M18x R2 Drive Configuration & Troubleshooting - Ask your questions here

Could someone direct me to a link for a good, simple walkthrough for cloning my current 512 hybrid C drive onto my new Vertex 4 512 ssd? I have an external hard drive dock, so I can do it direct drive to drive. I also have an external 1tb backup if that would work better. I'd like to, after cloning, to just plop the new ssd in and go. Any advice would also be appreciated! Thanks guys! Bill

 

If you're using Windows 7, type 'backup and restore' into the search bar. Then click 'Create a system image'. You're going to need to use your 1TB USB drive, as you mentioned. After this, it will have you make a boot disk to initiate the process of copying the image you put on your USB drive onto your new SSD. It is very simple, but it takes time. This process has never failed me.

This will copy exactly what you have, 1:1. It isn't like a fresh installation where drivers, etc., need to be installed.

Windows doesn't create an image of the empty space on your current drive, only the size of what you've used. That being said, you may need to extend the partition from within Windows once everything is said and done to reflect the true capacity of your new drive. This is also quite easy.

 

Awesome. Thanks TT. Is there any way for this to work with the external dock? I was just thinking this would cut down on the total time to do this, and further justify buying this stupid dock! lol (I actually bought the dock to get pics and stuff off of drives dating back to the mid 90's, and it worked great!). And yeah, I'm running win7 Ult.

 

I'm not sure about the dock. I have no experience with it. As long as you have some type of media to transfer the backup image to, I think you'll be fine. It will even let you burn a series of DVDs, so it is a flexible process. Can you post a picture of your dock?

And what is your system and specs?

 

Ok, the dock is:

ICY DOCK MB881U3-1SA 2.5" & 3.5" SATA & IDE to USB Adapter with Hard Drive Dock Stand. Here's a link: Newegg.com - ICY DOCK MB881U3-1SA 2.5" & 3.5" SATA & IDE to USB Adapter with Hard Drive Dock Stand

And my system stats are:

Alienware M18x

CPU:

Intel Core i7 Extreme Quad-core 2920XM Overclocked Turbo Boost to 4.0GHz (8MB Cache)

RAM:

16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz (4DIMMS)

GPU:

Dual 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M NVIDIA SLI Enabled

Drives:

1TB RAID 0, 2x 500GB, 7200RPM Solid State Hybrid

 

Save yourself $45 and just get an eSATAp cable and hook it up directly to your eSATA port. It will be faster than any USB port, as it runs at full SATA-2 3GB/s speed. You can actually install and run an OS from an external drive using the eSATA port. I have done it several times.

There is a possibility your Vertex 4 will not perform as well after cloning. There is no harm in trying, but don't be too surprised if the read/write speeds are less than they should be. A clean installation is the best approach to take.

If you decide to take that route, the opening post in this thread might have information you will find useful... http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...llation-questions-troubleshooting-thread.html

---

Here is where I got mine... 19inch eSATAp to SATA 22pin Cable - Black | Monoprice.com

Product	Qty.	Price	Total
8492	19inch eSATAp to SATA 22pin Cable - Black	1	$5.47	$5.47

 

Nice setup my friend!

You can certainly use that dock.

Those hybrid drives in RAID0 are fast, but that SSD you've got there will make them look like they're standing still.

Make sure you take some before/after benchmarks with Crystal Disk Mark, and also find a boot timer so you can see how your old setup compares to the new SSD. You'll be glad you did.

 

Now what about the thing that Mr. Fox said? If I clone, it won't be as fast as a clean install? Damn, that would suck, 'cause I'm out in the boonies, and the fastest speed I have available here is DSL. I can't even imagine having to DL and Reinstall every game I have in Steam! Arghhhh!!! lol How much speed loss are we talking here with clone vs clean?

 

You will have to test it and see how it does. There are mixed results when cloning from HDD to SSD. It has never worked out well for me, but I have seen a few others post that they are satisfied with it. If it does not run as fast as it should you can always do a clean install later on. No need to stress too much because cloning will work even if read/write speeds are hindered after doing so.

And, you don't have to download all of your Steam games over again. You can delete everything except the Steam installation folders and reinstall Steam to the same directory as the old installation. I have all of my Steam games (507GB worth) and Origin games (another 66.5GB) on my 1TB D: drive.

