M18x R2 Drive Configuration & Troubleshooting - Ask your questions here

What hard drive are you considering that's 9,7mm?

Anyway, that's only 0,2mm so it doesn't matter, it will fit perfectly.

 

Can I put in a 15mm if that is all that is in there along with a 256G SSD?

 

There are neither 9.7mm nor 15mm retail 2.5" drives. By default they come in 7mm, 9.5mm, 12.5mm or some older drives in 17mm heights (unless we are talking some rare enterprise class drives which indeed may be somewhere between 10-15mm thick; I doubt that's the case). The hdd caddy has space for exactly 3x 7mm drives, so 21 mm total according to the manual. There is also some space left between the top of the caddy and the base cover (~3mm). The original SSD is very prolly 9.5mm which means you have some 11.5mm space left talking specs. Note that spacing between drives is limited to layout of the screw wholes in the caddy.

This said, if you really try it may (or not, I haven't tried it) be possible to fit a 12.5mm drive in the top 'slot' in the caddy using the original screw holes. I have 2x 9.5mm and there is stills some space left between the top of the top drive and the base cover, as said above, as well a few mm space in the middle between the drives. Should this be possible, it would mean R2 has space for 3x 7mm, 2x 9.5mm or possibly 2x 12.5mm drives.

Setups that will surely fit (using the original screw wholes in the original caddy):

• 3x 7mm
• 2x 9.5mm
• 1x 7mm + 1x 9.5mm
• 1x 9.5mm (top) + 1x 12.5mm (bottom)

Setups that may possibly fit:

• 2x 12.5mm

Also remember that in accordance with Ivy Bridge specs there are only two SATA III (6Gb/s) ports available.

Sata speeds: caddy layout vs. Sata slots on the HDD interposer:

• Sata 6Gb/s (top)
• Sata 3Gb/s (middle)
• Sata 6Gb/s (bottom)

 

Even though it was not intended, 3 9.5mm drives will fit according to several posts I have seen. It might would not be good idea to cram 3 regular HDDs in such a tight spot due to heat, but 3 SSD probably would be OK.

 

Okay, all got merged into one thread. I hope that what I've said still makes sense out of context. To catch up what's been said in here: SSDs run warm and it is normal. They will show some 40-45*C operational temp and that's in order.

 

There's the 1.5TB Seagate FreePlay @ 14,8mm.

And concerning the 9,7mm , some manufacturers (Seagate) advertise their drives at their exact height while others advertise them as 9,5mm (the standard) adding ± 0,2 mm next to it.
Now bear in mind that 0,2mm is nothing but on paper it's enough to raise questions.

 

Good catch. I was kinda expecting this one to be eventually mentioned. I actually own one (ST1500LM003-9YH148). It came with a 'GoFlex' usb 3.0 enclosure. That said, I believe 'FreePlay' series have never been meant for retail market and were support to come and work only in Seagate's external enclosures (hence no retail info on them on seagate webpages) --> what would explain their the unusual sizing and their limited availability in retail. There's also a 1TB version. No idea how thick that one is (prolly 12.5).

BTW, the whole GoFlex thing has always worked very fine for me. Too bad they don't sell just the enclosures w/o drives.

 

Thanks DS for the effort and information/education. Much appreciated.

 

That's true, they didn't had much success as a stand alone HDD due to their height. You find them in the FreeAgent configuration (external).

For anybody that finds this, I managed to fit it in the M17x but used two plates to secure the drive instead of the HDD1 caddy.

 

I will be installing a Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 750GB in my m18x. I have read in the forum where I bought the drive that some folks had to update their RST driver to get the drive to function properly. Will I need to do this too? I received my laptop around 2 Aug 12.

 

Can you's enlighten me with own experience (not whats on google or "written here and there") , please.

Here I have 2 x 256GB OCZ vertex4 SSDs and 1TB samsung M8 HDD, all drives are 2.5" size factor SSDs are SATA III and so is HDD but I dont mind running HDD at SATA II specs, can you shed light on me, how does that work?
I need feedback from both camps, from R1 and R2 M18X owners!

