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    Change 7200rpm to SSD Raid 0 by yourself

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by m17x, Jan 30, 2010.

  1. m17x

    m17x Notebook Guru

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    Dear People,

    Can someone help me to show the thread about step by step self changing 7200 rpm Raid 0 to SSD Raid 0?

    I couldn't find the thread myself.

    Thanks
     
    m17x, Jan 30, 2010
    #1
  2. Laxxi

    Laxxi Notebook Evangelist

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    The Moo did guides on just about every hardware change possible I think.

    Have a look for his video tutorials, they'll help you no end.
     
    Laxxi, Jan 30, 2010
    #2
  3. DR650SE

    DR650SE The Whiskey Barracuda

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    Turn M17X over, remove battery, remove baseplate, Remove old HHDs, insert new SSDs, Replace backplate, insert battery, power system on, enter bios, enable RAID 0, Change boot order to boot from optical drive, Insert Respawn DVD, initiate respawn. Enjoy. If you do not have a respawn DVD boot from your windows disk and reinstall your OS, then reinstall all drivers from resource cd.
     
    DR650SE, Jan 30, 2010
    #3
  4. m17x

    m17x Notebook Guru

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    Great. thanks a bunch. Done. SSD is fast for sure. :)
     
    m17x, Jan 30, 2010
    #4
  5. fastlappy

    fastlappy Notebook Evangelist

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    make sure you enable ahci in order for trim to work....You need to enable it in the bios and make sure the driver is installed in device manager. I did a ton of research and it all leads to enabling this driver or you can start to lose performance later on. But, yes, ssd's are the only way to go....If you haven't tried one you have no idea how much faster it is then a 7200rpm hd. Good Luck with yours!
     
    fastlappy, Jan 30, 2010
    #5
  6. stamatisx

    stamatisx T|I

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    Since you raid them, don't forget to set the offset to 128 before installing windows

    If you plan to use only one SSD I've read that setting offset to 64 gives very good results. Windows by default set it to 1024
     
    stamatisx, Jan 31, 2010
    #6
  7. ZenithNoesis

    ZenithNoesis Notebook Evangelist

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    where do you set the offset?
     
    ZenithNoesis, Jan 31, 2010
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  8. stamatisx

    stamatisx T|I

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    If you use a single SSD boot from the windows 7 dvd and delete the partitions
    Reboot again from the dvd and enter the repair mode by clicking "repair your computer" then click command promt
    when the console appears type:

    diskpart
    list disk
    select disk 0 (0 should be the number of the SSD)
    clean
    create partition primary align 64
    active
    exit

    if you use raid before doing that you need to select a stripe size of 128 in your RAID BIOS setup utility ( I haven't tried it since I have only one SSD)

    *EDIT*
    If you follow this way, the 100MB partition that it is created before the windows partition won't be created. You will have only one partition on your SSD
     
    stamatisx, Jan 31, 2010
    #8
  9. hankaaron57

    hankaaron57 Go BIG or go HOME

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    hankaaron57, Mar 21, 2010
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  10. DR650SE

    DR650SE The Whiskey Barracuda

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    +1 for that, I actually was thinking of RAIDing a couple X25-M's.
     
    DR650SE, Mar 21, 2010
    #10
  11. hankaaron57

    hankaaron57 Go BIG or go HOME

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    I'm still trying to decide if I should. Am getting two x25-E's at 32 GB a piece, and I really need it to be 64GB together. I wonder if it's worth losing out on boot speed to RAID-0 them since latency/access time will suffer. But I can definitely make use of the increased sequential read/write with my picture editing/gaming.

    I've read that people say random r/w don't increase with RAID-0, but I've seen benches where random write 64k does increase. I'm not sure I understand the controller logic at the random read/write level yet..

    In any event, 32 GB isn't enough. I need to stick Win7 Ultimate on there, and then a separate partition for Steam which is at its bare minimm 22GB.
     
    hankaaron57, Mar 21, 2010
    #11