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

drives are under warranty.
but it does it with any sata 3 drive.
i haven't had a bsod due to the drive it self...only this sata port 0 issue.
even tested the drives in the usb 3.0 case and on a dt motherboard. they ran fine and fast.

 

Has anyone tried the new Samsung 830 Series yet? Or is it still too early?

I'm looking into getting myself an SSD. Trouble I'm facing is if I should go for the safe choice, which is Samsung 470. Or if I should risk it and go for the SATA 3.0 SSD (Which would be Samsung 830 series, or Intel 510). What I've read, is that SATA 3.0 really has some incompabillity issues on these laptops, and the chance of getting an ssd that wont work properly is high.

 

If you want a solid, safe choice go for the intel 320. If you want more performance but want to keep that safe choice go for the crucial m4.
I find it hard to recommend the 510 for anything other than ssd raid 0 (which does little outside of benchmarks) with its price.

The 830 is a good performer but looses out to the m4 more than it beats it, added with a higher price tag and unknown reliability as it's so new, I'd avoid it.

 

Thanks for the response, 3NZ0. From the shop I'm looking at, the Samsung 830 Series goes for about 10 euro's cheaper then the Crucial M4. It's the 256gb version I'm looking at. I also found a thread yesterday regarding the 830 Series; http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/622585-new-samsung-830-series-ssd-out.html

I'm still really unsure, the Samsung 830 256 SSD arrives to the shop tomorrow (Been out of stock) so I still am able to make changes. I sense a feeling that I've read that people have been getting problems with Crucial M4 as well, but as long as this goes...with the new Firmware everything is good, correct? How many versions has been released up to this point, and how often? (Something I can google myself)

Performance wise, looking at the numbers, the Intel 320 has some lower reading and writing speeds; In reality, how noticeable would it be? I have never tried a SSD before, so I'm very new to this. I'm taking all the advices I can get.

 

What is the default SSD that Dell offers if I choose to buy it from their configuration when I order my M18x? It is decent or pretty crappy? The 256GB SSD that they currently offer.

 

Wrong information.

 

For general use they are almost indistungisable. However if you start to throw a bigger workload at the drive you will see the faster ones pull their weight better. I'd personally go for the m4, I've had no problems with any of mine or the systems I've built for others that use them. As far as I'm aware there have been 2 updates since the release of the m4, 002 and 009. 002 solved a few technical problems, 009 fixed more and gave a massive boost in all round speed. Crucial support is amazing, I've delt with them for ram returns and they are brilliant.

It's a liteon. However it isn't the M2S or M3S model but a far, far, far slower one. On a new dell latitude that passed under my nose the other day I had to double check it was an ssd and not a hdd.

 

Thanks for the response, 3NZ0. I'm convinced that the Crucial M4 is the better choice here, and I'm switching my order to that one instead.

 

Good choice. My M4 128GB is awesome.

There is a thread for the M4 in case anyone has not already discovered it. Things started out on a bumpy road for the C400/M4, but smoothed out now with firmware 0009.

 

My Kingston hyperX have worked great from day 1, no firmware updates necessary. Crazy fast with one, in raid0 it's like stuff is in memory already.

 

I have a Corsair Ractor 120Gb SSD. Works great for me I just stuck it in beside my other driver, and never looked back.

 

Install went smooth. It also came with the newest fw 0009. thumbs up!

 

Does anyone have an Adata SSD drive and can 100% confirm that it is compatible with the M18x with no issues ?

 

Hi people:

I think I'm having performance problems with my SSD.

This image shows a poor write performance. I just did a image cloning from my original m18x HD (320Gb model).
I'm using AHCI, it was IDE by default if I remember correctly.

Here you are my AS SSD test result:

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

Thank you! I hope you can help me

 

The factory default setting is RAID even with only a single drive installed. You don't want to use IDE for anything other than possibly flashing the firmware on your SSD. You should be using AHCI or RAID, so the AHCI setting you selected is not a problem.

Your drive may not be properly aligned as an SSD since you cloned it from a regular HDD. A fresh install of Windows 7 takes care of the alignment task automatically. (In some cases, attempting to clone a HDD image, especially a RAID image, to SSD will not even be completed successfully.)

Here is more information:

Speed Up Your SSD By Correctly Aligning Your Partitions

More information on our forum...

SSD Alignment Tools

More info on the web...

 

OMG u're like the good guy from every movie! hehe thank you again and again and again hehe

 

You're welcome, Nikos.

 

It had been a while since I checked the performance of my SSD.
Still looking good... very pleased with my Crucial M4 128GB SSD.



Happy Thanksgiving!

 

I did a fresh install and after following the guide The SSD Optimization Guide - The SSD Review
I'm getting this results:

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting


Do you think I'm getting right scores or something wrong down there?

