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    The Experience Index

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by Alienblaster, Jun 5, 2013.

  1. Alienblaster

    Alienblaster Notebook Enthusiast

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    Guys Im posting this for my friend, he got his m17x last week having 1TB 7200 RPM harddisk in RAID 0. The problem is, the experience index of the harddisk is almost the same as that of my 5400 harddisk, its 5.9 vs 5.8 . Is the RPM and RAID difference making only 0.01 increase in the experience index?? I know it doesnt really matter, but I just wanted to know what really is the problem. Also, even if the specification chart shows its in RAID0, I have a doubt that if it really is. So how to check whether the disks are in RAID0 or not? the system now shows two disk drives C & D, both of the same size. Any help would be appreciated.
     
    Alienblaster, Jun 5, 2013
    #1
  2. sangemaru

    sangemaru Notebook Deity

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    If he wants to make sure the disks function correctly, just run something like ATTO Disk Benchmark and compare.
    Windows Experience Index is totally useless.
    My 2x Momentus XT Hybrid drives in raid-0 also score 5.9.

    For bigger scores, need SSD.
     
    sangemaru, Jun 5, 2013
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  3. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    Sangemaru is right on this, you will need an SSD to get some better scores but the WEI is not that accurate.
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Jun 5, 2013
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  4. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Windows detects the mech HDD and limits the score to 5.9.

    Raid 0 drives should appear as a single volume (though can be split into partitions) and can be managed by the raid controller splash screen at boot.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Jun 5, 2013
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  5. shinji257

    shinji257 Notebook Deity

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    Incorrect. If that was the case then my Raid 0 would show a 5.9 as well.
    OP- Is the computer running Windows 7?

    Sent from my SGH-I777 using Tapatalk 2
     
    shinji257, Jun 8, 2013
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  6. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    This may have changed witb windows 8 ofc which rates differently. What I was saying applies to windows 7.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Jun 8, 2013
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  7. shinji257

    shinji257 Notebook Deity

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    In that case 5.9 is actually the upper limit on Windows 7 Experience Index. Has nothing to do with HDD vs SSD vs Raid 0. They increased it to 7.9 in Windows 8.
     
    shinji257, Jun 8, 2013
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  8. sherrypizza

    sherrypizza Notebook Consultant

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    Windows 7 got max score limit of 7.9, not 5.9
     
    sherrypizza, Jun 8, 2013
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  9. shinji257

    shinji257 Notebook Deity

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    Then I stand corrected...

    Windows System Assessment Tool - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    The issue then comes from the fact that WEI uses primarily a 4K transfer test among other tests. Mechanical drives are generally very bad at it and RAID does very little to improve that and usually latency goes up so it doesn't show well in benches. I would recommend comparing them in CrystalDiskMark instead.
     
    shinji257, Jun 8, 2013
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  10. ikisat

    ikisat Notebook Geek

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    As has already been mentioned no mechanical hdd regardless of performance will score above a 5.9 on Win 7 and WEI is a comparative scale not an absolute one it's maximum score is 7.9 so the higher in numbers you get the more of a performance boost you need to make any progress at all. This is why even massive ram, cpu, gpu improvements that would net 50+ fps boosts in games might be a difference of 7.4 vs 7.6 on the WEI scale
     
    ikisat, Jun 9, 2013
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  11. FrozenSolid

    FrozenSolid Notebook Evangelist

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    Hi Alienblaster,

    Can you actually confirm that he has 2 x 500 GB drives installed and they operating in RAID? Could it possibly be one 1TB drive divided into two partitions?
     
    FrozenSolid, Jun 9, 2013
    #11