 

I had never heard that about cloning from HDD to SSD. I have always had good results using the above procedure.

And regardless of what you choose to do, don't delete that Steam folder. The image will contain everything. But if you do a fresh install, back up your Steam folder somewhere, as Mr. Fox said.

 

Ok, I'm going in with the clone. I'll let you guys know how it goes... huuuuuuhh...phewwwww.......... *CLICK* lol

 

Good luck, brother. We're rooting for you.

 

When pulling the drives, (I haven't pulled to access door yet) which one is the C: drive, the one on top or the one on the bottom (assuming the computer is upside down on a table)? Oh, and I discovered today that this M18 will take 3 drives! Cool! I was gonna give my other 512 hybrid to my wife as her boot drive, but screw that! I'm keeping it so I have 1.5 TB internal! lol

 

Three? Then you must have an M18x R2 with an Sandy Bridge CPU. The M18x R1 will not accept three drives unless you put one of them in a caddy to replace the optical drive. The drive cage will have a stamp in the metal showing the port number (0, 1, 2 for the R2 or 0, 1 for the R1). On the M18x R1 both SATA ports are 6GB/s. On the R2, 0 and 1 are SATA-3 6GB/s and 2 (middle spot in the caddy) is SATA-2 3GB/s.

 

Damnit... Yeah, I've got an R1. Crap. I was just watching some vids on YouTube for replacing the HD's, and saw the guy pulling out 3 drives. Oh well. I think I do have the Sandy Bridge Architecture though. I'll let you know what I find in there. I'm still in the process of imaging my C: drive. Should be done soon.

 

According to the information you provided earlier, both of those drives in there are your C: drive. You're running RAID0, so your data is split in half between the two drives. Once you break the array, the data on either drive will be useless. Each drive can still be used individually elsewhere though.

 

what are current suggestions for brand and models of ssd?
currently have 500gb HDD to 32 msata cached
intent one 256bg ssd with OS'es on it "dual boot linux and win"
and stock 500gb drive as storage, cached with 32gb mstata

was considering 840 pro, intel 520s series, unlikely to use the motherboard raid beyond caching. part of me wants to do this shortly so that if interposer is bad as some experienced, that i can get it replaced under waranty and also to confgirm 6mbs speeds on the SSD at least. If there is a drive compatibilty list, i apologize i didnt find it.

thanks

 

I have placed another SSD into my laptop, using HDD1 port, the one with the flappy cable, not the solid board. And I used Intel Rapid Storage Technology to enable RAID and did the "keep my data" option, because frankly, life's too short to reinstall Windows every 5 minutes like Dell wants you to.

My CrystalDiskMark scores don't even break the 500 MB/s on Sequential. The hard drive models are slightly different (Samsung 830 and Samsung 840 Pro, both 256 GB), but I wouldn't have thought that would almost stop RAID from giving me any boost. I thought perhaps the "Keep my data" option wasn't the best, but I also ordered a Vertex 4 for my Desktop (which has a Vertex 4 in it already), and did the same procedure (Keep my data). The only difference is that my desktop uses Intel RSTe rather than RST. Did that, ran CrystalDiskMark (same version, to rule that out), and that gets 810 MB/s, what I would expect.

Any ideas as to why my laptop gets barely any benefit. (The increased storage IS THERE, but the speed is not at all).

 

Never, I repeat, never use two different SSD's in RAID.

 

They aren't that different. And surely that wouldn't affect performance so much as to slash performance by three eighths

 

He might be able to rejoin the RAID0 membership using the eSATAp port to copy the documents and game folders to the SSD temporarily. After that, breaking the RAID, reformatting one of them as "D:" those folders can then be copied over to the Hybrid HDD for normal use.

 

The 830 and 840 Pro are different. Perhaps not in terms of performance, but their architecture is different. It's possible to RAID them, but you'll see varied performance every time you use them, which is exactly what is happening here. It may even be unstable over long periods of use. Also, keeping old files slows performance.

Personally, I would return the 840 Pro and get another 830.