Thank you!

 

Hi,
can i install
" Samsung Electronics 64 GB SATA 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch 830 Series Solid State Drive with Desktop Kit and Batman Arkham City MZ-7PC064D/AM
in ALIENWARE M18X?

 

Yes, you should be able to do that. Even though it says its a desktop kit, it just means there comes an extra bracket with, so you can have it in a desktop as well..

However, I was in the same situation as you, 2 weeks back... I also stumbled upon the same SSD, but decided to go for the crucial m4 SSD instead, which has a little lower reading/writing speeds, but is more of a safe choice. And there is no noticeable difference between them, you need hard data to notice it. The 830 series is very new, so there haven't been discovered that many problems with it yet, if there is any..

Mr.Fox
You got some really nice speeds on your SSD, have you tweaked your system, or done any changes to improve the SSD speed? Or is this untweaked, normal speeds? I have the same SSD as you, only 256gb. and I'm peaking at 20 in 4k read speed. My Q32 4k read is also lower then write.

 

Yes, these are good results. I do not think you have a problem, but see my comments below.

Thanks for the compliment.

[Nikos] and hjsse - While some folks have posted that that disabling LPM is not necessary, (and maybe it is not on their system,) I find my SSD performs faster with LPM disabled on Port0 and Port1. See my post here with the reg files you can download to disable LPM if you have not already done so. I can tell you with 100% certainty that my M4 drive runs slower with LPM enabled. I have benchmarked both ways more than once.

The only other tweaks I have implemented are disabling SuperFetch and Indexing services, and disabling disk defragmentation. I am running the latest version of Intel Rapid Store Technology.

 

Anyone with experience using 2x of the latest sandforce sata3 drives in RAID0 in the m18x? Any issues?

 

Thank you for your patience and for sharing your wisdom hehe!

Should I use both reg files? Or just the one which my ssd is plugged in?

Thank you again ^^!

 

Hey, glad to share what I know, buddy.

I did it on both of my drive ports. If you only want to disable LPM on the SATA port your SSD is attached to, that may be sufficient. LPM is merely a power-saving feature and disabling it had almost no effect on anything. Disabling LPM causes no harm and conserving the power is something I simply don't care about. I think it may have reduced my battery run time by 10 or 15 minutes at the most. Replacing a HDD with SSD extends battery run time by as much or more than you will lose, so you are not really losing anything the way I see it.

 

Hey guys was just about to add a second hard drive, another SSD same model as primary. Was wondering if I should proceed with a full format (secure erase) or if I could backup my single drive and properly restore it properly aligned on RAID 0. If restoring a backup image is possible, what program/utility is best for this?

 

You probably don't need to do that unless you were planning a clean install anyway. If you have Intel Rapid Store Technology and the Intel Control Center, simply install the second matching SSD and create the RAID0 setup within Windows. It works slick and saves a bunch of time. It works with SSD and regular HDD.

The kicker in the equation would be if your current BIOS settings are set for RAID or AHCI. If you left the BIOS set on RAID when you set up the SSD drive, you should be in good shape. If your SSD was set up with the BIOS in AHCI mode, it is probable that you will run into problems cloning or restoring the drive image to a RAID configuration and you may have to start over from scratch.

 

Currently, I have my BIOS setting on AHCI and when I set it on RAID I get BSOD. Will that be resolved once I use RST to set it up (will RST fix registry entries automatically)?

Edit: thanks above for that answer.

 

The BSOD you are experiencing is normal under the circumstances. Windows is trying to load the AHCI drivers instead of RAID drivers. If experience holds true, you will not even be able to boot into safe mode without the BSOD as long as the BIOS is set to RAID. The HAL will still have a problem that causes crashing of the OS.

This is exactly what I was referring to in my comments above. I am 99.9% sure you are going to have to start over from scratch with the BIOS set to RAID, create the RAID0 array and do a clean installation of Windows. Although Windows 7 is supposed to support a RAID installation, you may find the need to use the Intel F6 drivers during setup. (I have found that I needed to.) This is a common setup mistake during SSD installations. You can use the RAID configuration setting in the BIOS with a single drive, but not the other way around. Many folks set the BIOS to AHCI to flash SSD firmware updates and forget to change it back to RAID before continuing with the OS installation.

If you do not already have Intel RST package installed, there is a slim chance you can install that within Windows and change your BIOS to RAID and successfully boot. I have seen a few posts where some claimed that it worked for them, but that has never worked out for me and I have tried it 3 or 4 different times.

 

Do you just put the F6 drivers on a flash drive? And are these the correct ones
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...5&keyword="rapid+storage+technology"&lang=eng

 

Yes. those are what you need. Put them on a flash drive and during Windows setup, click the link to add additional drivers and direct Windows on the path to the flash drive to find them.

