M17x-R2 upgrades gotta be finished?

Ok, so after a little reading on here I've been doing some upgrading from the fairly standard system I purchased from Dell

Upgrades so far,

940xm cpu
dual 6970's
USB 3.0
Killer 1102
16gb RAM
1 x OCZ vertex 2 240gb SSD
1 x 750gb toshiba

Oh and I've just ordered a 2nd OCZ vertex 2 SSD to use in a raid setup, putting the 750gb in a caddy for now but may consider the optical drive swap out.

Which got me thinking, this has got to be about as far as the R2 is going to go? what do you guys think.

PS, As a side note a few of my recent upgrades have been thanks to clicking on DR650SE's sig....... I wonder if he would refresh me on setting up a raid system on my Alienware please?

 

Hey man, Just click the RAID link in my sig. As far as actually setting it up, that would probably need to be done with a new install. But there are some optimizations in my sig.

As for me, I ended up splitting my RAID 0 setup. I now use a single SSD for OS/Apps/Linux, and my other SSD as a games drive. I have it about 90% full of just games

Other than painting the R2, I think thats about it for upgrades. Crazy how nicely decked out our systems are

 

One last upgrade....

Ditch those 6970's and put in 6990's!!! :laugh:

 

why did you ditch the raid?, one of the main reasons for me upgrading was space, and with my games installed I've nearly none left, I thought a SSD raid setup would be the perfect solution?

Oh that hurts, I bought mine back when 6990's were having power draw issues with XM cpu's, think thats solved with the undervolt bios mods now..... still I'm very happy with the performance of the 6970's

 

Ended up ditching because when using RAID 0, you lose the ability to have TRIM run on the setup. I figured I really didn't get too much of a noticable speed boost since the SSDs are already pretty fast. Didn't have any slow downs, but just didn't want to deal with it in the future if it ever happened.

 

All good man, just giving you a hard time

 

Sorry, Whats TRIM? so its a bad idea to run SSD in raid then?

 

TRIM basically allows your SSD to keep track of deleted bits and actually remove the bit of data when you delete it. Rather than just making it available for write.

If you dont TRIM and the SSD writes over a block that previously had data, it has to do the delete at the time of write and therefore impacts performance. It progressively gets worse.

In a nutshell

 

I believe I read somewhere that any new Intel SSDs will support TRIM when in a Raid configuration. I think you need to use their RST drivers though.

 

I've never used trim on this ssd? Still the occasional format does the job? Right?

 

If you do a fresh install on a SSD, install the RST drivers, and do a Windows Experience Index run, it should automatically have TRIM turned on.

You can open a command prompt and type:
fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify
DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled)
DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)

If it is not on, you can enable it with:
fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

 

TRIM is automatically enabled in a single SSD setup. It's a RAID setup where the command can't pass.

 

Yes, I meant for his current setup to see if he had been using it all along or not.

 

Personally I wouldn't format like I would a HHD, unless if course you had to for updating the firmware. Make sure you are running the latest firmware on both drives.

If I had to wipe the drive, I would use Secure Erase, its part of OCZ SSD Tools which you can download from their site.

Here is a link about TRIM support on Intel SSDs... http://www.extremetech.com/computing/106349-intel-to-add-trim-support-for-raid-0-in-upcoming-drivers

 

Get your info right buddy That isn't just for Intel Drives. It states Intel DRIVERS ie controllers not the actual SSDs. This means that with the newer drivers, a person with any kinds of SSD Raid setup can have Trim. Not just Intel Drives.

 

Plus, that article says it will be added in a future update. That was in Nov, and I havn't heard anything since, so...

 

Gonna give it a go see how it pans out, raid 0

I remember setting up a raid system many moons ago, seem to recall having a floppy disk with some raid drivers on? same sort of thing now or will win 7 just give me the option to run raid?

Just ordered 1 of those internal hard drive caddys for the optical drive slot, probable the best way to go and put my dvd drive to external

DR650SE, you just have yours as a 2nd HDD and install stuff onto it that way? when im installing steam/origin can they be installed onto that drive so all the games go onto that drive instead of the windows drive?

 

Jus71n, Steam installed perfectly on my 2nd HDD but Origin would only install on my main SSD which is my Windows drive.

 

Yup, all games are installed onto my second drive. I havn't had any issues with Origin, although I installed BF3 from a disc so maybe I was able to do it that way. but to answer your question, yes. SSD 2 is a dedicated gaming drive. helps with load times

 

When they first released the notes back in Nov, there was mention about it would only work with the Intel controller, but that has been updated and no longer states that now. I know I read that in the original release and I was like W=T=F

 

Don't worry Jus71n, with any luck the new 7000 series cards will come out and work in the R2...Then we can go through this all again

 

That is what Im waiting for: 7990s If they are the same chips (and Im sure they are) they will run cool and quiet....aaahhh, to dream.

 

I've been wanting to upgrade my graphics cards but I have never done so on a laptop so im a lil scared to lol.

You upgraded to USB 3.0? I am assuming it was via the express card slot?

Also, what are the benefits of upgrading to a Killer 1102?

16gb RAM? I thought the max was 8?

Sorry for all the questions ._.

 

Notes in bold.

 

I see. Thank you very much sir!

Will be ordering the ram and killer soon. Just need to muster up the courage to do the gfx cards installation ._.

 

Its well worth the upgrades, amazing to have a laptop that supports some "proper" upgrades....

Be careful though, its addictive!!! lol