I am planning getting either M18X and want to set up my drives in setup as SSD's would run RAID0 and HDD would be ACHI only single drive separate. Can this be done or it all gonna have to be RAID array or all single ACHI?

This question is iching my head alot today, so please share some of your knowledge here, thanks Kindly!

Mario

 

someone got to have done it! come on!

 

Yes, many of us have SSD RAID0 in our M18x R1 and R2 machines. The proper setting regardless of what drive configuration you intend to use is to set the BIOS on RAID. The RAID setting includes AHCI support and is optimized for all drive configurations. You only have one drive controller, so you cannot use a different protocol (RAID versus AHCI) selectively among individual SATA ports.The opening post in this thread should be enlightening and you can ask more questions about SSD and RAID0 in that thread.

HOW TO: SATA III-SSD-RAID0-Windows Installation: Questions, Troubleshooting Thread

​

If you end up with an M18x R2 and have questions that are specific to the SATA port utilization on that model, then this thread is the one to look for information or ask additional questions.

M18x r2 hard drive configuration - What about 3x 9.5mm hard drive?!​

 

I forgot to mention that the Seagate drive I asked about is the 750G model with 4kb physical sectors.

 

I am running with 2 seagate 750gbs in raid 0 and my m4 512gb.
At first i was a bit worry about what the temps would be. I checked my temps while transfering large files and they never go over 50c. Usually they stay between 35c and 45c. According to the specs of the hardrive, the max operating temp is 65c

 

I was finishing up installing my Seagate drive, replacing the connector latch that secures the hard-drive cable to the connector on the system board, and one of the catches broke off. I imagine this is a fairly common ordeal considering how fragile the connector latch is. My question is where can I get a replacement from? As you may know my rig is out of commission until I get this resolved.

 

Send a PM to Alienware-L_Porras and he can help you with that.

 

much obliged

 

You can't. You need to replace the motherboard. L_Porras will tell you the same thing. My R2 came with the latch broken. I had to replace the mobo to get his fixed.

 

I am ordering two samsung 830 256GB ssd to install in my R2. I am looking for a decent third drive for storage. It looks like I need to keep it at the 7mm height...

Anyone have any suggestions? I would prefer the largest capacity and fastest rotation speed possible...

Also, if I have two SSDs in Raid 0, is there any sense in using a msata cache drive? Is it possible to install an msata and have only the non-ssd storage drive use it?

Thanks.

 

Well, he posted a while back that those latches are available now. (They did not used to be available and motherboard replacement was always required.)

It's possible he misunderstood the question that was asked, but he said as much. I'll see if I can find the post for reference. It certainly would be nice if they are available now... would save a lot of unnecessary motherboard replacements.

 

I can confirm this!

I originally customized my m18x R2 with 2x 500GB 7200rpm HD in RAID0 and a 32GB mSATA for caching. Upon inspection, both harddrives are from seagate 9.5mm size.

I then added a 128GB SSD vertex 4 (9.2MM) on the bottom (drive 0) and moved the other seagate drive to middle caddy. It Fits perfectly! Even all the screw fits ( 7mm screw holes)

Im using the SSD for boot and the 2x500GB 7200rpm RAID0 for storage. mSATA is caching RAID0.

I have to admit, It does get warm when transfering large files to the RAID0 seagate HD. But with 5 yrs. warranty on my Vertex 4 SSD and Alienware warranty on RAID0 7200 rpm drives, ill Take the chance ..

 

Well, I found the post I was remembering and it was Pablo, not Luis Porras. And, his response was not entirely clear. So, we should get clarification if he was confirming what DumbDumb was saying, meaning the retainer is available, or simply offering to help Heihachi with a motherboard replacement. Would be great to find out they are available, but they never have been in the past. They *should* be even if they are not, LOL... seeing how many people have a knack for breaking them.

