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

mine. was 11 seconds.

 

how many processes you have running?

 

it was a full os install. maybe 60+

 

Mine seems to be a consistent 13, long as my external isnt plugged in, which is lame but i'm alright with the time.

ARGH, a SATA 2 non raid time may be slower, but as i said and i dont think that post got carried over, if its not a big deal then you'll be fine at 250 meg/s, as you'll never notice the difference except in a handful of circumstances. I only did what i did because A) i can afford to, and B) it sounded cool so why the hell not.

Also, sorry if i confused you, i'm running Corsair GT's, not Vertex 3, but the performance is roughly similar, +/- 15%.

Hey Johnksss, can you post a CDM for me? i'm curious to see how our SDD's match up.

 

my new one is running 13.5...and it's a faster setup...go figure.

 

here is what i experienced with the SSD, it boots windows instantaneously. i mean from the moment the windows black logo screen goeas away pretty much everything in the task bar is already working. i can open windows explorer windows, control panel, anything i want instantly. windows loads so fast that the wireless card lags behind a little bit on the bootup, like a 2 seconds or so.

and i am thinking that the sandforce controllers are what is conflicting with m18x. are all sata III sandforce controllers? i read a review on my kingston ssdnow and it has toshiba technology and does not use sandforce.

 

No, there are also Samsung and Marvell controllers in SATA III. Sandforce has been a rocky road with inconsistent results. Some folks have had great luck and others downright horrible experiences with Sandforce.

 

i know the alienware m18x comes normally with the samsung 470 series SSD at 256GB or 512GB RAID 0, but with the upcoming release of the new samsung 830 Series said to be running at SATA 6gb/s and showing similar performance to the Crucial M4 and Intel 510 series, would Dell be including the new Samsung 830 SSD's with their systems.

Samsung SSD 830 Series Preview - HotHardware


Samsung SSD 830 Review - YouTube
Samsung SSD 830 Series, new faster 6Gbit/s SATA transfer speed - YouTube

 

Is the 830 series better than M4?

 

To confirm,

If I installed two 256GB Crucial M4's in my hard drive bay, (I don't know how or if I should use "RAID"), and I had Windows and basic apps/ maybe one game on my C:/, I would have all other games on my D:/, the below scores would be much much better and all my applications and games would be faster?

 

Woah, my write times are so sloppy in comparison. You think somethings up with that? I'm getting like 1/3rd the writes, but the reads seem lazy. I though it was pretty alright but i didnt expect this.

 

before i did all these updates..reads were 1028MB

also..i owned a m4 before. i sold it to another forum member...reason for selling..to upgrade to the trouble some vertex 3 series. because the m4 lacks the write speeds that the vertex has. and i read and write allot of files everyday. and so far..my maxiops have been running pretty damn good. for no tweaking.

 

edit:
you can run raid with matching drive sizes

 

Does that mean if I purchase two identical Crucial M4 256GB's and install them, they're automatically in a RAID configuration?

 

they would be set to raid if you just got your m18x..it cames factory set to raid mode.

if not..you set it in the bios...then boot. then hit ctrl I, then setup up your raid array, then save and reboot with your windows 7 dvd and the rest is history...

make sure your drivers are all stored on a 3.0 drive..if not..2.0 will do. load the usb 3.0 driver first, if you are going to run the installs from a 3.0 drive. that way...28MB verses 100MB+ or ssd in usb 3.0 (180MB a sec.)...seems to be a no brainier. or esata.

 

I have an M18X already.

Let me confirm the steps.

1. Verify on the outside label of each M4 it says firmware 9900. If less, must pop into desktop, install latest firmware, remove for each.
2. Have my Windows 7 disc + drivers disc handy.
3. Pop in both drives.
4. At BIOS screen, I do what exactly to make it RAID?
5. I then power off (since I have no OS), power back on, and hit CTRL I???
6. What do you mean by USB 3.0 drivers?
7. Install Windows 7?

 

yes. install windows

 

can anyone confirm this? will they be avaliable? such as if i place a order for new m18x it will include the 6gb/s samsung ssd instead of the old one?

 

Hey guys, i got my speeds up in page 5 or 6, can any one help me? My write times are STUPID slow. I'm running raid0 Corsair GTs.

 

ok guys qyick question. M18x comes with raid by default. but, it auto switches to ahci mode with only one drive installed.

My setup will be a ssd 256 as os drive and a 750gb mechanical drive in the second port for data drive. Before os instal should i set in bios to raid or ahci?

 

just switch it to AHCI and call it good. For single drive operation thats what you want anyway, and from what i know theres no reason not to, unless your USING raid.

 

If there is a chance you may end up with SSD drives in RAID0 like ChaosShadow00x, then my suggestion would be to leave it configured as RAID during the OS installation. It does not hurt anything. If you install Windows with the BIOS set to RAID instead of AHCI, you can add another identical SSD later on and use Intel Rapid Store Control Center to convert to RAID0 without having to reinstall the OS and all of your games and apps. If you do not plan to do that, then setting the BIOS to AHCI will actually speed up your boot time a tad because the BIOS configuration screen will not appear.

