HOW TO: Windows Installation Thread (includes SATA III, SSD Upgrade, RAID0 Discussion)

Yes stay the hell away of sandforce with there compression..
True performance drives now are M4 and 830 sammy's

 

I understand what you mean. I'm annoyed myself that I'm going to be limited to SATA 2 speeds (for the mSATA drive at least) - but I probably won't notice the difference between that and a SATA 3 SSD. I can, at least, stick 2 9.5mm HDDs in there as well as the SSD. (I didn't know at the time that it was possible to have a 9.5mm drive and 2 7mm drives though...

The interesting thing on the numbers that you've posted for your SSDs is the 4KB read values. It seems to be twice as fast for incompressible data when it ISN'T in RAID. The difference for writes is there, but that read value is strange...(and I'd never go on sequential read/write values as a measure of performance, unless video editing is important to you)

Perhaps values wouldn't be so strange on a non-Sandforce drive. It'd be interesting to see benches for that. (There probably are benches for that somewhere on the internet but I can't be bothered to search for them )

 

Well, they are more consistent on non-SandForce drivers. These are the screen shots I had available to post. There are 500MB and 100MB tests and that will cause some variance as well. Also, the cleanliness state of the SSD and amount of free space have an effect. It's not a great comparison for 4K, but the best I could do in a pinch with what I had.

 

So guys, should i go for raid0 256gb crucial m4? SAMSUNG p830 is equal to crucial m4? What about trim support in raid0?

 

Yes, you should go with either one. Both are an excellent choice and I would choose based on price between them. I think the Sammy might be just a hair better overall, but not enough to justify a lot more money. If you can find either for a similar price, I would choose the Sammy based on what I have seen and read. I can tell you from owning the 128GB M4 that it's awesome. It was just too small to suit my needs, and I purchased the Agility 3 SSDs in haste because they were inexpensive and the capacity I wanted. That was a fatal error. I should have known better and went against my own judgment. (Boys and girls, today's special word is "stupid" and that's spelled Mr. Fox, LOL.)

As to your other question... http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-beta-11-1-0-1006-ssd-raid0-trim-support.html ...it's unofficial, but it seems to be working fine for several of us. An official release designed for our mobile chipset should be out soon.

 

so im going for 2x SAMSUMG 830 ssds 256 gb is that ok? IRST would support trim soon officialy?

 

Ummm... Yeah. I think I already said that. jk

Good choice. I think you'll love the PM830s. Wanna trade for two 240GB Agility 3 and a 128GB M4?

 

question:which ssd brand(s) goes into aw laptops?i just ordered an 18x

 

Samsung PM830

 

Just a "FYI" really, but here is a bench of my x2 "Dell issue" Samsung PM830's in RAID0..... - obviously I would say Raiding them is worth it....you should expect similar results with the retail version of these drives (Samsung 830 Series) if you choos to buy them!

 

only 1 thin disturbs me - its 4K read is slower than not raid0 ssd..

 

Yeah, the 4k reads are a tad on the lower side of where I would ideally like them but it's such a good performer "all round" that I can live with that (also the results are based on AS SSD testing incompressable data too) - it's not apparent in day to day use as everything is exceedingly good.

Sometimes you gotta look at the overall picture instead of focusing on one particular area - in real world scenarios, the drive is superb.

 

Yes, in the real world experience, it's imperceptible. Here is a screen shot showing how the Agility 3 (also in RAID0) sucks in comparison to the Sammy PM830s.

 

Not sure I could do that with a clear conscience. Because they are SSD, they still "feel" fast. As disappointed as I am with them, they are not causing a perceptible problem in day-to-day use. I suppose that is how OCZ got away with keeping them on the market... because they "feel" fast.

For now I will have to live with the consequences of my own stupidity. Maybe later I will put them in other laptops in the household (we have 5, LOL) and buy a second 128GB M4 to match the one in my spare parts drawer. For now, I need the drive space.

 

Buy a nas for space have 10tb hooked up my alien.
Even accessable via cloud options

 

I can't stand it any more. I just ordered another M4 128GB SSD to pair with my other one. I'll put the Agility 3 drives in other systems here at home. It will be better than their HDDs.

See what you did to me with that "Man that had to hurt..." comment? LOL

It was only $119.99 with no tax and free shipping from TigerDirect, so it didn't hurt that bad.

 

Hahahahahahahahaha - "Mom - it wasnt MY fault - he MADE me do it!!!!".....

 

I'll need to spin it as an upgrade to SSD for the wife's Inspiron M5030. I also have an extra 8GB of G.Skill DDR3 laying around, so it will be like, "Honey, I feel bad that your computer is so slow. I am upgrading your RAM and installing an SSD to enhance your computing experience. And, it only cost $120 because I got a great deal on the parts."

Not sure where I will install the other Agility 3 yet. My 18 year old son has the M17x R2, so I don't think I'll give it to him. I wish there was a way to put it into the Mini 9, but that won't work... at all. I think I may be getting my hands on a free XPS 15, so maybe I'll save it for that.