So, lostclusters, send a PM to Alienware-Pablo_R and ask him to help with that. See below... please let us know if the retainer clip is available. If not, they will most likely send you a new motherboard.

For a short-term fix, see this info: How to fix broken keyboard connector on laptop motherboard (conceptually, the same type of fix will work for the SATA ribbon retainer).

 

No, that's not necessary. I'll move your new thread to the one with the answer to the one with answers to your question.

Edit: merged - see post # 107.

I'm sure other members of the community may have some suggestions for you on the best use for the mSATA.

 

I sent them an email to the email address specified with a picture of a broken latch found online, and they replied that the only remedy is motherboard replacement. What's more, my R2 came with that latch broken and the drives disconnected. I had a technician at home trying to figure out if only it would be possible to replace the small plastic latch itself (as that was the only reason to get a new mobo). Dell replied they don't have those and they always come with the motherboard and in the end I got a new board shipped to me.

Nonetheless, this is a very annoying issue. The latch is too fragile and hence too many people break it. This needs to be re-designed. Now, if only somebody had a 3D scanner and a so called 3D printer, replacement latches could be easily manufactured at home at pretty much no cost.

 

Thanks again Mr.Fox. I have PM'd Alienware-Pablo_R with my request and I will post the results here.

I would like to add that I followed the hard drive disassembly instructions, from Dell, to the letter. The only instructions on this latch/retainer are to pry it upward on removal and push it down on reassembly. I would recommend following a video I recent saw from Mr. Fox, where he does not remove the ribbon cable and latch from the connector but removes the connectors and cable from the hard drives instead. This disassembly technique bypasses the fragile latch completely and prevents a very possible catastrophe. Maybe Mr. Fox can do a video on how to remove and reinstall this latch properly.

edit 2: Your "fix" instructions provide ample info on how to properly disengage such latches/retainers. It is a shame I did not see this before I broke mine. However I believe my breakage occurred reengaging the latch, not in releasing it.


edit 3: Your fix worked beautifully, Mr. Fox. However it should be noted that the use of plastic tapes potentially create a HUGE static electricity/EMI issues/problems. Extreme care should be exercised when applying fixes like this. High humidity, if possible, and a grounded static strap should be used whenever doing this.

 

Evidently the latch/retainer is not available because I am being told my warranty does not cover this item, even though I have a 4 year advanced warranty. The PM'g continues, more to follow.

edit: I was told that to fix this breakage I need to send my laptop to the depot. I declined this at this time because I do not want it broke more than it is now. Mr. Fox's fix will probably be a semi-permanent one, for now.

 

Maybe our awesome support reps here in the forum provide us with some insight on why customers that have an advanced warranty are being asked to send their machines to the depot for repairs that can be completed in the field.

 

To be able to apply the Advanced Warranty we normally send the computers to depot to be able to check on what was the possible cause of the damage. It is just the procedure to follow when it comes to accidental damage.

 

Thanks for the quick reply, Luis. That makes sense about the accidental damage, since it is not a replacement of a defective part. I don't know the particulars, but in most circumstances an accidental damage warranty is different than a manufacturer's warranty and there are some compliance things that come into play because accidental damage is generally handled like an insurance claim rather than a warranty repair.

 

Yeah, that is the main reason why we need to check it as an entire unit and the best way to do it is our depot facility. And no problem about the quick reply that's why we are here!

 

Well, the good news is that it does not go to an independent third party. I know some Dell/Alienware competitors that offer accidental damage coverage do not even handle it for the customer. They direct them to contact another vendor and the vendor handles it. When that happens it is a real pain to get things sorted if the company handling the accidental damage claim messes up the machine, and the company that sold the computer and warranty often doesn't care to get involved in the resolution process. I think Dell's way of handling it is a WHOLE LOT better.

Thank you for being here. We really do appreciate you, Brother Luis. +1 Rep.

 

What about this config? Will it work?