 

Ok, I didn't have much luck with the first suggestion using Win 7. What I got was a drive with a folder in it, not a clone. So before ya'll tell me what I did wrong (and I must have), I bought a program called Acronis Migrate Easy that worked awesome! Cnet gave it high ratings so I just bought the full version so I can use it on my other computer and in the future. It made a fully bootable clone onto the ssd, and I slapped it in and everything works just like it did before, everything intact and functioning beautifully.... Only WAY faster! lol Took that 5.9 score in the windows exp. right to 7.9. Whoohoo! I can now boot up from power-on to fully booted in roughly 40 seconds! Now my processor is holding the score down to 7.6. Are there settings that can bring that up a bit? It's already overclocked somewhat. And what's the deal with my RAM score being 7.8? I've got 16 gigs of 1600mhz ram. I guess I'd need the faster mhz stuff. Oh well, I'm not that worried about it. And you were wondering about the D drive? Everything's fine there. The D drive is still the DATAPART1 drive where all the backups are stored, just like before. I'm going to switch that to my new external 1tb drive so it will free up my D drive for video and pics. I used to always get the "space is low on D" messages, and I'd have to delete the oldest backup to free up space. Anyhoo, all turned out well, and thanks for your help guys. I appreciate it. Bill

 

So I am close to order a new Kingston SSDNow V300 240GB 2.5" KIT 7mm and two Seagate Momentus® Thin 500GB for the R2, I just want to be sure, that I have read right, and 3x 7mm HDD/SSDs will fit in a m18 R2

Thank you in advance

 

You may need to use some sort of 2mm spacers for the drives (I don't have my M18x yet so I'm not sure how the drives fit in the bays) but otherwise they will work fine.

 

Yes this will work, mine has 3 Hitachi 500GB 7mm SATA3 2.5 Hard Drives HTS725050A7E630 installed.

 

You can have:

3x 7mm drives.
2x 9.5mm + 1x 7mm.
2x 7mm + 1x 9.5mm.

And an mSata caching SSD (32GB up to 480GB). Not sure about 3x 9.5mm. They might fit, but it will be a tight fit (not recommended).

 

Thanks to all of you. As Far as i have seen, i don't need any additional things besides the caddy and the HDs or do I need to buy screws?

 

It will come with 12 screws. For example, if you order a single HDD, it will come with a bracket containing the additional screws.

 

I have 3 x 9.5mm drives in my caddy. There is no problem with it at all. It's not even what I would consider a tight fit. The only thing that might be an issue is heat with 2 7200RPM HDD stacked so close. Might not be enough heat to cause a problem, but you will definitely be able to feel warmth emanating from the left side of the palm rest.

I will merge this with our existing thread for M18x R2 drive configuration questions.

 

So I ordered my M18xR2 with the stock 500 gb drive. I bought my own 840 ssd and installed that as the primary drive and moved the stock drive to the 3rd hd slot. Everything has worked great. I just ordered a 3rd hd which is a 1 tb WD drive from Dell with my gift card. So I installed that in the middle slot today. I can see my original 2 drives, but I can only see my new hd under device manager. It doesn't show up under the computer tab where I would go to look at it. Device manager shows it working properly. Any ideas what the issue may be? I was thinking it was DOA until I saw it showing up in the device manager, no I have no clue what may be wrong.

Thanks in advance for the help. If you need any additional info let me know.


John

 

Have you tried disk management? Maybe it needs to be initialized? It's probably a bare drive and not partitioned/formatted etc...

 

Open the Windows Disk Management Utility. From there, make the disk a "Basic Disk" create a partition, format and give it a drive letter. Then you will see it in "Computer" like your other drives.

It is probably showing up in Windows Disk Management Utility as unallocated drive space right now.

 

That was the problem, just initialized it and it's showing now. Thank you!

 

Hi all,

My M18 R2 will have the 32GB mSATA caching SSD and the 1TB RAID 0 (2x 500GB) 7200RPM. Would you bother upgrading these to ssd drives?

Thanks,
Trish

 

Yes, I would get an SSD and add it for the OS on SATA Port 0 and use the mSATA and 1TB RAID0 as a nice cache-accelerated data drive setup.

