SSD cache drive

Hi guys,

I have read a little bit about SSD cache drives. Basically my alienware has the stock 750 gb HDD. A decision I bitterly regret now. I think the stock HDD isn’t much cop and the one thing that continually bothers me on an otherwise great laptop is the 90 second boot time. The stock HDD is just too slow.

Unfortunately I don’t really want to go down the avenue of purchasing an SSD and re-installing windows because of all the work that has gone into the laptop. An image of my current drive just wouldn’t fit onto any SSD.

So brings me to the question. I have seen there are SSD cache drives available. I get the impression by having one installed Windows 7 will still see one contingous drive and there is no need to re-install windows. It would be kind of like a better version of the impressive sounding Seagate Momentous Hybrid drives (which I wish I got in the first place). Presumably this would help bring my boot speed down and improve the overall systems performance accessing programs etc? I’m not after a fanciful 10 second boot like some SSDs used as boot drives can probably give. Something like 30 seconds boot to usable would be nice. Is this an option or have I got the wrong end of the stick. Any recommendations?

Many thanks,
Wayne

 

Do some research on the OCZ Synapse. Basically allows SSD performance through caching with their software.

 

Crucial's Demoed their own version at CES I heard, Wonder how it compares to the OZC stuff. let me see if I can find the link

here is is: Crucial Announces Adrenaline SSD Cache Drive

 

Like the sound of the synapse. Looks to be exactly what I am looking for. Anyone used / have this? Will it work in our M17x R3s? I am a little worried about borking my current windows 7 installation.

 

Personally, I'd just go with a 750GB XT. You basically get what you're looking for in the Synapse, in one drive, leaving the second caddy open for a storage drive (that you already own).

If you don't need the storage and/or don't plan to upgrade in the future, then the cache drive is probably your best bet.

 

Good review of the Synapse here -- OCZ Synapse Cache SATA 3 64GB SSD Review - Top Caching Solution At a Great Price - The SSD Review (Les was formerly an active member here). Very intriguing system.

 

Very good review. Thanks for the link. I think I am going to go for it. Is it easy to pop the hard drive into the M17xR3? I don't believe the hard drive comes with a SATA cable. Do I need to buy a specific SATA3 cable? Even though I currently have a single drive the BIOS shows as RAID (I believe this is just a default setting). I presume the BIOS is ok to be left as is.

I would hope the dataplex software that needs to be installed will take care of what's needed. I know with SSD drives various processes like TRIM need to be enabled. But I guess that wouldn't be the case with the SSD cache drive? Also thinks like Superfetch and disk defragmenter are normally disabled if one has an SSD as boot drive. Seeing as the OCZ synapse will not be a boot drive and only act as a cache drive am I right to assume that I should leave disk defragmenter and superfetch untouched?

If it's just a case of popping the OCZ in, formatting the drive via disk management & then downloading and installing the dataplex caching software it sounds like it should be pretty ok. The main reason I am doing this is to achieve speeds somewhere between SSD and a normal HDD without re-installing Windows 7. The boot is what really dissapoints me on the stock HDD.

Thanks,
Wayne

 

Hey it's CES so keep an eyes out for new hardware. Crucial and Corsair rolled out their cache SSDs yesterday as well.

 

Adding an SSD to the R3 is dead easy. There is an empty slot/cradle which is easily accessible after removing the bottom panel (Port 1, which is perfect because that is the one with dependable SATA 3 performance). No SATA cable is necessary; the empty slot includes an interposer which is used to connect the SSD.

Because of the different function of the SSD used as a cache drive, I would assume that none of the normal SSD tweaks are necessary or appropriate, but expect those issues are addressed in the DataPlex manual and/or the OCZ forums. This stuff is so new that it's going to be hard to find reliable guidance.

Widezu69 makes a good point about seeing what comparable offerings emerge from CES. Unsaid is that OCZ has a tendency to rush things out the door to be first to market, even with rough edges, whereas some other manufacturers are more conservative. You might take a look at cache SSD's from Crucial and others before taking the leap. If I didn't already have a 256GB SSD, I'd have to try one of these, but would not expect early models to be without some growing pains.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5392/crucial-50gb-adrenaline-ssd-cache-available-in-q1

 

After a few days umming and err'ing I have finally ordered the 128 gb variant of the Synapse (64 gb available due to provisioning). Reviews I read have mostly been favourable. So hopefully(!!!) a painless way to achieve near SSD speed and faster boot. I hope the dataplex caching software does not bork windows but I took an image via windows backup ahead of installing this in a few days time. One forum did mention that he couldn't image his partitions with acronis after dataplex installed. I hope that won't be the case as I do take regular c: drive images using windows backup although I only have the one c drive and no fanciful partitioning (other than the hidden recovery). It would be a pain to have to uninstall and re install the caching software each time I want to take an image. Unfortunately there is not a huge amount of info even on the OCZ forums. I wanted to know more about whether dataplex affects imaging, whether it causes problems trying to rollback with system restore. I guess the only way to find out is by taking the plunge.