1x 256gb samsung 830
2x wd 1.0tb 9,5mm

Thanks

Gesendet von meinem GT-I9300 mit Tapatalk 2

 

"I am ordering two samsung 830 256GB ssd to install in my R2. I am looking for a decent third drive for storage. It looks like I need to keep it at the 7mm height...
Anyone have any suggestions? I would prefer the largest capacity and fastest rotation speed possible...
Also, if I have two SSDs in Raid 0, is there any sense in using a msata cache drive? Is it possible to install an msata and have only the non-ssd storage drive use it?
Thanks. "




Does anyone have any input on this?
I appreciate the mods moving threads into others to condense space, but what usually happens is that these things become ignored. I am looking to stay with a 7mm drive for the middle slot (for air flow purposes, I really don't want to go with a 9.5mm if I can avoid it) with two Samsung 830s in a raid 0. Anybody have any recommendations? I have a 320gb 7200 thin drive available, but if there were larger capacities, I would prefer one of those.

Does anyone have any experience with using an msata in conjunction with a platter drive, in a laptop with SSDs already? Is that possible? Could I add a 30 or 60gb msata to my R2 and have my platter drive perform like a momentus xt hybrid drive? Can I specify the msata to use as caching on the platter drive only?
Or would that just be wasting money? I have no problem tossing down $50 for it if it is going to improve performance on my storage drive.

 

Check out this Hitachi at Amazon: Amazon.com: HGST Travelstar 2.5-Inch 500GB 7200RPM SATA III 32MB Cache SATA 6Gbps Internal Bare or OEM Drives (HTS725050A7E630): Computers & Accessories

 

Thanks, that is what I am looking for.

Any one have any input on an Msata drive for the platter drive? Or would the OS just use the installed raid 0 SSDs for rotational drive cacheing instead?

 

I have a question...

I recently bought two 7mm toshiba and one 7.5mm ssd (which i thought was a 7mm)

Upon installing hard drives, I realized that when I put the crucial inside, it hovered over the hdd caddy a tiny bit. I put the hdd caddy back in the mobo, it wasn't a slim fit like it was with two hard drives in it, more of a snug fit. I wiggled it a bit until the screws lined up, screwed them half way, put the back case on, and then the battery. Everything works fine, the hard drives register, and all that great stuff. But I can't help but thinking I did something wrong by putting the hard drives in even though they hovered over the caddy abit.

Was it a good idea?

 

So long as nothing is bent out of shape, stressing any of the connections to the mobo, or warping the service panel etc, I would call it a success!

 

Awesome, Thanks for the reply.

Also I saw the hdd's you installed and those are exactly what I installed. A crucial 256gb and two 1tb drives. Boy and I thought SSD was great as a secondary, I just installed windows 7 to the crucial and im watching windows pop up instantly.

Again, thanks for the help! +1 REP!

 

Yeah SSDs are awesome OS drives. I'm on the R1 so I don't have the luxuries of 3 HDDs and have my Bluray installed (Otherwise I'd have 4 HDDs LOL). I had to take my drive out and replace it with a HDD Caddy.

 

From my experience, if I RAID across all ports 0, 1, and 2, I frequently get BSOD and mysterious reboots at the exact moment of drive format (read|write operations) from a Win 7 install DVD. I have taken all three Intel 520's out and individually formated and check disk each drive.

Has anyone else experienced this issue? How then does Dell.com sell triple SSD Raid 0 drives barring on a possible technical glitch with RAID'ing over different interfaces?

Current (stable) setup is Port 0 and Port2 SSD Raid 0 for Boot/Applications/Games and Port 1 SSD non-raid as Caching/Temp/ISO Images/Scratch disk.

Is there anyone out there on a unilateral triple SSD RAID 0 across both Sata II and Sata III without glitching?

Lastly, and only happened today, I am worried about the intergraty of the ribbon cable, there is slight cracking on it that just started to show up. Can someone post a part number and a good location to purchase the part. Dell Warranty is refusing to cover a "damaged" item.