 

Haha rep for that fox! Gone all bad@$$ on your sandforce
Cant say im sorry i made you do it, its for the better love me for it later!

 

I have not found the answer to this but here is my question.
Well i just purchased an alienware mx18 r2 and i got it with the 750gb hdd with 32gb msata, my question is how is that set up? is it one drive momentus ( hybrid drive) or is it taking up 2 drive slots with one in each?

The other question is if i remove the drive how ever it is will i be able to plug in my SSD and take advantage of SATAIII or will i have to get a different connecter? so basically is the plug in that in the hdd bay is it using Sata II or Sata III?

Thank you

 

Well, it did not take a lot of effort. Imagine my disappointment at the discovery that two Agility 3 in RAID0 was slower than my single M4 SSD with incompressible data read/write speeds. I love my M4, it was just too small without being paired with another in RAID0, and I had no idea the Agility 3 performance was so mediocre in comparison. It does a good job with compressible data, but it's a fail with incompressible data. None of this was a secret, I just did not follow my normal process of researching before buying. It was a lesson learned the hard way. I just feel stupid because an M18x owner knows first hand that buying based on price is a recipe for mediocrity. If you want excellence, it comes with a price tag. Where I failed was allowing myself to be enticed by the low price of the Agility 3.

 

Yes sandforce just fakes the benches with there cheap compression fail techniques.. Have fun with the raid m4.
Im still waiting for my r4, somehow my order takes ages in pre production fase, day 6 now.

 

Chances are that your 750gb HDD is installed on port 0 (one of the Sata III ports in the caddy) and your mSata is on its own port (totally seperate to the HDD caddy) so each drive is on its own port.

If you plan on installing a SSD, you can do so either on port 1 on the caddy or you could move your 750gb to port1 and put the SSD on port 0....both are Sata III.

 

Thank you very much

 

You said the Samsung 830, which now I'm considering. I am not saying the 830 is not a great SSD i just want to know how does it compare to
Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3/240G 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Stand-Alone Drive)

from what i can see this one is faster, but then again i really do not know too much about SSD's

 

Sandforce controller. - Risky... I regret purchasing an SSD with SandForce technology. Some are good, and some are not-so-good. The NewEgg reviews looked good for the two I purchased, but the people that liked it and gave good reviews simply didn't know any better.

Have a look at this short (3-page) thread before making a decision... http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/664663-m18x-r2-raid-0-ssd-worth.html

Companies that sell SSD driver tend to be a little bit sneaky. They advertise performance based only on compressible data read/write speeds, which always looks and sounds awesome. If they advertised random read/write performance, a lot of people would not buy the drives. The trouble is, much of the data that needs to be moved is incompressible, and that is where SandForce does poorly.

 

r2 raid ssd ...seriously are you trying to compensate for something you lack.....

Stick with a solid 256gb ssd for $180-$200 and get a 7200rpm HDD for everything else.

 

One SSD is good. Two in RAID0 is better, and faster. Better, if for no other reason than contiguous drive space. I already have a 750GB 7500RPM HDD for data in a caddy in my optical drive bay, just not enough room on the SSD for what I want on the SSD.

Two 128GB SSD are roughly the same price as one 256GB SSD, so for the same price you can have equal capacity with better performance.

 

There aren't no benefits to RAID 0 SSD, I didn't believe in it for the longest time til I managed to get my hands on 2 x 160 GB Intel SSDs. It shuts down and boots up faster than 1 x SSD. I installed Office 2007 in under 10 seconds (normally minutes for a mechanical hard drive). And I haven't really noticed a slowdown in the 2 months I've had my RAID 0 array.

 

Good thing that R2 has 3 bay for drives and 4th is optical drive

 

Funnily enough, I had a discounted offer mailed to me Today for the Agility 3 from a UK retailer (Ebuyer) and they are selling the Agility 3 120gb for £77.99gbp - OCZ 120GB Agility 3 SSD - Solid State Drives | Ebuyer.com which doesnt seem that good a deal considering your impressions/experience of them!

Worth noting that other drives are available around this price range for 120gb that would obvioulsy perform better - namely Sandisk Extreme and Vertex 3 - also, the Samsung 830 120gb rolls in at around £95gbp currently......

 

gone bad@$$ on my R4. just ordered a crucial M4 128GB msata drive .
has same spec as the sata 128GB drives.
gonne try 3 drive raid 0.
hopefully the manual is right and all ports are SATA3.
other wise ill use the msata drive as vmware disk and my other 2 m4 in raid 0.

Maxing out my R4 as much as possible. when cpu's are cheaper might upgrade later, for now 3610qm will do it just fine.

MRfox got your second m4? happing dancing on the agility?

 

The mSATA port is SATA 2.0 from what I understand.

No, TigerDirect is always slow delivery. I probably will not see it until at least Friday.

 

will test that theory of msata, dell manual says SATA3 but seen the past and dell manuals beeing incorrect...

my r4 is here on thursday, so will be my msata version of the M4.
will see what happens with the sata speeds

if it really is sata 2 no biggy, just have 128gb more space
probably the first with this setup anyways.

