a clean install on the SSD but I should leave the BIOS configured as RAID, correct? Now a very stupid question. Having the BIOS set to RAID does that mean that the SSD and the HDD will be considered as one HDD on windows? Sorry for so many questions, it's just that I really don't want to mess this one up.

 

I would get that config and then move the O.S to the mSata SSD instead of using it as cache.

 

This is the way I'd do it:

1. Put in the msata drive and activate it as a cache on the existing HDD.

2. Put in the new boot SSD and swap over the boot order in the BIOS.

3. Boot from the DVD and install windows - if it detects the existing installation select to ignore (or whatever to ignore it), just in case you end up with a dual boot.

4. Once you are finished and happy with your new installation just format the HDD to get rid of all the detritus. The caching will remain on the HDD and is not related to drive letters at all.

A confusing subject so ask away, forewarned is forearmed

There can be one fly-in-the-ointment; if windows BSOD's on first startup the installer chose the wrong disk driver and you have to F2 at the disk config screen and load the driver from a USB drive. More info if it happens.

And remember, doing it this way you have a perfect fallback position. Just swap back the boot order and your back on the original installation

'just physically install the disk', not quite, you still need to fire up IRST (it will be a taskbar item) and switch it on. RAID enabled does not mean you are using RAID or are forced to, it just enables the caching feature in the firmware.

 

Thanks Luis for joining in the discussion, so you're saying that using the 64Gb mSATA for the OS and leaving the SSD or even just the 1Tb HD for games or everything else is a better way to have it configured? Is 64Gb more than enough for the OS and future OS updates etc? Because I don't mind loading times for the games as long as I don't get any FPS drop, I could save the money only buying the mSATA 64Gb for the OS and in the future buy a bigger SSD (500Gb+) or even RAID 2x256Gb to accommodate all my games

MickyD1234, wow I don't know how to thank you, sorry for wasting your time today! Thanks a lot for all the valuable information and the guide!

 

Yeah but doing it that way he looses the chance to speed up the the HDD - he is also purchasing a large SSD for an OS reinstall anyway. Would probably be a better option if only purchasing one SSD

 

What I did with M17X R4 was I ordered it with a 750 gig 7200rpm hard drive and then I bought a 240gig intel ssd drive. When I got my
new laptop I removed the 750 hard drive and put the 240 ssd drive in. I then did a complete fresh install of windows on it. I then added the 750
hard drive formated it and i was done.

 

No time-waste at all, it's what I do these days :GEEK:

 

64Gb is more than enough for the O.S.

 

thanks guys.

Luis I guess you are right on the long run. I might not see benefits now, but in the future I'm pretty sure not just me but everybody here will of course change our HDDs to SSDs and when I do that I'll be eliminating the need to cache it, so If I set the mSATA for the OS I'm all ok in terms of re-doing everything again no matter what I do with the other HDD. So I guess it will be just a matter of deciding If I want to spend some money now with a 250Gb SSD or leave it for later, when the 500Gb+ start to get cheaper.

Micky is right on saying that I'll lose performance now on the HDD but after I take that HDD off what am I gonna do with that 64Gb mSATA cache? absolutely nothing other than a Boot disk, so it's better to have it that way from now than having to do it all over again in the future.

 

Downgrade the storage as much as possible from Dell and consider it a complete loss. On your own, buy a SSD for the OS and your games and use the hard drive that came with the computer as extra storage or something. What I did was configure the laptop with a 500GB drive, which was the minimal option, and bought my own 256GB SSD and a 750GB Scorpio Black hard drive. I ended up throwing the 500GB that came with the computer into an external enclosure. With the current SSD prices there is no reason not to get a decently large one. My SSD was transplanted from my old desktop, so its a slow SSD (Agility 3), but its still blazing compared to any spinning disk.

 

Figadas, as others have said I would definitely go with:

- 128Gb (or more) SSD in the spare SATA III slot for the Operating System. It is always good to have as much space as possible as Windows Updates will eat away plus you have the option of installing any frequently used programs in any spare space. The price difference between a 64Gb and 128Gb is not significant enough to go for the lower capacity IMHO. Note: you want to to use the spare SATA III for the SSD with the OS as this will be faster than the mSATA slot and also gives you a much bigger and better value choice of SSDs to chose from

- 64Gb mSATA SSD in the mSATA slot as a cacheing drive for the AW shipped Hard Drive. Given the M17x config, this is the best use of the mSATA slot as it is a slower interface than the SATA III and there is less choice of mSATA drives.

I hope this helps

 

Hi everyone, thanks again to all that replied and read my post.
So I got my Alienware and now since SSD, RAID and all that stuff are new for me I want to make sure that the computer is configured the right way before I start loading with Games and files.

To make it easier, from now on:

mSATA = Crucial mSATA 64Gb
SSD = Samsung 840 PRO 256Gb
HDD = Samsung 1Tb SATA

So, I got the M17xR4 with the HDD, the SSD and mSATA are aftermarket. I booted up with the HDD only first and created the recovery disk. After that I unplugged the HDD and installed the mSATA. Booted up again and installed Win 7 and all drivers etc etc etc... After checking that everything was running the way it was supposed to, I installed the other SSD on Bay 0 and the HDD on Bay 1. Restarted, Didnt make any changes on IRST (boot), installed IRST for Windows and created a NTFS partition with Paragon Partition Manager on the SSD. Now I have all 3 "disks" working, but like I've said I didn't make any changes to IRST, so there's no array created anywhere, the only thing is that the BIOS is on RAID mode (as default).

I'll keep the mSATA for Windows only, SSD for Steam and HDD for music, documents and other (not AAA) games. So do I have to create any arrays? Is there a way to optimize the disks? I'm currently happy with Windows performance, didn't try any games on the SSD but the mSATA is performing decently, I just don't want to be running this the wrong way or in an non-optimized way.

The other question which is that the SSD is showing 238Gb only available. Is that the way it was supposed to be? Did I partitioned the wrong way?








Thanks a lot guys again for everything. I couldn't have done this without you guys!

regards

 

You could use the msata drive as a caching drive to speed up the HD. No need to create an array, as long as the intel RAID drivers are installed you are good to go. You could also create an array with the two SSD,s so you only have a single drive to work with, but it will be a little slower as the msata port is only sata II.

Chipset Software — Intel® Smart Response Technology User Guide ignore all the bios stuff, the M17x is already setup for it

 

Hi MickyD1234, thanks again my friend!

Oh I'm ok regarding caching the HDD, it will come out of there eventually, I'm just waiting for the large capacity SSDs to become a little more affordable. So I rather hold it for now and after I change it for another SSD I might create and array for the 2 SSDs, instead of the mSATA+SSD. Thanks.

One thing that Ive forgot to mention. This is my first experience with ATI, I got the 7970M, so I have no idea what to expect, what kind of settings to run, and even If I'm suppose to install Dell's Catalyst or ATI's Catalyst, and which version is stable enough right now, so for those of you ATI experts that are running 7970M, can you please give me a hand here?

regards

 

Cool, you're very welcome. As long as you don't change the disk access in the BIOS (AHIC) then pretty much any combination is available - just down to how you want to use it, and your intended end-game

Good luck (also with ATI )

Forgot to add, if you install windows to the large SSD and then turn on caching for the HD you can just turn it off when you want to replace it - easy and no data loss