That being said, if you are happy with the performance of the system the way it comes from Alienware, you might not even want to change anything. While the SSD is much faster with sustained read/write speeds than the cached HDD, it will still feel pretty darned zippy with the caching while performing ordinary tasks, playing games, etc. Did your order include Windows 8 or Windows 7? I ask because if it comes with Windows 8, Secure Boot/Fast Boot enabled, it may require a slightly different approach than just bolting in a drive and installing Windows. There have been a few struggles with that here recently.

 

I got win 7 pro on it, it actually was not available with wins 8 which was fine by me.

Trish

 

Outstanding, Trish! Then you should be in a better position to do whatever makes you happy without having to jump through any hoops.

 

Good to hear Mr Fox I always get caught in the hoops, pretty new at the entire upgrading thing so I'm sure you'll be hearing from me if I decide to do it. I just got a call from dell my computer has shipped 8 days early!!

Trish

 

WOOT! I love it when that happen.

 

Trish06 .. I have the 1tb+32gb msata setup as sent by dell and I honestly feel it is quicker than a normal setup and I don't see an immediate need to upgrade ....but a solid state is always a great performance bump and also congrats on the early delivery

 

Hi Trooper,
I'm sure it will be a big upgrade from what I have so I may not feel the need for an upgrade either. I just keep reading about how great the ssd's are (which I'm sure they are).

Trish

 

pardon the stupid question, but i just upgraded to SSD from the mstata cached arrangement. How do I now make the 32gb mstata 'a regular drive'.? I synced and removed it as an accelerator, but its still a lone member of a raid 0 array, i think i missed something in the Raid Bios for this step.

edit: got it it was in the RAID bios.

Thanks

 

It most definitely is a big upgrade .................I can never deny that .................but since my Steam library is huge .........256gb SSD wont cut it for me , therefore i plan to save on a bit and then bite the gun ............get 2 500gb SSD , i do realize you can use the 256 SSD as the OS drive and store data on the rest ..............I had done that ...............but i find the 1TB Setup + 32gb msata sufficient for my needs.

Also one you get a SSD , you never go back ............i had a crucial 256gb SSD and a intel 180gb 330 SSD but ended up returning the two because of space constraints .............but then again with the m18x .......anything is possible ....since you have effectively 3 slots .........and i tried the two when i had a MBP.

 

Hello,

I ordered basic 500Gb hdd setup with 6gb ram to upgrade both myself after delivery. SInce I knew I would likely get past 16Gb ram sooner than later I upgraded to Windows 8 (*free) for the 17+Gb memory support. Is it worth the $66 to get W7 Pro then make system recovery discs to use when adding new SSD's? Or do all of the "cool" crowd start with W7 only then add all drivers manually? Seems there is bad karma when using W8 doing Raid-0 etc......

Second question. Can the recovery discs be turned into Flash drive bootable? I did that for desktop but with only W7 Ultimate. Super fast reformatting.

Thanks,
Brad

 

Hi Brembrad. Windows 8 works great in RAID0, but it's iffy with Secure/Fast boot options enabled in the BIOS. Using legacy boot mode is your best bet. You should be able to create bootable flash recovery media directly rather than converting from optical discs. It would depend on what recovery/imaging software you are using. You can also create a Windows 7 or Windows 8 bootable flash drives for installing the OS instead of using optical disk. Microsoft has a tool for converting the ISO to flash drive.

 

Speaking of hard drives, these look interesting:
Seagate announces new notebook, desktop SSHDs - The Tech Report

Will 9.5mm thick fit in the M18x with no issues?

More info:
Seagate SSHDs cache writes in dual-mode NAND - The Tech Report

 

Yes the 9.5mm can fit the m18x ........but if you plan to use all three slots , then you have to go with 7mm drives!!

 

Is it possible to run this 3 tier configuration with a Momentus XT setup, or am I right in assuming this would create far too much heat?

 

Yeah, M18x R2 manual confirms one or two drives = 7mm or 9.5 mm, but 3 drives requires all 3 to be 7mm.


ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_alienware_laptops/alienware-m18x-r2_owner%27s%20manual_EN-US.pdf

(This is the official answer - I thought I'd seen a few folks saying they successfully wedged other sizes/configs in there, but haven't seen this for a while)