SSD+MSATA and HDD

Guys I got an email stating the laptop is finally being built (after a massive delay) and that they would ship it out as soon as they can ( 15 days estd. After the EDD), quite an emotional roller coaster to get them to finish building my laptop,

anywho I wanted to upgrade the laptop with the dell oem Samsung 830, now the thing is I wanted to

1) use the msata as it was intended
2) use the ssd for fast boot ups
3) use the hdd for storage purposes

Now I was wondering does the intel srt work on a msata+ssd setup, and would it in the context of the r4 make any difference in performance, if both the ssd and msata were paired

Is it possible to replace the bay with the hdd with the ssd, and relegate the hdd to the bay 02 and still use the msata caching tech to fasten up its boot times

Do you reckon the above issues are just too annoying and I should simply install an OS on the ssd separately in bay 02 of the r4 and sort of dual boot it between the dell based win7 installation on the hdd and a separate installation on the SSD

And if any other solutions to the above mentioned options do let me know.....

PS it would be a great help if you folks could tell me how to do a proper clean format of the ssd (as this ssd was being used in the dv5t) so that it has no "issues " to speak of...including what ever this "over provisioning stuff is".....I did see thessdreview.com when I first bought and installed the crucialm4 into my r3 last year, but there is no info (that I could find) regarding a true proper format of the ssd, and I couldn't understand this over provisioning stuff either

 

Hi! First think of the msata as simply another drive bay. The only differences are that it is too small a space for a mechanical drive, and it operates at sata2 speed not sata 3 as the two drive bays do.

When you use IRST to set up a caching drive it can be ANY ssd in any bay but has to apply to a mechanical drive. Once you set this up the caching drive will no longer show in windows as all data transferred to it is hidden and controlled by the RAID controller.

One option that is low cost is to put a small SSD in the msata port and set it to cache the primary mechanical HD. No reinstall needed and I've seen people that have done this and said the speed increase was impressive. If you later decide that you want a stand-alone SSD boot drive the caching SSD on the mechanical drive will still be there and operational

HTH!

 

I would put the mSata as a caching drive and SSD as main, HDD for storage only. You can replace the HDD for another SSD without a problem but I'm pretty sure it is only SATA II (the port)

 

A bit confusing Luis. you only cache a mechanical drive, you wouldn't cache an SSD so the caching would be applied to the mechanical data drive. Sata II is the msata port (SSD only), both main bays are sata III.

 

So this would mean format the mechanical drive? Or can I place the ssd in a separate bay and still allow the msata to cache for the mech.hdd???

 

No format or anything needed. Yes, you can set the msata to cache the mechanical drive (afaik you only get the option to cache a mechanical drive) and have another SSD in one of the primary bays and set it as the boot device - full windows install required in that case

This guide ( Chipset Software — Intel® Smart Response Technology User Guide) assumes that raid was not enabled so a full install of windows is required. If you were simply adding an msata ssd drive to a M17x running on a mechanical drive already, then everything is ready and you'd start from the step 'Enabling ..' since the software is already installed and the bios is already in RAID mode. Even if you only ordered a single drive system Confusing I know.

 

Wait.... Do you mean the issue of one bay being a SATA II and the other working at SATA 3 is an ongoing issue with the R4 as well?

 

So that means, I remove the mechanical drive to bay 02 and install a ssd in bay 01, and the default installation by dell (including caching) will still work?

You see after spending yonks fixing and optimizing my r3, 4 times in a year, I have kinda lost my passion to optimize it from the ground up. I wanted to continue using the default installation by dell, and meanwhile building up my ssd installation slowly, at some point where I would start using it as a primary OS drive, and thus a kind of a redundant OS,

I had planned to use some partition making software within win7 to cleave a large space for games and stuff alike.

Micky Could you perhaps repost the link , it's not showing up in tapatalk, and anywhere I can find out a software to use that would give a ssd a fresh clean format...I heard traditional (win7) tools don't exactly do a fresh format

 

Not an issue as such, both hd bays are sata 3, only the msata port is sata 2. I've had an ssd running in sata 2 and sata 3 and the difference was negligible. Probably a much bigger difference if using a mechanical drive but one of them will not fit in the msata port.

No need to move the drives either. Just add your ssd and prepare it as you want, then just change the boot order in the bios. The caching will remain on the HDD. It's not OS aware and operates at a lower level

Chipset Software — Intel® Smart Response Technology User Guide You'd start from the step 'Enabling' if you ordered an R4 with a single hdd and added a msata ssd as everything else is already in place on an R4. These are generic instructions.