Set the BIOS to RAID, reboot and use the Ctrl+I macro during POST to enter the RAID configuration tool. Create the drive membership, select the default options, reboot and begin the Windows setup process at that point. After selecting the option to add additional drivers, you will be asked to select the hardware the drivers are for from a menu and your RAID controller will probably be the only device populating the list. It's pretty straightforward from that point.

 

Thanks for the help Fox will rep you when I can.

 

Good luck - let me know if you need any more help. - +1 rep to you now, buddy

 

What do you think of the SSD hybrids.

 

Fox one more thing, what should the strip size be for RAID 0 ssd's?

 

There is nothing wrong with them. I previously had 2 500GB Seagate Momentus XT in RAID0 and they are nice drives. I currently have them in external enclosures as backup drives. They are a little bit snappier loading programs and apps than an ordinary HDD. The read/write speeds on the hybrid are the same as an ordinary HDD. The benefit they provide is caching of frequently launched programs in their small solid state memory cache. They are nowhere close to as fast as a real SSD drive. If you can afford the price difference, go with an Intel, Samsung or Crucial SSD. They are lightning fast and very reliable. If you cannot afford to take the plunge right now, the hybrids are the next best thing.

Just use the default values in the RAID Configuration Utility. The defaults are correct. (128k)

 

hey guys this might be a noob question but i have a samsung ssd in my system at the moment and want to add another samsung ssd which i already have when i install it and want to combine both ssd's and make the capacity as one how would i go about doing this and what the procedure is thanks abunch

 

I think the last couple of pages of dialogue between Mr. Fox and littleone cover your question, if I am not mistaken?

 

yup thanks just saw the info im not really sure though cuz when i first got the system i switched it to AHCI when i got it it was in raid 0 but im wondering if i can switch it back? to add the other ssd without having to install windows also i do have the intel rapid storage technology installed and running

 

I'm guessing here that you would be ok to just add the 2nd SSD and switch back to Raid in bios. Where it could get messy (OS re-install) is if you re-installed the OS to the current SSD "after" changing from raid to ahci.

If all you did was switch sata operation and didnt re-install, I cant see why it would cause a problem switching back.

Maybe our trusty Mr. Fox can confirm?

 

Yes, this is correct.

acerguy, you will have to try it and see. If Windows was installed with the BIOS in AHCI mode, switching from AHCI to RAID will usually BSOD because the AHCI drivers will not work with RAID. However, if the Intel RST RAID drivers are present and installed it might work. I'm skeptical, but it is worth trying. Some claim it has worked for them, but it never has for me. I think it may possibly work when the opposite is true; meaning Windows installed with BIOS in RAID with RST drivers installed may let you switch the BIOS to AHCI, but I have not confirmed this.

The key to doing creating a RAID successfully on an existing Windows installation is having the BIOS set to RAID without actually configuring a RAID array. If Windows is installed this way and Intel RST and Intel Control Center are installed, adding a second identical HDD or SSD you can create the RAID array from within Windows without having to reinstall the OS.

Most of this is covered in the posts above as Steve pointed out.

 

Updated information on setting up RAID0 is on the first post of this thread.

 

My new setup. Raid 0

 

That's just SICK, John. I bet you can't blink fast enough with that level of read/write speed.

Are you planning to go with a data drive in the optical bay to allow for sufficient storage space?

 

Nice results, John! - what kinda figures do you get doing 3 or 5 test runs at 100mb with random fill? (only ask as sandforce based drives perform much better with highly compressible 0 fill data than non-sandforce....would be nice to see what you get with a random fill with slightly larger test size file.) Just wondering what you get from a "real-world" scenario dealing with compressible and incompressible data.

Other than that, those are some awesome figures - are they holding sata without drops? - you done any "tweaks" with 'em?

 

Thinking about that now. What i wonder is if that bay is sata 3 or just sata 2. Any ideas?

Real world would be me loading games from the same drive (raid 0) and they load pretty quick. Real world transfer rate of the drives is at about 900 megs to 1 gig. (ran them in raid 0 with my agility raid 0 and moved files back and forth)
If you are asking if i disabled system restore...nope!
side note:
I looked around and didn't see any of these random runs from you or am i missing something?

 

I was just gobsmacked at 4k writes of almost 400 and queue depth 4k of over 600...wth? LOL

 

Lets see what you got.

This is a nother easy to manipulate bench. Now i see why most have dropped it.

 

I'm not 100% positive. I think it is SATA 2, but I don't remember where I got that impression. For a mechanical HDD being used for data it probably would not matter a lot, but I would still like to know for sure.

I think the only reliable way to determine it would be to connect a SATA drive and look in the Intel RST utility to see what it shows.

 

Hummm, i may try a sata 3 drive to find out. when i get ready to do it. I might just make a foam housing and put it in.