 

Here's a report from an M18x owner that has mSATA. I'm looking forward to seeing if yours is different.

 

yeah saw that same post, hopefully the R4 has all ports sata3, will know thursday..
although i think it is wishfull thinking.. if it is sata2 dell is gonna have a hard time with me just for the fun of it.
if they say sata3 in manual then it should be

 

Tried everything and could not get raid to work. Called alienware and they said to use the first two connectors, HDD 0 and HDD 2.

Funny thing, I could get the system to boot a single SSD with the OS installed on it in HDD 0 but not HDD 1. Some reason I had it set in my head that HDD 0 and HDD1 were used in raid.

HDD 0 and HDD2 are the two connected together on the hard drive connector and HDD 1 is kind of the extra limb if you want to call it.

Can anyone who set up Raid 0 confirm that HDD 0 and HDD 2 is how they set up raid and they are getting 6GB/s.

Thanks

 

There is an easier way. Install Windows on one SSD. After your installation is complete, use RST to create the RAID0 array within the Windows environment. The array will be the same size as one drive. You can create a partition with a new drive letter in the unallocated space or expand the C: partition to consume the rest of the drive space.

I had no choice but to do it this way with the OCZ Agility 3 SSD RAID0 setup in my R1 because Windows did not like them when trying to install to the array from scratch. Even using F6 drivers it didn't want to play nice with the Agility 3 SSDs. So, you may be running into something similar.

 

I was able to run two Mushkin 120GB in raid 0 with no problems on the R1 (windows installed from a single partition with no problem). But I jumped up to the 256 but this connector on the R2 is new. Going to try the first two slots as alienware suggested tonight, thought I would see if anyone has tried this yet. Just weird how it's acting.

 

Maybe the third slot is a port replica that is causing a bit of unusual behavior.

 

Have you tried setting it in bios, setting hd to raid and the ctrl + i during the bootup to create your raid 0. If that doesn't work, there might be a problem with the mb controllers.

 

The bios is set to raid and I did create the raid volume with ctrl+i, no luck. Hoping nothing as bad as mb controllers. I'll find out here in a couple hours. Even thinking about trying different ssd's just in case.

 

If you're still having trouble, try what I suggested earlier. I doubt there is anything wrong with your system. It could be something buggy with the SSD controller itself. Are you using SSD drives with a SandForce controller?

Install Windows in a single drive configuration. Install RST and create the RAID0 array using RST within Windows. It works great that way... Simple and no fuss. I have done it several times.

 

I set it up as your suggested, 1st and 3rd slot, set up raid in windows, says to reboot and when it does, hardware failure. I can set it up in the 1st and 2nd slot, raid works fine but drops down to 3gbs. Talking to dell again to find out whats going on.

 

Darn. Sounds like it may be the mobo then. I'm so sorry to hear that.

 

I worked with Dell last night, went through the diagnostics, when I set up the two mushkin 240 GB drives in raid 0, one would fail. Now I'm getting constant failures (only when setting them up in raid) from one drive, works fine stand alone. maybe I'm lucky and one drive is really bad. Weird I can set up raid on 3gb/s with no problems but maybe something internal is an issue. I talked the egg into letting me return those drives, trying something else, marvel controller versus sandforce. we'll see how it goes. If not, Dell is suppose to call me tonight and work on it some more.

 

Good luck, bro. I hope it turns out to be a Mushkin/Sandforce SSD issue and not the motherboard. Crossing my fingers, because I initially had issues with the Agility 3 drives not being seen in the BIOS as previously mentioned. I'm looking forward to hearing of resolution.

 

So, mixed feelings with Mushkin and not a great experience with Dell so far.

Short story, when I bought my first Mushkin ssd, 2x120, one of the two were bad, I had to rma, the turn around was quick.

Talking to dell last night, we went through diagnostics and in raid, one drive would show issues, only in raid.

I talked to the egg after thinking about this and they worked with me to change drives.

Side note, dell was suppose to call tonight, they did not. They told me last night, since I did not buy the drives from dell, it would cost 120 dollars to set them up and refund if theres an issue. Um, I know how to set them up, theres an issue.

So, I installed the new drives (7mm, very nice, 2x256ssd raid 0 and 500 hitachi 7200 7mm, plenty of breathing space, very impressed, spendy but impressed) and guess what, they installed, no issues. One of the mushkin were bad (or both?). So, my luck with mushkin has been 50/50, guess it was time to move on to another vendor.

Side note, hope dell support gets better, I've got a 4 year support and accidental, since I didnt pay double for the ssd's they want me to pay more?

Update:
So, everything is installed in it's proper place, the second ssd is in the 6gb/s slow but in RST, it's showing as 3gb/s. Very annoying. Not confident dell can resolve this. Wondering if it's a bios or an issue with the motherboard.

 

You're using port 0 and 2, right? - not the middle port?....my understanding was that top and bottom ports are Sata 6gps so if you have drives on them, you should be able to utilise it with Sata III drives.

I hate to think that it's a repeat of the ports dropping speed that we saw on the R1.....the only "fix" for that (that I am aware of) was to swap out the MB