One thing i am a little nervous on if anyone has any thoughts. My bios shows as RAID even though i only have a single hard drive. I do realise its the default setting for stock HDD and doesnt actually mean i am running in raid. But should i be looking to change this setting ahead of installing the synapse? Months ago i did try changing the setting AHCI to see if it improved my boot time but all it did was cause a BSOD.

Anyway I will report back on here with my experiences. Hopefully others with stock HDD have a possibilty to seriously improve the whole system without reinstalling windows.

Cheers,
Wayne

 

question...if you add a 64 gig synapse, your storage doesn't increase by 64 gig correct? Windows will use it strictly for caching?

 

Your capacity will not increase and it is not Windows that does the caching the the included caching software.

 

so the only advantage i see is that you dont' have to reinstall windows, but you waste the possibility of having the speed and additional storage of a real ssd and you waste the extra harddrive slot

 

Correct.

A caching SSD is great if you don't want the hassle of a fresh install and you are happy with your current HDD size.

Considering a 64GB synapse is about $150, and you could get a 120GB SSD for that much, it isn't really logical IMHO to get the caching drive.

 

Yep. Not the most logical setup but I can't stomach reinstalling windows. So many man hours gone into setting it up. I could get a boot SSD but my current usage of 600 gig is never going to image. The problem is the amount of older games that I have on the laptop. So many of them took an awful lot of googling, tweaking and patching to get them to run.

I wish I'd researched the SSD better when I ordered the laptop almost a year ago. At the time the website didn't have the option to set 2 drives. It was either SSD or HDD (I know I should of phoned dell in hindsight). I simply saw that the SSD was so expensive and the storage so small that I configured the single 750 gig HD.

So really the Synapse is the only option for me. To be fair I'm happy with the 750 gig storage I have. I have plenty of external HD's for extra storage if needed. So if it gives me the faster boot and quicker start into windows I crave then I will be happy.

 

Actually, I recently imaged my windows 7 installation with it's own backup software. Nothing was lost and everything is exactly as it is and I mean EXACTLY. Best of all it is free Very very good guide here:
http://www.ssdfreaks.com/content/664/how-to-clone-hdd-to-ssd-with-windows-7s-own-software

 

Thanks. Is a good guide. would of done it that way but I have used nearly 600 gigs on my HD what with everything. No chance I can shrink that into less than 256 gig. Need the SSDs ti be biggrr but then its big big money! Incidentally how would one tell how much to shrink a drive too. Say one had a 256 gig SSD. It never shows as 256 unless I'm mistaken. It's always a bit less so knowing what to shrink to is guess work?

 

Widezu69

Actually I think I might go down your suggested route. I cancelled the order for the Synapse drive. I started reading quite a few bad stories about the dataplex software. Windows updates/new programs causing problems trying to re-boot, imaging software no longer working etc

So I will probably get an SSD as my boot drive and try and clone using the guide. I will probably backup my Steam games folder to a USB HD so that I can shrink my volume substantially. Can I just ask when you did yours, did you leave your original HD with the OS plugged in the whole time and slot your SSD into the spare port? The guide is good but it suggests that the original HD is removed and replaced with the SSD. I would like to use the spare port if possible as that guarantees 6 Gbps speeds on SATA III. If you have both HD's plugged in, does the imaging software allow you to specify which drive you are going to image back to? Presume before you reach this point one must go into the BIOS and give the SSD a higher priority in the boot order to ensure that is the one that will be imaged to?

Finally, did you have to format the SSD first before use? I am going to see if I can stretch to affording the Crucial M4 SSD 512 gig - I hope it comes pre-formatted.

Cheers
Wayne

 

Hey Scott, first of all, if you are imaging from HDD to SSD, I would do a few things first:

When you get your new SSD, plug it in via external interface of some sort and format it. You will also need to align the sectors. Do so by opening cmd as Administrator and typing:

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk n (where n is your SSD’s number as provided by the previous command)
Create partition primary align=1024
Active
Exit

That will align the SSD before use.

Then I would follow the guide I posted. If you are getting the 512GB M4, then there is no reason to shrink your installation. Shrinking is only for people whose installation size is bigger than their SSD. Just stick the SSD into Port1 and boot the repair CD.

Hope all goes well. Keep us updated and we can check for proper alignment after you've installed everything. If it isn't aligned, no biggy, we can easily sort that

 

Ok cool thank you. Unfortunately what with all my itunes and steam stuff my installation is a massive 550 gigs so i need to do a bit of jiggery pokery! Sorry last 2 questions. When you say plug it into an external interface, how do I do that? Will it come with some kind of USB adapter to allow this? Also presume Bios needs to be in AHCI mode - when is best to make that change (currently in default RAID although I have only a single hd)

Cheers,
Wayne

 

Ah you are in RAID but you should be in AHCI. That poses a problem because a windows installation installed through RAID won't boot through AHCI. I'm not sure but I don't think cloning would work then. You could just clone onto the M4 using RAID but I have no experience with that so I don't know. Sorry.