 

I have a similar question but wondering about 3-way raid0 with 2 SSD's and msata.

 

Only two of the SATA ports are SATA 3.0 6GB/s. This is an Intel chipset limitation that applies to all systems, not just Alienware. So, if you created a 3-drive RAID it will run at the slower SATA 2.0 3GB/s speed. The mSATA drive also runs at the slower SATA 2.0 speed. So, unless you do not care about running the slower SATA 2.0 speeds, a 3-drive array is out of the question.

The other issue using the mSATA is capacity. The usable size of the array would be limited by the size of the smallest drive in the membership... in this case, mSATA drive. For exampe, if you had a 32GB mSATA and two 128GB SSD drives, your RAID membership would be 96GB (only 32GB of the 128GB available on each drive) and the rest of the space on each of the the 128GB SSD would be unusable and inaccessible.

 

Crucial offers mSata drives in higher capacities and reasonable prices (M4 mSata 256GB 6Gb/s, CT256M4SSD3) so the size is not the issue. I was actually thinking about getting a disk like that (180 EUR) as encrypted OS drive and leaving the array for heavier file operations and gaming, but this would mean running that M4 mSata at around 35% of its original speed (some 45-50% if its 6Gb/s speed when capped at 3Gb/s, talking sequential transfers; then another 65-75% of that if encrypted vs. its non-encrypted performance). In the end 1/3 doesn't really seem that attractive, especially as the (in that case supportive) array would remain very fast. This is naturally a(n anti) placebo effect in action here, as even such mSata would remain fast (at some 150-170MB/s sequentially and only by some 20% 4K slower speeds vs. original capability and this is what counts), yet as said, this looks very pale vs. my current RAID0 performance.

In the first place I need to read more about RAID 0 performance when partitioned and encrypted. I can simply encrypt the OS partition in place and get over with all of this.

 

Anyone know what the voltage of the rail powering the SATA connectors is? Just a thought I had the other day, if the rail was 12V then the M18x could fit a VelociRaptor in, which would make for a nice high speed and high capacity storage drive when coupled with an SSD cache. It wouldn't be cheap, and seems like a bad idea given the SSDs available now, but it'd be ideal for people like me who have a huge amount of data that they want to run quickly, given the cost of 500GB SSDs.

 

With the tight disk space in R2 Velociraptor would run very hot.

 

Not necessarily. The power usage of the VelociRaptor is not that high. It draws a maximum of 6W, dropping to about 4.5W when idle but spinning. Most 7k2 2.5" drives will draw about 2.5W on maximum load. At first it does seem like the VelociRaptor will run much hotter, but remember that the M18x is designed to support 3 hard drives right next to each other in its cage. If it can handle 3 ordinary drives fine, it should be able to keep 1 VelociRaptor within its thermal limits.

Of course, this is all theory. And pointless if the SATA connectors aren't running on a 12V rail.

 

Ok , got my heavy artilery delivered today! (M18X R2) and having some pains already installing win7!!!

Using RAID-0 2 x 256GB OCZ Vertex4 SSD's

I have checked and confirmed several times BIOS settings show RAID setting enabled
I have went in to bios raid menu and deleted and recreated RAID-0 stripe/volume
tried several times it does not complete windows setup, kinda keeps loading after reboot at the last step where says completing installation.... this really sucks as I somehow COULDNT find any real fix for this one browsing forum!!!!!!!!!!!!

HEEELLLP!!

PS: creating RAID-0 default option as to select 32K per sector size, should I go higher or lower for best option?

 

So it just keeps loading forever at that last step? How long did you wait? I mean it might take a while sometimes.

 

yea it kinda stopped loading progress bar at approx 60% of "completing installation" step, after waiting 15 minutes I thought BALLS thats enough its not working, what do you mean a while?

I just want to confirm I have final 1.5 firmware on my both SSD drives and both drives worked perfectly in past system as RAID-0