M17x R4 RAID 0?

i ordered mine with 500GB HDD (cheapest option) but planning to get two SSDs for RAID 0.

1. M17x R4 should have RAID chip regardless of HDD option, right?

2. I should also have HDD tray and other mounting hardware(if any) with my notebook, correct? (if not, what parts would i need?)

3. IS anybody using SSD RAID 0 setup? any problems/stability issues with RAID 0 and M17x?

thanks!

 

1.Yes
2.The M17x R1 R2 R3 includes the other tray, the r4 should have it too.
3.Not sure, I dont use raid 0

 

Yes Alienware has the RAID chip on the motherboard. If you buy a dual bay Alienware (M17x, M18x) it should include the extra caddy and interposer so it will work. I have a RAID 0 SSD setup, haven't had a hiccup yet, and contrary to popular belief, it IS faster.

 

What's ur read/write speed? WEI rating on primary disk?

 

assuming you use intel rst (rapid storage driver), what version are you using?

intel announced trim support for raid 0 quite sometime ago and it looks like (from quick google search) intel still have not released trim support on raid 0...

i too use raid 0 setup on my w700ds with a pair of crucial m4 ssds and quite happy with it, even without trim support. but since i'm setting up a new gear, i like to set it up with all the bells and whistles...

 

same here, 2x 128GB M4 in raid 0.

 

After some tweaks, 2 x 320 series RAID 0 on my R2. I'm on 10.8.0.1003, I directly downloaded it from Intel's website. Hopefully my next Alienware will be SATA 3, and I'll jump to SATA 3 SSDs.

 

thanks for the screen shot. i see you are still on RST 10.8

i'm rather disappointed that intel hasnt released 11.5 with raid trim support. i might go for the single SSD + storage HDD until 11.5 become available.

 

To be honest, TRIM isn't such a huge deal. If you let your laptop sit for hours on end, which happens alot for me, then it should garbage collect. Plus it takes YEARS for SSDs to slow down, worst case I'll secure erase my SSDs and restart or buy new ones.

 

it's hard to find the general consensus on trim (the lack thereof) and raid 0. some said like you - that GC at the firmware level should be sufficient. others seem to disagree. also, it appears that only sandforce-based SSDs have sufficient level of GC - whatever that means. i'm thinking about buying samsung 830 and i havent found about its GC capability at the firmware level yet...

the est. shipping date for my m17x is like 5/30 so i still have a few weeks to decide...