 

Hey bro. Did this happen suddenly, or is it gradually getting slower? If suddenly, can you identify what day it started? If so, a starting point would be to check your Windows Updates.

If you did not disable System Restore on your SSD RAID0 setup, I have heard this leads to degraded SSD performance over time. (I have had System Restore mysteriously re-enable itself before, so check to confirm that did not happen.) If you disable and delete your restore points, use CCleaner to wipe the free space as a manual TRIM operation and then re-bench to see if that helped.

Not sure this will help, but without more to go on at the moment, I hope this is a good starting point for you.

 

Well, does day 1 count as "suddenly" ? Its always had these write speeds. the Sequential Reads seems to be all right. I'll turn that s*** off though, because it sounds like bad news anyway.

UPDATE:

Having done what you said, its like a 5% boost. Either that or its just a good day. Negligible unfortunately.

 

hey guys since i am experimenting with SSD drives now i have 2 of them; a 3gb/s kingtston 128gb V100 and a crucial m4 6gb/s 256gb.

the kingston appears to give a faster boot time than the crucial and i am puzzled as to why. both have identicle OS and program installs. it may be my imagination but i was hoping the crucial would be twice as fast booting up since it has twice the read speeds?

m4 uses marvell controller while kingston uses toshiba. i wonder if this is the reason the crucial is cheaper than kingston....maybe its not really any faster desite double the bandwidth.

 

Well, i cant really say, but Kingston's if what i've read is to be true, have some of the highest quality SSD. They apparently last forever, and are fast too, but cost like 30% more.

Any one feel free to correct me if i'm horribly wrong.

 

to be honest...these ssd benchmarks do more damage than a system restore does. (imo) so ill suffer the damage and KEEP my system restore active. most people do not do backups of the os everyday....and all is well till it crashes and they lose it all.
rather have that first line of defense..

 

what do you think the most stable ssd controller is? stable meaning as stable as a "normal" hdd? i ask because with the crucial M4 256gb ssd that uses marvel controller i had 1 freeze during shutdown and 1 bsod just sitting idle in windows. i cannot handle instability since my CAD work is running in the background at all times.

i also tried kingstong that uses toshiba controllers and they were stable. should i switch to kingston? even though kingston is sata 2, i did not notice a difference in speeds between the m4 and kingstons ssdnow v100.

if toshiba controllers are also not 100% stable then i will just go back to mechanical drives and say the hell with it.

 

well i am trying out the samsung ssd 470 256gb sata II right now. if this also proves unstable i am done with ssd.

funny thing is that all the drives have pretty much the same boot times. heck it appears this samsung has the fastest boot times out of the kingston and crucial. for me boot times are the most important thing and if sata III makes no difference here (from what i observed) than sata III is just a gimick.

i mean, if boot times are fast so will be launching any other normal application and probably sata III wont make a difference.

 

yeah...sata 3 is far from a gimick..

and depending on how small all your system drives files are..will determine your boot speed. so high iops drives usually do fairly well here.

you may need to do some further observing.. because you will boot far less than loading/moving/opening/closing & running multiple scenarios.

 

ok i have tested 4 drives. 2 of them sata III and 2 of them sata II.

crucial m4 sata III = instability

ocz vertex 3 sata III = freezes during OS install (and that is 2 of them as i exchanged the drive thinking it was defective)

kingston ssdnow V100 sata II = stable

samsung ssd 470 sata II = what i am trying now. from my testing i am expecting this to also be stable without bsods and system hangs during shut down procedures (like the crucial had).

sata III drives are not mature enough or downright do not work so even if they are twice as fast (which to me they are not any faster than sata II, especially for bootup) it is pointless if you care about stability.

 

look like we agree to disagree here...no worries...
from the 30 + drives(sata 1 2 and 3) i have tested...sata 3 is by far the over all fastest.

as to stable..ocz stability is pretty damn weak.
the crucial has fairly decent read and sorry as hell write speeds.
kingston seems to be the most stablest out of the bunch. and now the new drives are just as fast as vertex 3 max iops. agility 3 is faster than crucial m4 as well. seems to be stable. i have them running on two servers in raid 0. no bsod. first gen vertex sucked for server's. any type of power over load on the power rail and the drive would crash and not be found anymore. trying to hot plug and play them drives also was a 50 percent chance of fail on the drive.

you can try to run your drive off of port 1 first and see if that will surface. or load the drives on something other than your m18x..

side note:
i will probably do far more booting than you...right now about 1000 reboots since i had this laptop so far. and my maxiops are running strong....but time will tell if they hold up. and they can boot 10 to 11 seconds each time. going to have to say that's pretty damn good... not the best {5 second bootup by another member) but fast none the less..

but it's all good...maybe your right..sdd's might not be for your...

 

well i can only talk about the m18x. i would project a strong warning to anyone considering sata III drives or any drives with sandforce and marvel controllers.