 

I found a guide to enabling AHCI without inducing a BSOD. Just a registry tweak and then a change in the BIOS. Will try it tonight to see if it works. I guess my current HDD should still run ok in AHCI. Then I should be able to do the clone. I'm still unsure about how to connect the SSD externally so it can be formatted / aligned?

Also my original HDD. I'm going to image it onto a an external HDD which I will use to image back onto the SSD. Can I leave the original HDD hooked up the whole time? The main worry is when I try to image to the SSD (which will be in the spare port) is that I will be able to actually select the SSD (as opposed to the HDD) as the target for the image. I don't plan on formatting the HDD until right at the end of the whole process just in case I need to copy data off it (or if the whole process goes belly up!)

Cheers,
Wayne

 

Hi Scottyboy99,

Props to you on going through all of this to get your SDD working. I know it will be worth it.
What widezu69 is talking about is an "external notebook enclosure". It is a box you slide the SSD into that converts the connection from SATA to USB. There are other formats but this is the most common. If you are buying the drive online from someplace like Newegg, the suggestion box on that site might point one out to you, or you can search for it. Icybox is one such maker. Try to buy it with the SSD. You will still need to assemble it yourself but it is very easy.

And yes you should be able to leave the origional HDD in the laptop the whole time. Just be careful when confirming a restore from an image that you pick the SSD. Since the capacities and names will be so different I dont think you will have a problem. Good luck!

 

Windows 7 should automatically use the correct alignment if you do a fresh install on an SSD.

 

If I edit the registry to enable AHCI and then change the option in the BIOS from RAID (default) to AHCI now in prep ahead of getting the SSD, am I likely to run into boot problems?

So for a few days before getting the SSD I will be running my normal single HD on AHCI. I could assuming the laptop will boot and work ok then image so at least the installation is already in AHCI ready for the image.

 

i don't know which registry hack you are talking about?

Are you referring to this one?

Change the values to 0

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\pciide
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStorV
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor

This will then allow you to then change to AHCI in the bios without reinstalling. You can also switch back to RAID in the bios at anytime too

I've done this before and it worked, however, i didn't test for long term stability

The only way you're gonna find out is if you try this and see if it works for you

 

Yes that's the registry edit I refer to. But I tried it and it doesn't work. BSOD while booting on AHCI. Shame. Oh well maybe I'll give the Synapse Cache SSD a go after all. I have an image I can fall back on if it causes grief!

Cheers guys

 

Going to try AHCI again later. I think ATAPI start value in the registry has to be set to 0 along with the MSAHCI start value. At least that's something I have read on the internet. Hope that works.

Last questions I promise. I guess my current HDD sits in port 0 at the moment. When I go to image my SSD does it have to be placed into port 0 for the image to go onto it or can I slot it straight into port 1? The reason I ask is because I know using the spare port 1 is the recommended port for SSDs.

Hopefully if it can go into port 1 straight away then I can just leave my original HDD connected up the whole time and as the very last thing I do then format it.

Finally will my image be correctly aligned for the SSD? I assume it will be as it was a fresh Windows 7 install (factory). I have never re-installed Windows 7 since getting the laptop.

Thanks,
Wayne

 

My concern about having the same OS image on both hard drives at the same time would be this: how does the BIOS know which drive is the boot drive?

Both would have the master boot record on them after imaging the SSD. So i expect you will have some sort of conflict (other people please prove me wrong if I am). You most likely will need to rebuild the MBR using a system restore boot from a Windows DVD or another safe mode method, and try to tell the computer what drive is the real windows you want to boot.

Again, i may be over cautious, but when I inserted some drives into my laptop I had exactly this problem, so I wanted to give you a heads up.

 

No, in the bios you can set the boot order so the bios scans the drives in the order you prefer and it will boot the first one it comes along without even scanning the next. So if you have HDD and SSD both with a bootable installation but set the order to SSD first then HDD, it will boot the SSD immediately.

 

A bit late, but for anyone reading this thread in the future, if it's set to RAID you don't need to do anything as RAID enables AHCI too. There's an article on Intel's web site about it: Configure the BIOS for RAID or AHCI on an Intel® Desktop Board.

 

Cheers mate. Yeah ocz confirmed this was ok set to RAID. I finally installed the cache drive earlier this week and so far all working well. The difference is like night and day. I timed a couple boots from cold and from taking a minute and a half to 2 mins to get into usable Internet explorer it now takes about 20 seconds. Amazed by it. The dataplex software has some limitations, reading the forums one needs to be a bit wary installing major windows updates and it is recommend to uninstall dataplex first. Minor updates should be ok. Also when imaging a drive dataplex should again be uninstalled. Some goes for a Bios update.

I recommend the product fully. Such an easy upgrade with no need to re install windows. Plus it is caching across all your data so no need to micro manage like one would a small boot SSD. Granted a boot SSD is still preferable and quicker but I am very happy with it so far.

 

Got mine on Friday (not installed in a notebook, I have to admit) - I agree with the "wow! that's sooo much faster!". 35s boot time down from two minutes (I only have SATA II) and Visual Studio launches in about one second. I've finally got over the restarting my computer just to be amazed at the start-up time, lol.