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    mSATA as storage?

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by littleot316, Sep 5, 2012.

  1. littleot316

    littleot316 Newbie

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    I got the M4 SSD recently and was wondering if i could use my msata as a lettered drive?
     
    littleot316, Sep 5, 2012
    #1
  2. radji

    radji Farewell, Solenya...

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    Not entirely sure, but you need to set your mSATA as an active drive as opposed to a cache drive. Once you get it active, you can format it in Disk Management and assign it a drive letter.
     
    radji, Sep 6, 2012
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  3. Xenn0X

    Xenn0X Notebook Evangelist

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    yes it's possible by doing the above what radji said. but then again why bother for 32gb..
     
    Xenn0X, Sep 6, 2012
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  4. MickyD1234

    MickyD1234 Notebook Prophet

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    View attachment 83849
    Yes you can. As Radji said for creating the drive letter. View attachment 83849 If you are keeping the old hard drive then it should be caching that (check in IRST) so you should still get the advantage on that drive.
     
    MickyD1234, Sep 6, 2012
    #4
  5. Alienware-Luis_Pardo

    Alienware-Luis_Pardo Guest

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    That's correct :) +1

    However, the mSATA can provide very good writing/reading speeds and it usually has a small capacity. IMO it would be best used as a caching device or as a small drive to install the OS.
     
    Alienware-Luis_Pardo, Sep 6, 2012
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  6. Arrowblade

    Arrowblade Notebook Enthusiast

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    My M17x is set up using the 32gb msata as a storage drive. The OS and main programs/games are all on the freshly installed after market SSD i bought.
    I definitely would prefer to put the OS on SSD because it boots to desktop in 14 seconds. When it was using the original Msata caching configuration, the desktop would pop up in around 23 seconds. I did exactly what radji has advised, found the drive in disk management, formatted it and gave it a letter. Dont use it much to be honest, other than to hold my music collection.
     
    Arrowblade, Sep 6, 2012
    #6
  7. SVOShark

    SVOShark Notebook Consultant

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    Has anyone done benchmarks for msata+ssd vs just ssd?
     
    SVOShark, Sep 6, 2012
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  8. littleone562

    littleone562 Notebook Deity

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    Can the msata drive be used in conjunction with another sata 2 ssd in raid 0?
     
    littleone562, Sep 7, 2012
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  9. radji

    radji Farewell, Solenya...

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    I see no reason it can't. But realize that your mSATA will be a much smaller drive than your SSD so you're probably going to take a serious hit in capacity if you RAID 0 both those drive together.
     
    radji, Sep 7, 2012
    #9