 

is there any novice or newbie guides to help someone that never installed an SSD before? i am getting an alienware m18x soon with 500gb 7200rpm and i plan to replace the HDD with a OCZ vertex 3 series 120GB SSD, can anyone provide me with all step by step(baby steps) very detailed guide to help me...

 

Spend your money on a more reliable drive and save yourself the headache. Several people have had instability issues with the vertex 3 drives. Might I recommend an Intel 320 or 510 drive? I'm using the LiteOn Sata III drives from Dell and they are beasts. The Samsung PM810(470 series) that ships with most Alienware systems is pretty reliable as well. You can pick up the 256gb version on ebay for $300. You could also buy 2 of the smaller ones (120gb) and RAID-0 them for some added performance at a fairly low price.

To access your HDD caddy, remove the battery and the 4 screws that hold the entire backplate on. Slide off the backplate and you'll see the hard drives. 4 screws and 1 ribbon cable to remove the entire HDD caddy, and there's 2 screws on either side of each hard drive that need to be removed/reinstalled. Cake. Enjoy your new system

 

so after i have done that, i install the new ssd, which now i am thinking about getting curcial M4 cause of all the problems with OCZ. anyway after that i boot up the computer go into bios and change SATA to AHCI? than use my windows 7 install CD and do fresh install and than install drivers off dell website? is that everything or am i missing something?

 

I prefer to install the latest drivers for certain components.
Intel Driver Update Utility
Make sure you have popups enabled and java installed. This will give you the latest drivers for your chipset/raid/wifi card.
Dell M18x Drivers

Yes, set your SATA mode to AHCI or RAID for your SSD. Both have identical performance, the RAID mode will just display the RAID configuration utility screen when you boot your computer.

 

umm actually my system is coming with dual nvidia gtx580m so i dont need the CCC, so you saying dont download the intel drivers from dell website, and also dont download the nvidia drivers from dell either, instead just go to the official website and download the latest avaliable drivers? also what about those vbios updates for nvidia from dell? should i download them and if i do what is the process of updating my bios?

 

My bad I didn't know what cards you were getting. Search through the M18x forums... I know I saw an updated driver floating around here. You should create a signature with your system specs so we know what you have when you ask questions.

Edit: I read around a little bit and apparently the 580M drivers on the Dell site are brand new so I'd recommend those.

 

stay away from any sanforce or marvell controllers. ocz vertex 3 uses sanforce and crucial m4 uses marvell.

i recommend samsung 470 ssd.

 

I have to agree here. I have several of these drives. It's hard to compete with the $ per GB with these drives. Not to mention the performance is pretty good. 7.6 WEI on my desktop and my wife's M17xR3 with 256gb Samsung 470. Zero issues, no workarounds needed, fast boot times... it just works.

 

samsung just released new 830 series, the old 470 was just 3gb/s, and the new 830 series supports 6gb/s but i am not sure about the cost of it... and also not sure if they ship to canada as well...

 

It sounds like you have your heart set on a SATA III drive. I use 2 SATAIII drives with marvel controllers and have zero issues. I would just avoid the KNOWN problematic drives. Entirely too many people have had issues with the Crucial M4 and the OCZ Vertex 3 drives. I'm a fanboy at heart, and I'd recommend Intel to anyone, anyday. They have a fantastic history of reliability and performance. I hear they make some decent CPU's too

The prices on SATA III drives are out of control at the moment. Here's a couple of decent-priced drives that I'd try:
Intel 510
Kingston HyperX

 

Hmmm the difference between the Crucial M4 and Intel 510 is about 80$ but if truly is reliable and wont give me any headaches its worth it in the long run.

 

As far as I'm concerned, Intel should be the webster definition of reliable.

 

also, looking to get 128GB, i am assuming thats more than enough to load windows 7 and some normal apps and drivers, and maybe 1 or 2 games into. i plan on getting a seagate or omega external HDD for storage of movies and files...

 

I don't have any problems with my Crucial M4. It is rock solid and performs very well. I purchased mine after firmware 0009 was released and there definitely were some people having issues on the previous firmware. Here is a thread specific to Crucial M4 and Micron 300 SSD drives. They also have Marvell controllers (Marvell 88SS9174-BLD2). Intel, Samsung and Crucial are all very solid.

Based on what I have been reading, those that seem to have the most issues with stability are SandForce based SSD.

 

ya thats what i thought also, and the Crucial M4 is the best performance for the price, thats what i think anyway...

also another questions, after installing the SSD and doing fresh install and bringing back the "alienwareness" how do i reformat my old 500GB HDD to NFTS and use it as a secondary storage device? as in remove the the windows and all other stuff from the HDD and just use it to storage stuff.

 

those kingston hyperx use sanforce controllers. i would not recommend anything with sanforce right now.

 

arch - ^^^ I thought that was the case with Kingston, but had not looked it up to verify.

veritass - just connect the drive to SATA1 (SSD on SATA0) and reformat it. Very simple... You can open My Computer, right click and select Format. Or, you can go into Device Manager, Disk Management and delete the volume, create a new one and reformat it that way.