No idea about formatting software. Back in the day you would do a low level format but seems to not be needed any more

 

Ok so if I install a full suite of intel drivers on an installation on the ssd will it cache to the msata...and any idea in th formatting of an ssd so it has that" out of box " new capabilities, perhaps you could point me towards a site....Ali any ideas where can we get the firmware to flash one of these dell oem Samsung 830 ssd?

Much appreciated

 

Yes, just install the IRST software suite to the boot drive (but you can only cache a mechanical drive) run the software and configure it. If you already have an msata drive caching the mechanical drive you do not even need to do this. They are not actually drivers just a way to get to the RAID bios in windows - so that it can be configured. There is a raid bios screen at power up that can also be accessed to configure it.

For the samsung ssd, all I'd do is put it in and go into windows disk manager and delete any partitions and create a single new one. No idea about firmware or why you might need it.

 

So that means

1) I need raid to make the cache system work, from iRST on the mech hdd
2) if I need raid to (make the cache system work) then it's going to be an issue installing the SSD and using it as a separate / redundant boot media?

 

Guys, this RAID business to enable iSRT, is not an option, because that would mean the SSD would be working on RAID, even though the drives are not going to be "RAID enabled" as only the RAID option has been enabled in the BIOS. Will this mode allow me to dual boot OS on a SSD and HDD separately .

 

So can i have a dual boot system, with irst using a msata and mech.drive as one, and me installing an ssd seperately as a seperate boot drive, all the while RAID is enabled in BIOS but none of the discs are members of it?,

 

Yes, you are not creating a RAID set so the big SSD will be stand-alone even though RAID is enabled. The IRST firmware will create a special (cached) hidden RAID set using the mechanical drive and the cache SSD (why it has to be enabled). The size of the cache drive will not be visible as it will become a duplicate of data from the mechanical drive.

Hope this helps but I understand it, so it's difficult to tell if I'm explaining it clearly

 

does giving a rep tell you that you are able to explain stuff clearly...

thanks mate, thats answered nealry all my questions, if you could explain ,

i used the optimize your windows on SSD tutorial from thessdreview on the R3 using an M4 ssd, and it says, best performance is to be had on a non-raid'd/ AHCI system, so will i have isues optimizing the stand alone SSD on win7 in this mode.

 

Re Rep, that is the way I use it, thanks.

You cannot use AHCI if you want a cached drive as this disables the RAID bios. It is correct that the SSD will be slightly faster without it but this is minimal and you would only notice it in benchmarks IMO (and a second or two on boot as the RAID bios screen would be skipped.

 

But activity from the drive as in opening applications will be accelerated significantly, with the added benefit of the storage capacity of a mech.hdd,

And if you could a link of a properly clean installation and optimizing guide for the AW machines,as one u may have used

Much appreciated

 

Not sure if I understand. Accessing the mech drive will be significantly improved by the cache SSD but changing the mode to AICH will only make a very small difference to the new SSD access (as well as disable the cache and slow down the mechanical drive significantly).

Don't have a guide I'm afraid but no problem with pointing you in the right direction. First I need to be sure of what you have purchased. Is it a single mechanical drive with an msata SSD cache out-of-the-box?

PM me if you prefer

 

Thanks mate, I did enable raid and enabled the caching, but frankly speaking I don't really see a significant difference in performance, also on a side note does anyone know if I were to download a win8 pro upgrade, on a win7 system, will it be accessible on a different system with similar specs...ie if I have download the win8 upgrade against a particular hardware running win7, and now if the system gets replaced with similar hardware can I reinstall the same downloaded win8 on the new system ...even if I haven't yet installed it on the existing hardware

 

Normal SSDs are said to improve environment mapping/texture loading during game play in games like Skyrim. Does Msata do the same too?and how do I reverse from a "Caching Msata"to an actual SSD and would that change any read/write speeds on the msata?

 

Yea mSATA is pretty much the same thing as an SSD, just a different form factor with a different connector. How big an mSATA drive do you have? I would only turn off cacheing if there is enough room to comfortably hold your OS+ whatever apps you wanted installed on there.

 

Agree, a dedicated SSD will be faster in benchmarking but everyone that has tried both that I have seen have not 'seen' any noticeable improvement in gaming and general use, so probably not worth the effort.

One plus that IS available for you is to add a second SSD in the empty bay and install windows to boot from that. Then the caching will remain on the HDD and you'll have two fast drives, but again, gains are small, just a 'nice to have'